Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


A Dead Djinn in Cairo

A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark

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  I accidentally read this series out of order. I read The Haunting of Tram Car 015 sometime last year and sort of pieced my way through the rest in the series until I reached A Dead Djinn in Cairo, which is the first book, this spring. It says something about P. Djèlí Clark’s world-building that each story felt standalone and yet very much grounded in a fully realized world. Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’awari investigates disturbances between the residents of Cairo and the djinn they share their […]

Unfortunately, this one was just meh for me.

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

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I actually don’t have too much to say about this one because it didn’t really hit for me. I’m not really sure why, because I’ve liked everything else P. Djèlí Clark has written (Ring Shout was the last thing of his I hadn’t yet read). And I mean, I didn’t not like it, but it’s never really a good sign when your reader is liking your world-building and the alternate history aspects of your story more than your actual story, and more than the characters. […]

An AU of Steampunk Egypt, a magical whodunnit, and a great cast of characters. What more could you want?

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark

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BINGO – REC’D by the wonderful narfna, CoffeeShopReader, ElCicco, Emmalita, and witcherwill. Their reviews are all linked above. I encourage you to read all of these great reviews as well. Fatma el-Sha’arawi is an agent of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities in an alternate history of Egypt in the 1910s. She is called in to investigate the brutal murders of a cult of people who worship al-Jahiz, the man who brought magic and the djinn into the world. Soon enough, a person claiming […]

“The three of them sat there – a Ministry agent, a half-djinn, and a cat (likely), staring out past the balcony to the sleeping city they somehow had to find a way to save.”

A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn, #3) by P. Djèlí Clark

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Another book in this world, please! I continue to have a really good time with these audiobooks. I loved Suehyla El-Attar’s narration—even though she mispronounces some words, which would normally make me lose it, but that’s how much I love her voice—it’s so melodious it squashes my inner pedant. We’re back with Fatma el-Sha’arawi—agent of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities—in this first full novel (the first two were novellas) in this alternate-history, fantastical version of 1912 Cairo. Decades previously, a man named […]

The Rights of Women and Machines

The Haunting of Tramcar 015 by P. Djeli Clark

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Bingo 14: Machinery The Haunting of Tramcar 015 takes place in the same world as many of the author’s other works, a steampunk alternative history version of Cairo. The titular tramcar is a major part of the setting, the plot, and we even get some attention to the technical specs on how the tech is supposed to work; thus I would argue this novella/novelette qualifies for the technology focus square. The other reason for the label is that there’s a pretty detailed discussion of whether […]

I wish this version of Cairo really existed. #CBRBINGO – Cityscape

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn, #0.7) by P. Djèlí Clark

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**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 10/30 Like quite a few people at this point (enough that Tor published a full-length novel), I’m enchanted by the world Clark has created in this series, which so far consists of this novella and a short story, as well as the novel (that I’ll be getting to next month). There’s something special about the atmosphere Clark creates when he’s writing about 1912 alt-history Cairo, not to mention he’s pretty great with characters (I liked both Hamed and Fatma […]



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