City of Miracles (2017)   Robert Jackson Bennett

Sigrud je Harkvaldsson

The “Man”

I have to say that Sigrud has been my favorite character in the Divine Cities Trilogy.   He just gets Stuff done.  You have a divine sea monster in your river send Sigrud.  When the monster swallows him whole (sending him to a personal Hell)  he will carve his way out killing the monstor in the process.  That is classic Sigrud. 

In this story we see Sigrud working as a logger as one of the odd jobs that he has been doing anonymously since the end of City of Blades – 13 years.  The apparent assassination of Shara Komayd brings him back to action.  He is driven to find out who did this to his former employer and friend.  He eventually runs into a near divinity – Nokov – a child of the original divinities   -  Jokov and Ovos. Nokov is the embodiment of the first night.  He grows more powerful by swallowing other children of divinities. His goal is to turn the world into a black night.   Shara’s adopted daughter Taty is taken under Sigrud’s wing and protected but we know there is more to her then we see.

The real story though is the transformation of Sigrud from a noble man of action to a happy old philosopher.  Sad.  I really liked the old Sigrud and hoped he would good down fighting rather than as a whimper.  However, I would guess that most people will like Bennett’s conclusion to this trilogy better than I do.  Conclusion?  I don’t know.  There seems to be a lot of open plot lines and interesting characters in this world that Bennett could tap for another volume or even another series.