Historical Fantasy

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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

By Susanna Clarke

In an alternative version of early nineteenth-century England, magic survives mainly as an antiquarian subject discussed by gentlemen who cannot perform it. That changes when the private, possessive Gilbert Norrell proves that practical magic still exists. Seeking respectability and political influence, he takes English magic to London and offers his services during the Napoleonic Wars. His rise depends, however, on a secret bargain with a dangerous fairy. Jonathan Strange soon emerges as a second practicing magician. More intuitive, sociable, and adventurous than Norrell, Strange becomes first his pupil and then his rival. Their dispute over how magic should be studied, controlled, and restored draws in the Duke of Wellington, Lord Byron, the legendary Raven King, and people trapped by enchantments the magicians do not fully understand. Susanna Clarke combines historical fantasy, social comedy, Gothic unease, and an invented scholarly record to examine authority, ambition, knowledge,…

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The City of Brass

A Novel

By S. A. Chakraborty

In eighteenth-century Cairo, Nahri survives by selling false magic to wealthy clients, even though her unexplained healing ability is real. A ritual performed as part of a con unexpectedly summons Dara, a formidable djinn warrior who recognizes something in Nahri that she cannot explain. Their flight from Cairo carries her into a hidden supernatural world and eventually to Daevabad, a brass-walled city divided by dynastic conquest, religious loyalties, ethnic hierarchy, and memories of violence. There Nahri becomes entangled with the ruling Qahtani family, especially the principled but politically inexperienced Prince Alizayd. The novel combines an adventurous journey with court intrigue, gradually shifting its central question from whether magic exists to who controls the history and institutions of the magical world. As the opening volume of the Daevabad Trilogy, it establishes a conflict in which inherited identity can confer power while also trapping individuals inside struggles b…