City of Stairs
- 465
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- Imaginales award for best foreign-language novel
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Our view
“City of Stairs” wraps a murder investigation in a fantasy world of gods and unsettling creatures, and the setting is its best asset. The first Divine Cities novel plays out more like a spy and detective story than an epic, which readers who came for high fantasy may find a mismatch; some also feel the characters are plainer than the world around them. Mystery and worldbuilding carry equal weight here.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
City of Stairs is a 2014 fantasy novel by Robert Jackson Bennett. The first in his "Divine Cities" trilogy, it was published by Broadway Books.
Reading order · The Divine Cities
Full order & progress →- City of StairsThis book
8.28.2 / 10 - City of Blades
8.28.2 / 10 - City of Miracles
8.58.5 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.3 across 423 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 74% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 8.2 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.5 | 17 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 8.3 | 406 | 96% |
Frequently asked
How long is City of Stairs?
It has 465 pages — shorter than 62% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 8.2, the closest to this book.
