The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
Published 2017 · 130,000 words · about 9 hours at an average pace · Fantasy
How hard is The City of Brass to read?
The City of Brass scores 39 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 45 out of 100
- Arabic, Persian, and Islamic mythological vocabulary throughout. Chakraborty explains through context without simplifying.
- Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
- Clear, propulsive prose. Chakraborty writes genre fantasy with professional competence.
- Abstraction: 42 out of 100
- Sectarianism, colonialism, and political reform explored through character and plot.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Dense with djinn taxonomy, Daevabad politics, Islamic mythological references, and three POV characters.
- Narrative indirection: 35 out of 100
- Three POV characters with clear arcs. The political situation creates complexity rather than the narrative structure.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- Daevabad as microcosm of Middle Eastern sectarianism. The shafit as persecuted minority. The river of gold as corrupted wealth.
- Ironic distance: 28 out of 100
- Chakraborty writes with earnest engagement. The political complexity provides irony, not the authorial stance.
- Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
- The first book ends in political catastrophe, setting up the trilogy.
- Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
- Three alternating POVs. Standard epic fantasy structure.
How The City of Brass is regarded
The City of Brass holds a literary regard score of 62 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.