Thumbs up for Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson. Fantasy.
Not a perfect book, but a magnificently delightful one. What do you get when you mix a young hacker, jinni (as in, genies), magical books, computer programming, Middle Eastern politics, Islamic philosophy, and wrap it all up in a cracking adventure story? Happiness, that’s what. If that all sounds like fun to you – read it, because it is.
“We like places abandoned by men,” said the [jinn], “not by history. You should have seen Irem five hundred years ago, when our peoples still acknowledged one another. Caravans, poetry competitions, trade in all manner of bizarre knickknacks you third-borns kept inventing. It was a sight to be seen. The toilet – now that will never be equaled. We all thought the toilet was pretty hysterical.”
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