Match Book
City of Stairs
Robert Jackson Bennett
2014 · Fantasy
How it reads
City of Stairs is fantasy (urban fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is dark. It goes to difficult places and doesn't look away. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in several locations, in no single period, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are identity, power and politics and justice. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It opens a series. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. It's a long book, and a real commitment. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something dark
- you want something to chew on
- you're drawn to stories about identity
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy, heartwarming or funny
- you want something you can finish this weekend
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- fantasy
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- multiple locations
- Setting: time
- timeless or multiple
- Mood / feeling
- dark
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- long
- Narrative style
- third person, one viewpoint
- Publication era
- recent
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- first in a series
- Themes
- identity, power and politics, justice
- Ending style
- bittersweet
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
The Hundred Thousand KingdomsN. K. JemisinShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
The Wolf and the WoodsmanAva ReidShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
American GodsNeil GaimanShares: fantasy, dark mood, urban fantasy, moderate pace
The Ruin of KingsJenn LyonsShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace- The Traitor Baru CormorantSeth DickinsonShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
The House of Shattered WingsAliette de BodardShares: fantasy, dark mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
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