#Daevabad locations

[daevabadfanart]

Reverse-side dust jacket artwork for The City of Brass, The Kingdom of Copper, and The Empire of Gold, from FairyLoot's 2020: Daevabad Deluxe Set. Drawn by icandrawthingz on Instagram with collaboration from the author S. A. Chakraborty.

[nanowrimo]

How to Use Meal Scenes to Develop Characters, Relationships, and Your World

Worldbuilding can sound complicated, but why not make it a little more simple by focusing on food? It may be the domestic touch you need! NaNo Participant Lacey Pfalz talks about using meal scenes to develop your world and your characters.

There’s one thing that remains a universal human truth: we love food! While our perspectives on food might differ, people all across the globe gather together during mealtimes — and thus, mealtimes are made memorable.

Meal scenes can also help your story in a few key ways, especially if it’s fantasy, science fiction or historical fiction.

Meal Scenes for Worldbuilding

If we’re using food for worldbuilding purposes, does that mean we can say we’re worldcooking?

Just kidding! Worldbuilding, especially in historical fiction, science fiction, and fantasy, is an integral part of what you must do as a writer (In truth, it’s also important for writers from other genres, but we’re specializing in these three today).

Meal scenes can be an important part of the worldbuilding process. Food is intrinsically tied to a culture or a country, or even a small region. That’s why it’s important, when building your own world, to take time to figure out the bare minimum of what your characters will be eating.

Let’s do an example. Your world is fantasy, your kingdom set beside a wide river. Perhaps your capital city, where much of the action is located, is surrounded by wetland.

If this is the case, what types of food would likely grow there? Seafood, fished from the large river, might be your characters’ staple proteins, while rice might grow better than another grain because of your kingdom’s wetlands. Fruit, perhaps even coconuts, might be the sweet stuff your main character loves to devour.

Remember that your world directly affects what types of food your characters will be having: is there coffee in space? What about in Byzantine Turkey or your new riverside kingdom?

Shannon Chakraborty does a phenomenal job with this in her fantasy series The Daevabad Trilogy, which is set in the eighteenth century across the Middle East. Her first book, The City of Brass, is especially good at showcasing the often-fragrant dishes of the various cultures across this region of the world (some copies of the book even have a short list of recipes from the book that foodies can try whipping up for themselves).

While her book is set within the fantastical world of the Djinn, her food is based upon recipes that have been preserved for centuries.

There’s one small reminder with all of this: it’s important not to get too caught up in describing each dish so much that you end up taking the focus away from the characters in a meal scene. Meal scenes can be breaks from fast action, but they should also continue the plot.

Meal Scenes for Developing Characters & Relationships

Character development can be hard, especially if you have a handful of characters that you love! But in order to make your readers love them too, you have to show them interacting with the world around them.

That guy we love to hate? Maybe he’s a loner who has grown up eating by himself. Having him forced to sit and eat with a group of people who have known each other for years might be an awkward moment for him, but it helps readers to learn more about his own worldview — and it might just help get him out of his shell, or at least off the love-to-hate list.

Besides helping you develop a single character, writing meal scenes with some of your characters can also help readers learn more about the relationship between your characters.

Let’s say you have your main character, MC. MC leans over and steals a French fry from her best friend. There’s no issue, right? That’s because they like each other, and the best friend has likely eaten with MC before, and knows she enjoys stealing food from other people’s plates.

But when MC tries it again, this time with the guy sitting next to her, he whacks her hand to stop her from stealing. This sparks an argument that seems, at least to everyone else watching it, pointless, but readers will know from the rest of the story that they’re the enemies-to-lovers trope. This argument is just one of many before they finally acknowledge their feelings towards one another.

See how that worked? A meal scene wasn’t useless; it pulled the story along by giving readers another taste of the enemies-to-lovers trope that so many enjoy reading.

If you need a more visible example of how this can play out, try watching a movie like Pride & Prejudice, (the book is amazing, but I’m suggesting the movie as a visual aid). The movie does a great job showcasing just how different the members of the Bennet family are individually, how they act around each other, and how they act around company.

There’s often little action in meal scenes, so they’re not meant to be overused. The plot should also still be there — take the cringey proposal scene between Mr. Collins and Elizabeth in Pride & Prejudice, for example, which follows directly after a meal when the rest of her family abandons her. In this case, the plot (and Mr. Collins’ advances) ruin her meal.

Perhaps your meal scene is the much-needed respite in between battling fierce aliens for planet Earth, or the first time your main character’s enemy-to-lover has entered her home. Either way, meal scenes are an important way to immerse your readers in what kind of world they’re imagining as well as showcasing how your characters act and — more importantly — how they act around each other.

Lacey Pfalz is a travel journalist by day, hopeful author by night. She belongs to the class of graduates she dubs the Class of COVID-19, having graduated with a double major in history and writing at Wisconsin Lutheran College in 2020. Her writing passions include fantasy, science fiction and historical fiction (with a little bit of romance, of course!). As someone with a physical disability, it’s her dream to write a fantasy series featuring a main character like her. Header Image by Jack Sparrow

[daevabadthoughts]

⚠️ major Daevabad spoilers below ⚠️

Something I love and hate about the Daevabad Trilogy is its attention to detail and then its complete lack thereof.

The series is amazing in its layering of worldbuilding and character dynamics; the author has repeatedly mentioned how she's spent a decade thinking about this world and its characters, and it really shows through in repeated readings. This is a series that rewards careful rereadings and paying attention to small details.... Up to a point. Because after a certain point, it becomes really clear that no one thoroughly fact checked later details.

Muntadhir's mother, Queen Saffiyeh, died during the summer per KoC, and it's a major reference/plot point in that book. And yet (in significant connection to this), RoS has Jamshid being born in early spring, a time of the year where Manizheh could have EASILY returned to Daevabad in time to save the queen's life.

In 2020 Shannon posted a timeline for the trilogy on Instagram, and noted how she removed references to Ali's 25th birthday from EoG's script. And yet in RoS when we see Ali's 25th birthday, she places it a year and a half after Empire of Gold. 🤨 Meaning Ali was either 23 for nearly two years, or they're actually secretly celebrating his birthday 8+ months after the fact.

And this happens in so many smaller instances. There's a five year timeskip between CoB and KoC, but both books have a royal court scene stating the calendar date, revealing that there's been a 200 year timeskip! And don't get me started on the tattoos for the major characters and how their placement on the body constantly shifts. Appearing on the brow, their temple, or their upper cheek is constantly used interchangeably, and in CoB Ghassan's tattoo/Suleiman's Seal appears on one side of his face at the beginning of a chapter, and then moves to the other side of his face at the end of that same chapter! 😩 And this inconsistency continues until the author just gives up entirely on referencing placements in later books, rather than just deciding on a location and sticking with it.

Nahri gets shot with an arrow in EoG, but whether it's located in her chest or her shoulder depends on the paragraph. This feels especially egregious because the author used to work in the medical field, and there's a significant difference in being injured in those locations.

But I find this inconsistency incredibly frustrating because as long as these books are, it is not that time consuming to go back and check the old details. Especially when these scenes can be narrowed down by character pov, or their location in the plot timeline. (or just use the fucking search feature because these scripts are written digitally) It is also not difficult to have a piece of paper or a word doc that lists where the tattoos are located, or which finger the ring appears on, or what color a weapon is. Or what season characters were born or died in, especially if it's plot relevant. These are basic character details.

And it's frustrating for a series that asks its readers--that rewards its readers!--for paying attention to the small, quiet sentences to get the full breadth of the character dynamics or the building plot, or what the author is really trying to express in her insanely subtle way, to then turn around and say, actually, those details don't matter. Don't pay attention to those.

This attitude also plays out in character choices, particularly at the end of the series where it's obvious recent changes were made to those arcs, but that is (a number of) very different posts.

[opbackgrounds]

Read any good books recently?

I started Bleak House yesterday, and Dickens has a way with location descriptions that makes me froth at the mouth it’s so good. Otherwise I’m reading the Disney biography by Gabler that’s been interesting and slowly making myself the completed work of Jane Austin. Currently on Mansfield Park which isn’t my favorite, but Pride and Prejudice is always fantastic and Lady Susan was unexpectedly hilarious. 

Once I finish one of those I’ll probably jump to the Daevabad trilogy. Read the City of Brass last year and really liked it, and have heard good things about the other two books in the series.

[sixth-light]

A brief intermission from my low-internet holiday to bring you my Yuletide fic, a retelling of Gideon the Ninth in World War II-era Wellington, New Zealand, because...er...write what you know, right? I had a lot of fun sticking random Wellington facts and a few real locations in there. And, mostly, I got to enjoy the idea of Gideon threatening to run away to....Upper Hutt. 

My gift was a lovely Daevabad Trilogy story about Zaynab post-Kingdom of Copper, and Zaynab’s childhood, and Zaynab’s relationship with her brothers, and have I mentioned that I love Zaynab? Because I do. 

[angelina-figjam]

The Banu Nahida 

1803 

Oil on canvas 

The Royal Palace of Daevabad 

This royal portrait was commissioned by Emir Muntadhir Al Qahtani as a gift for his wife to celebrate her birthday. The Banu Nahida selected the entrance to her infirmary as the location for the painting. 

Yeah alright I couldn’t resist. I saw this gorgeous image of Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine and got immediate Nahri vibes. And then thought to myself, ‘how cool would it be if I could make it look like a painting? Like an official royal portrait!’ so there you go. I have a head cannon where everyone’s favourite royal slut Mundtadhir gets some fancy European painter to come to Daevabad and this is what comes of it. 

I’ve also just finished kingdom of copper and am needing any kind of content to keep me satiated. 

[tshepiso-reads-books]

The Djinn Desert Fantasy of My Dreams | The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

Started: July 9th, 2019

Finished: July 12th, 2019

The City of Brass has reignited my love for YA high fantasy. While this book is technically labeled as adult fantasy it gave me the same feelings that YA fantasy used to. It's been an age since I've fallen so completely down the rabbit hole in this genre and this book just hit the spot for me.

The plot of this novel is political at heart. The capital city of the Djinn empire, Daevabad, faces turmoil as the long oppressed half-djinn minority, the shafits, grow more discontent by the day.  The Tanzeem, a shafit 'terrorist' group fighting for equality in Daevabad, are becoming militant. Coupled with the seething tension between djinn races Daeva and Geziri, Daevabad is becoming a hotspot of tension and all that is simmering under the surface is about to boil over.

While I adored seeing the political conflict play out in the novel, what really sold me on  this book was the interpersonal drama between the characters in this book. There is a beautifully messy love triangle in this novel, and oh how I revealed in the drama. Chakraborty spends most of this novel setting up dominoes to watch crash in the heart-pounding final act. Not only do we see an explosion of a final confrontation between our romantic leads, but the tense familial dynamics also come crashing down to palpitation inducing effect.

I basically spent the last 6 chapters in the novel looking like this:

This book came on my radar after reading the Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. I've been dying to get my hands on more stories that explored Djinn lore and Chakraborty delivered. While I've never really loved desert fantasy.

I did love the setting of this book. Opulent palaces, and breathtaking cities surrounded by polished brass, are only some of the memorable locations we explore in this book. I felt immersed in the world throughout the story and fell in love with Daevabad as much as the characters in the book did.

However, I wouldn't say the book is entirely perfect. My biggest gripe with the book is that it didn't establish the romantic chemistry between our multiple love interests as well as I would've  liked. Chakraborty had the frustrating habit of skipping time every so often and simply narrating that people grew closer over time. Not seeing scenes that showed our characters falling in love or building a connection made it more difficult to buy into the romance.

Stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟½

I loved The City of Brass and I'm so excited to read the sequel. Please recommend me more excellent Djinn books because I have yet to read one I haven't liked.

[rachaelslibrary]

Let’s Talk Books - Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty

This series hurts my heart.  I am honestly so invested in it and I never expected to be.  Kingdom of Copper is the sequel to City of Brass, a book that I randomly picked up in a bookshop in Portland, because I needed something to read on the flight back home.  From page 50, I was hooked because it’s so well written.  Each character is unique, each location is so vivid it’s like you’re actually there, and for the first time in a long time, I felt as though I truly dove into that world the second I opened the book.

I never wrote a review for City of Brass because that was right when I was so busy, I literally had no time for Tumblr.  So here’s a small synopsis of a book that I don’t think is talked about nearly enough.

Nahri is an orphan, con artist and thief in Cairo.  She makes a living doing fake healings and exorcisms for desperate people, and spends her free time studying with an apothecary.  One night, her fake ���exorcism” turns out to be a real one, and she ends up summoning two things.  One, an evil spirit out to get her, and two, Dara, a powerful djinn warrior, who used to be enslaved but is now free.  After Dara saves her, he realizes that she is at least part djinn as well, and decides to take her to Daevabad, a magical djinn city made of brass where she will be safe from the spirit that is now hunting her.

Once in Daevabad, Nahri’s past is slowly revealed, and she is thrust into the city’s politics.  Multiple tribes of Djinn live there, along with anyone of mixed djinn and human descent who are persecuted heavily by the king.  Dara, it turns out, is also a mystery himself, apparently a legendary warrior with ties to a family that used to rule the city - a family that Nahri is discovered to descend from.

The first book follows Nahri as she learns all about the Djinn world, her possible past, and her befriending Ali, the second born son of the king.  A lot of stuff goes down, plot twists and mysteries are unraveled and then the book ends.

The characters are soooooo well written.  Each one has their own distinct personality, and by the end it almost felt as if I knew each one of them personally.  The rich backstory behind the city and the different families - it’s immersive in the same way that the Game of Throne books are immersive.  The details are rich, the plot is intense, and I was so devastated when it was over and I had to wait six months for the second one to come out.

STOP READING HERE IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED THE FIRST BOOK

The second book, Kingdom of Copper, picks up five years later.  With Nahri now a fully fledged healer, having come into her Nahid abilities, and Ali an outcast prince who finds a home in his ancestral lands.  I can’t really say too much else without spoiling it, because the plot points start happening RIGHT AWAY.  Like for real, this book is so fast paced, but without losing the details and thoroughness of the writing that made the first one so magical.

There’s no way I wouldn’t rate it 5/5 stars.  

Now onto spoilers.

I fucking new Dara wasn’t dead!!  Just going to put it out there.  His little personality change at the end of the last book kind of bothered me a tad bit, but getting chapters from his viewpoint was really cool this time around.

Nahri and Mundatdir got married.  Like, I knew it was alluded to in the last book, but I didn’t actually expect it to happen.  The little snippets we got of them actually being good together were really good.  And I wish we would’ve seen more of them being happy, but he turned into a dick the second Ali came back to the city.  I understand why, but he still made me mad a few times.

Also fuck Nahri’s mom.  I don’t trust a single word that comes out of this bitch’s mouth.  She faked her death, has been chillin out in the wilderness the entire time just to plot to basically wipe out another tribe?  I get that her tribe was wiped out and she wants revenge, but there’s ways to do that that don’t involve massacring a good chunk of the city.  Plus she partnered with the Ifrit and made Dara listen to her...like all of his chapters when he started to question her were so devastating to me.  It was like, yes...just leave….just...oh okay...I guess not. And then a frustrated sigh.  Dara. Deserves. Better. 2k19.  His actions in this book were not great.  But he was being manipulated soooo hard core.  I hope the next book he gets a great redemption arc and becomes friends with Nahri again.  Especially because the whole book I was waiting for their reunion, which was ruined because he was a dumbass and tried to kill Ali/ almost killed Muntadir.  Like bitch...don’t!!

Muntadir did get a redemption arc though.  I loved when Ali was talking to him and Zaynab about overthrowing their father.  Hands down the best line of the book:

“Is this liquor?  Because I want to be completely intoxicated when Abba gets wind that his children are planning a coup in a fucking closet.”  I literally laughed out loud.

Let’s see...what else...I cried when Nisreen died, and again when Muntadir got stabbed.  Jamshid being revealed as Nahri’s brother was not something I was expecting at all.  Also when the skin of his back got burned off so he got to use magic...yasss.  The king died, which I was not expecting, but it does give space for Manizhed to be the big bad guy of the next book. I really, really just hope that the next book is Ali, Nahri, and Dara teaming up to take her down.  I’m ready for some good bickering between the three of them.

And now to start the longest wait of my life.  The Empire of Gold comes out on January 15th, 2020 and I cannot wait.

[bropunzeling]

dear yuletide author (2021)

hello, and thank you for doing this!

General Items For the Good of the Order:

Must-haves: My preference is for a happy (for a given value of happy) ending. I enjoy exploration of trickier themes/emotions, but I’d really prefer not to have a downer ending.

Do Not Want: infidelity; poly (for characters selected); watersports/scat play/etc.; character death; unhappy endings

General things I like: Future fic; domesticity; epistolary fic; casefic for applicable fandoms; “missing scenes”; alternative universes and/or canon divergence. I am happy with all ratings from G to E.

Specific to fandoms:

Knives Out (Marta, Benoit, Ransom)

The two relationships I came out of this movie really enjoying were Marta and Benoit's platonic crime-solving partnership and Marta and Ransom's less platonic.... thing. I would really enjoy fic that takes on either or both of those dynamics. Does Marta accompany Benoit on other cases? Does Ransom continue to be a fucking weirdo about Marta? What happens if they're all in a "closed" location - cruise ship; small town; etc.? Something that really leans into some Agatha Christie-esque vibes would be a cherry on top.

Old Kingdom (Sabriel, Touchstone)

I would love something exploring Sabriel and Touchstone's relationship as it grows and deepens between the first and second books. How do they learn to love each other? When are they sure that this is "it" for them? How do they help each other carry the burdens of leadership/being the One Good Necromancer?

Daevabad Trilogy (Nahri, Ali)

I really love these two characters and their relationship throughout the series, especially as it goes from working at an impasse to working together to ~save the world~ (and maybe kiss a little). I would love either a missing moment from during the series featuring these two, or something looking at how they get together post-series once they don't have to save the world all the time and instead are just upending daeva society.

Emma (Emma, Knightley)

This is one of my favorite Austen relationships (she says, who loves every Austen relationship except the ones in Mansfield Park). I really like how Knightley is just kind of always in love with Emma, even though it is occasionally deeply painful for him, and would love some Knightley!POV that gets into that dynamic. I would also love a post-book fic - perhaps they go on a trip to London or the seaside? What is that like for Emma, who is so used to being at home? How do they combine their lives once they decide that is what they want? A third prompt would be for a magic AU a la the Shades of Milk and Honey books - I'm sure Emma would thrive in a magic system based on illusion.

Alex Stern (Alex, Darlington, worldbuilding)

I would love to see either a worldbuilding-heavy fic or an Alex & Darlington-heavy fic, but don't necessarily need to have both in one fic. On the worldbuilding side, I would love something that dives into exactly what is going on with these Yale magical societies - why is Manuscript so full of horny energy? Who is the type of student who ends up at one of these societies? What happens if or when you try to get out? On the more character-driven side, I am very into Alex/Darlington, especially with the presumption that they rescue Darlington from wherever he is, and what that changes about their relationship. Or, alternatively, if they just went with Manuscript's horny energy.

[talesofanavidreader]

ℚ𝕆𝕋𝔻: What are some of your favorite bookish locations & worlds? ⁣ ⁣ These six books/series have some of my absolute favorite bookish locations and worlds! Velaris, Terrasen + Antica, Daevabad + Ta Ntry, the entire world of Mistborn, Red London, and Weep are all truly incredible locations. I want to visit them all!! ⁣ ⁣ #SJMSeptember2020 - Velaris: beautiful bookish locations ⁣ ⁣ #bookishlocation #bookworld #worldbuilding #velaris #terrasen #theworldofthroneofglass #sjmaas #sarahjmaas #redlondon #adsom #strangethedreamer #mistborn #daevabad #thecityofbrass #bookishlife #bookwormsunite #bookishaesthetic #bookishcommunity #alwaysreading #bookdragon #avidreader #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #bookblog #booknerd #booklover #bookworm #instareads https://www.instagram.com/p/CFhXzspAEjC/?igshid=h4hv9oidqg3u

[daevabadfanart]

Sigils for the six djinn tribes: Geziri, Ayaanle, Daeva, Sahrayn, Agnivanshi, and Tukharistani. Official artwork from S. A. Chakraborty's website, though artist is uncredited.

[cassiejade]

I adore prompts like these because nothing gives me the travel bug more than reading rich and beautiful descriptions about new places, especially if the author adds in local cuisines or spots of interest, once those are added my interest has doubled.

February 26: Places Mentioned In Books That I’d Like to Visit

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

The cafe mentioned in Daughter of Smoke and Bone

I, for the life of me, cannot recall the name to this cafe right now, but I can envision it in my mind. I can envision the gothic decorations and the architecture that was described and I just want to be there and drink some coffee while reading a book.

Weep (Strange the Dreamer)

Laini Taylor does an amazing job at worldbuilding, I felt like I could step out of my house straight onto the streets of Weep.

Pemberley from Pride and Prejudice

I would love to go to Chatsworth House, its the house used to film Pemberley from Pride and Prejudice and it was also used as a filming location for The Duchess.

Daevabad from City of Brass

This world sounds beautiful and amazing, despite the whole civil war going on…I’d still like to go.

Tuscany (That Month in Tuscany)

A Tuscan setting is one of my instabuy tropes. I would love to go to Tuscany one day.

Edinburgh (City of Ghosts)

Another instabuy trope and a destination that I talk about traveling to almost every single day, one day the bf and I will go there.

    Top Ten Tuesday: Book Places I’d like to Visit I adore prompts like these because nothing gives me the travel bug more than reading rich and beautiful descriptions about new places, especially if the author adds in local cuisines or spots of interest, once those are added my interest has doubled.