If you enjoy what we do and want to see it continue, please take a moment and subscribe or donate now! It’s an alternate 1912 cosmopolitan Cairo, where Egypt is a steampunk superpower after legendary al-Jahiz a few decades prior had opened a gateway to the world of the supernatural. And though I didn’t expand much on what I already had, it allowed me to really sit down and think about…possibilities.

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark | Hachette UK A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark | Hachette UK

But their eyes were no longer on the small woman in a white Westerner suit, the big man they knew to be a local bookie picking himself up off the floor, or the two young men standing behind an overturned table. How he would welcome seeing his “dreary little isle,” where it was a sensibly cold and rainy November.Either way, his chin now rested impossibly on the back of his robes—while his arms extended out behind him. Djinn were not native to the country, but there were other creatures–chief among them goblins… allowing [redacted] to rapidly grow in its magical and industrial expertise. I’ve read through most of his short stories and purchased most of his novellas, something I don’t do for just anyone these days. Our Brotherhood is not bound by robes, or secret words, or handshakes, but by a higher and more noble purpose.

A Master of Djinn – Etherea MAGAZINE A Master of Djinn – Etherea MAGAZINE

Interest in parthenogenesis was genuinely a thing in the 70s, mainly among lesbians and radical feminists eager to escape male domination, but there’s scarcely a hint of feminist motivation here.

One djinn, Siwa, actually cuts out his tongue when Fatma and Hadia question him, thanks to a spell by Abigail— his magic results in the tongue growing back, and he's forced to repeat the process dozens of times.

A Master of Djinn - Goodreads

The strange figure took his place at the head of his companions, and gave answer by pulling back his cowl. Later, someone confesses a secret that she should have noticed, and she thinks, “what kind of investigator was this unaware of what was going on right in front of her eyes. A Master of Djinn‘s main character is Fatma el-Sha’arawi from “A Dead Djinn in Cairo”, a dapper, gender-non-comforming and over-achieving female agent from the Cairo office of Egypt’s Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities – a good Muslim with a fond­ness for well-tailored European suits.As an Archaeology post grad student, I adore historical fiction and even fantasy with accurate portrayals of different cultures that they reference. Alternate History: It takes place in an alternate version of Egypt where magic is commonplace and was used to drive out the British colonizers. Meanwhile, Fatma – who’s run off every official partner she’s previously been assigned – has a new partner in the form of Hadia, one of the few other female agents in the Ministry and one who looks up to Fatma, an appreciation that Fatma does her best to stomp into pieces.

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark | Waterstones

Archibald knew every man here, all of standing in the company—there were no other means of joining the Brotherhood. Grady Hendrix has reimagined these memorable but usually undercharacterised figures as real women who have survived horrific mass murders that were subsequently turned into cheap entertainments.More important, he was a he, which still held weight even in Cairo’s flaunted modernity—which explained the smile on his dark lips. Having just received a well-deserved Hugo Award nomination earlier this month, A Master of Djinn is definitely not to be missed! It has three prequel novellas, A Dead Djinn in Cairo, The Angel of Khan el-Khalili, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. With our manipulation of noxious vapors, and your country’s recovered skills of alchemy and the mystic arts? Haida later notes this too after Siti (a Nubian) faces gross racism by a rich Arab Egyptian woman, along with Fatma (whom she thinks has some Nubian ancestry as well), having previously lived in the US.