Audiobook Review:

City of Bones by Martha Wells

Read by Kyle McCarley

Publication Date: Book – 1995, Audiobook – 2013

Summary from Goodreads:

Confession:

“What magic does is to open the mind to the world, and sometimes the world isn’t what we think it is.”

While I did end up liking this book, it was a bit of a struggle. I started off trying to read the book, but the copy I had had such dense and tiny print that it was giving me a headache. I then switched to the audiobook, which was better, but the reader wasn’t exactly my cup of tea either. But I did eventually get used to his voice, and for the most part ended up enjoying this post apocalyptic fantasy of greed and magic.

Kyle McCarley does a pretty good job with this story. His voice didn’t exactly match up to the one I had already created in my head for Khat when I was reading the book, but I did get used to it. He is good with other character voices, making many of them quite distinctive and believable. He also does a good job with the emotions and urgency of the story when things get tough.

“Elen turned away, her hands knotting up into fists. “Damn him,” she muttered, “to the highest level of hell.” “Better make it a little lower,” Khat told her, sourly. “He could probably tunnel out of that one.”

The story is mostly told through Khat’s point of view, with some of the other characters also chiming in from time to time. I really liked Khat and appreciated his scepticism of what everyone really wanted from him. He couldn’t trust anyone, except his partner Sagai, and a few other close associates. It was very interesting learning about Khat’s race and I would have liked to see more of this group and how they survive the wastes. Elen is another character that we hear a lot from. I also liked her, but like Khat I never fully trusted her. She is often manipulated by those in authority, and this made her vulnerable to tricks and misinformation. But I did like the two of them together and knew that they would both come out ok in the end.

“No, you think you’re always honest, and that is not the same thing at all.”

Like the other fantasies I have read by Martha Wells, the world building here is phenomenal and quite intricate. This was the second book she ever published and it does show a little bit. It does have a lot going for it, but it was trying too hard to be a little bit of a lot of different genres. And all of those genres just ended up muddling the world building and the plot. The pacing was also slow through the first half of the story, and a little bit bogged down in info dumping. But her writing is so wonderful and her characters so realistic, that you don’t really notice that you are not understanding the story until you get to the end, and you then find yourself questioning what happened. Part of this might have been on me, I sometimes lose track of plot points when I am listening to a complex plot, but I think some of it was just also lost in the complexity.

“Watching the sunset, Khat thought of the cult in Kenniliar Free City that worshiped the sun’s nightly descent as a ritual death by wearing red mourning robes and holding an elaborate funeral every evening. He supposed he could understand their need to somehow mark the passage of beauty, and it did give them something to do.”

Overall, I did like this story. I think in a another time or place I probably would have loved it. If you are a fan of Martha Well’s fantasies, this is one you should give a try. If you have only read her Murderbot series, then you might want to skip this one. I also don’t think this would be the best book to start with if you have never read her books before. But if you are into fantasies/scifi with complex worldbuilding, well written characters and a story that is challenging than by all means give this book a chance.