The man’s face was concealed by a mask as well—carved in the guise of a man and adorned in strange script that appeared to move upon its golden surface. With this fantastic feat of postcolonial imagination, Clark reconfigures history with a keen, critical eye toward gender, class and imperialism. When I wasn’t doing that, I sat purposefully eating dinner solo at Turkish restaurants, sipping flat whites at cafes, or locked in my flat, so I could work on my new story. Magic Fire: Agent Fatma is familiar with all kinds of magical fire, but she is initially stumped by a murder scene at the Worthington Mansion where the victims burned alive but their clothes were untouched. A Master of Djinn, his first full-length novel, is set in the same continuity as award-nominated novella The Haunt­ing of Tram Car 015 and the short story “A Dead Djinn in Cairo”, and it’s every bit as good as one might expect from the author of Ring Shout and The Black God’s Drums.

A Master of Djinn - Tordotcom Publishing

I don’t understand–we have a world with djinn and goblins and our main character works for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, and she thinks someone is disfiguring themselves over an actual magical transformation? It looked like a bottle made of metal instead of glass, with a pear-shaped bottom inlaid with flowering gold designs that ran up a long neck. I don’t know when exactly I decided to do so, but one night before dinner, while in Granada, Spain (dinner is fairly late in Spain) I sat down with my laptop and started making a timeline of the Dead Djinn world.Child by Rape: Siti says her mother was less than fifteen when her father, a djinn, seduced her, using his magic for this and impregnating her. Clark constantly finds new ways to challenge the concept of magic and what it means for the human residents of Cairo. Fatma initially tries to keep her away from dangerous assignments, but quickly finds that she's very capable. A wide collar of rows of green and turquoise stone beads circled her neck, striking upon a white dress. I was anticipating A Master of Djinn and when it appeared on Netgalley, I jumped at the chance to request it.

A Master of Djinn: THE NEBULA AND LOCUS AWARD-WINNER

Not only do they know enough about Egyptian society to get many locals on their side, they speak Arabic fluently.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 (Dead Djinn Universe, book 1) by P Djèlí Clark A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe, book 1) by P Djèlí Clark

I can’t help but contrast this with the focus and meaning in Clark’s novella and short stories, and I’m left thinking that Clark is just better in shorter form. That summer 2016 was filled with all sorts of planning for relocation (goodbye DC, hello New England! Offered it to her to take a look, and through lots of skillful guidance by her hand and other readers like Justina Ireland…yadda, yadda, yadda, my next Tor novella The Black God’s Drums was published in 2018. He tilted a chin at her suit—an all-white number with a matching vest that looked sublime on her russet-brown skin.

Artist Kevin Hong, who had done the art for A Dead Djinn in Cairo, was gracious enough to once again provide his amazing skills–and the result was fantastic! The antagonist shares not only the loopy megalomania of Bond villains, but the same habit of overexplaining the plan at critical junctures – the PowerPoint villain syndrome. When the vapor vanished, a living, breathing giant was left in its wake: with skin covered in emerald scales and a head crowned by smooth ivory horns that curved up to brush the ceiling. However, she is actually the mastermind behind the murders, and almost succeeds in her plan of world domination.