The Golem and the Jinni

I acquired this book right after I finished Alif the Unseen, my first post on this blog. I wanted to jump in, but was a bit worried from the title that the book would have assertive religious or political agendas, or both. It doesn’t and am so glad I waited no longer.

This 800-page page turner is not fancy literary fiction, but one of those great, old-fashioned stories you can disappear into for a few days. I closed the book most impressed by its plotting. The story moved (in my mind) like a spiral. We returned to characters or back story as if moving around and up a strand of DNA,  until it all came together in the end. Each little piece of the story, each character, was important and placed in just the right spot to move it to resolution.

A Song of Ice & Fire–Swords Storming, Crows Feasting UPDATED

“The day was grey and bitter cold, and the dogs would not take the scent” — A Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin

Last year when I had a long overseas flight coming up, my son’s friend’s father suggested that I take along  a couple of these books. He is an attorney, and not a person that I would normally think reads the fantasy genre. He waxed poetic over the characterizations and complexity of the books, and confessed to many nights reading into the wee hours. They are not normally my genre either, and though I love a long book, the thought of getting sucked into that much was daunting. Still, I love a “can’t put it down” book, and off to Tokyo I went with just the first one in my Kindle…