The Haunting of Tram Car 015
Ratings146
Average rating4
3.75 stars
another lush read from clark. love the dead djinn universe. finished all three short stories and now can't wait to devour the first novel in the series!
This novella had all the makings of a run-of-the-mill Haunting story, except.... the “house” that's haunted is actually tram car that operates using the mechanics put in place by a Djinn, who came about when a guy in the 1870s opened up a rift between Cairo and a magical dimension, that led to a magical industrial revolution for Cairo, which then became a world super power as a result. And while all of this is happening, Cairo is voting on whether to legalize women's suffrage.
So.....
Classic story,
Dope world building,
Big recommend.
This novella is set in a steampunk alternate world where djinn interact with humans and (among other things) helped to ensure Egyptian independence fifty years early and make Cairo one of the world's greatest and most influential cities. The main story concerns a pair of investigators looking into an apparently haunted tram car and trying to exorcise the spirit concerned. This provides the fantasy elements and, in fairness, the plot is pretty straightforward - the real strength being the realisation of the setting.
Middle Eastern settings are not unusual in fantasy, but it's rare to see one quite as well-developed as this, with the mix of early 20th-century modernity and Islamic myth. Indeed, this expands on the first novella in the series by extending the supernatural elements beyond the Islamic world - although still featuring something that isn't Western European. It gives the impression of setting things up for a bigger story later (and a novel did follow) with several threads left hanging even though the core plot is neatly resolved.
This is my first P. Djeli Clark reading and I thoroughly enjoy his style. I felt transported to a modernized Cairo at the turn of the 20th century. Further, I enjoyed the organic progression of the protagonist throughout the story. It's not a big character growth, but incremental that I imagine adds to a lifelong journey.
I look forward to reading more of Clark's tales.
This is one of those cases that I wished I read rather than listened. No disrespect to the narrator, as I can tell they have decent voice, but there wasn't a distinction between character voices and with the obvious re-recorded pickup fixes through each chapter my immersion kept breaking. Because of these audiobook issues, it was near impossible for me to enjoy the story.
(The latter is more of an issue when the narrator re-records with different equipment/studio or the distance from the mic isn't the same as that original session, even recording at a later time can be noticeable in the narrators voice, but these pickup re-recordings happened frequently enough in the book that it became uniquely bothersome. The editor, if it wasn't narrator, should have blended the audio seamlessly without the sudden tonality change between the original audio and the new recording so the listener wouldn't notice any change in the tone)
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Audio read by: Julian Thomas
This makes a readable and congenial story, and the setting is imaginative.Compared with the preceding story, [b:A Dead Djinn in Cairo 52870132 A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe, #0.1) P. Djèlí Clark https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1567960292l/52870132.SX50_SY75.jpg 49993780], the plot is somewhat more restrained, and I like it a bit better, although it doesn't enthrall me. The writing, world-building, and characterization remain good.This time we have a pair of new leading characters, both men. Fatma el-Sha'arawi, heroine of the preceding story, is still present, but makes only a cameo appearance: this case is not hers.I would recommend reading these stories in the order in which they were published: starting with [b:A Dead Djinn in Cairo 52870132 A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe, #0.1) P. Djèlí Clark https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1567960292l/52870132.SX50_SY75.jpg 49993780]. It's not strictly necessary, because the stories are not linked, but I think they work better in the correct order.
For a novella, there were too many subplots. I would read it after [b:A Master of Djinn 52504334 A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe, #1) P. Djèlí Clark https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600715136l/52504334.SY75.jpg 78021845] (which I really enjoyed) so that you know more about the world going in.
This is a fantastic little tale, a great detective story in a fascinating setting. The storytelling was a wonderful balance of detective-style investigation, creepy horror elements but balanced out with enough humour that things never got too dark. I really hope I get to read more stories involving these characters.
By now P. Djèlí Clark has definitely become one of my favorite speculative fiction writers. Besides his beautiful and detailed worldbuilding, his characters are just alive and such a pleasure to follow—I didn't think I'd like Hamed and Onsi as much as I like Fatma, but boy was I wrong!
Really fun to be back in this world! Clark is for sure a very talented author!
Full review to come!
I think I like this one more than A Dead Djinn in Cairo. Probably because it packs a simpler story in a longer format. There's way less info dumping and the writing style over all feels more... comfortable, perhaps? There are still some amateurish moments throughout, but I don't think it breaks emersion or anything like that.
I LOVED this novella. I quite enjoyed the first short story in this series and fell in love with the world and hoped to read more from those characters. This one was no different. I hope there are more fiction coming from Hamed and Onsi . Can't wait to expand on this world and find out more about Fatma in the next novel from this universe.
3.5* rounded down to 3*. This was a fun little story that packs supernatural entities, a mystery, and some exorcism action. The only reason why I would rate this a little lower than the other short stories in the series is because it seemed to be a standalone side adventure rather than as a piece of the overarching puzzle. It didn't seem to have a sense of awe that pervades the other stories, but that might be due to the lack of Angels in this one. Nevertheless, it was still pretty fun in itself.Agent Hamed, from the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, is sent in with new recruit Agent Onsi to investigate a report of a haunting taking place in one of Cairo's tram cars. They run around Cairo trying to figure out the identity of this phantom, with the aid of enigmatic waitress Abla.If you aren't already familiar with the Dead Djinn Universe, this series takes place in an AU fantasy steampunk version of Egypt in the 1930s or so. It's spectacular and refreshing. All the characters are Egyptian, a good number of them are Muslim, and even the fantasy aspects of this series takes a lot of cues from Middle Eastern mythology and Islamic lore. This series already gets bonus points for being so refreshingly different from ye olde conventional Euro-centric fantasy stories.I particularly enjoyed the dynamics between Agent Hamed and Agent Onsi. It starts off first as that of an unwilling mentor tutoring an overenthusiastic but inexperienced junior, but later develops into a mutually respectful partnership. I'm slated to read the latest book of the series very soon and hope very much that we see more of them.There was a whole plot thread here about a suffragette movement happening in Cairo, and the book seemed to want to do something with it but it wasn't really clear (to me) what that was. This thread was also pretty deliberately interwoven through the main sequence of events, with our two agents in the forefront trying to solve the problem of the haunting, and concludes just as the investigation does, so I'm pretty sure Clark is trying to draw some kind of parallel here - I just can't figure out what!This is a fun addition to the Dead Djinn Universe, but I wouldn't recommend this as a starting point. Rather, [b:A Dead Djinn in Cairo 29635542 A Dead Djinn in Cairo P. Djèlí Clark https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1459173382l/29635542.SX50.jpg 49993780] did a better and more impressive job overall in introducing the world, the setting, and the range of supernatural entities that is at the series's forefront (I'm particularly thinking of Angels, which interest me the most in the whole series, even more than djinns despite the series title).
I suspected that after reading A Dead Djinn in Cairo I was going to gobble this up too and that's what happened! I'll say I didn't enjoy the mystery or the characters as much in this installment, but I'm glad a read it to help prepare a bit for Master of Djinn.
There is nothing more refreshing than a book that is truly completely new. And this is: Clark imagines a Cairo in which the late industrial revolution was marked by the emergence of djinn and magic. And rather than handle this as a fantastical event, the world simply adapts to this as a newfangled technology: you know, kids run off to the continent to take “alchemical classes” and in my day, high-bred kids just took Latin. And by the way, the steampunk aerial trams are also powered by magic.
Mix this with a strong sense of place: Cairo here is presented as a melting pot of Western Asian, Middle East and African cultures. (Me: Is it Afrofuturism if it's set in Egypt? Jon: Is it about either Cairo or Alexandria being the best in Africa at something? Me: Cairo is the hub of the African dirigible system...so...yes). And then add in some bureaucratic procedural elements in the form of a pair of police officers whose job is to take in magical hijinks. Plus a heaping dose of suffragettes (the Egyptian feminist society in this alternate history gaining a much early right to vote) and the result is completely delightful.
This book is SHORT – most novella's feel short because there isn't enough space to develop an interesting set of characters/plot/setting, but Clark really excels here. Just to illustrate how quickly he sketches the scene for you, three pages in you know that the world has gone through a recent technical revolution, the main character is cynical because hauntings are too mundane and his partner is overly eager. Indeed, this novella feels short because there is so much developed and so many interesting questions like, should tram cars be emancipated? How are djinns similar and different from ethno-specific folklore beings? What rights do non-binary gendered beings have in this world? And while the story comes to a satisfying conclusion, these existential questions are unanswered. I hope Clark continues to write a lot in this setting.
Clark has imagined an incredible world here. Everything is so richly detailed and vivid. Although the mystery at the heart of this novella was not as compelling as the one in the original short story, A Dead Djinn in Cairo, the sharp writing and unexpected twists and turns will keep me coming back for as long as Clark keeps writing stories in this setting.
See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.
Pros: interesting worldbuilding, fast paced, great evil entity
Cons: somewhat cliche detective pair
Agents Hamed and Onsi from the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, are sent to investigate a haunting at the Ministry of Transportation. But budget concerns make dealing with the entity harder than expected.
The book is set in an alternate 1910s Egypt during suffragette protests. I liked how the fight for women's ability to vote was tied into the rest of the story. Though it's a novella, there's a wealth of detail making Cairo come alive. I loved the diversity of the city, its people, food, and clothing. I loved the included - historically accurate - references to ancient and medieval documents regarding the paranormal.
The evil entity they're dealing with wasn't one I've heard of so I found it interesting - and creepy.
I found Hamed a boring protagonist. He's not quite the stereotypical detective with a new recruit, but he's close. I found the female characters significantly more engaging and would have liked seeing more of them and their points of view.
It's an engaging and entertaining story that had me looking for other stories and books by Clark, including the story alluded to regarding Fatma's assignment at the end of this one.
Loved this! A great, short little novella of an alternate history world with magical elements, suffragettes, and doll makers. So very enjoyable. I'm all in for more works from this author.
Author P. Djeli Clark came onto my radar when I heard some great things about his new novella Ring Shout which releases in October of this year and then when I saw that this novella was nominated for the Nebula award, I knew I had to read this one. I also managed to read the short story A Dead Djinn in Cairo a few days ago and completely fell in love with the setting which is the same in this novella as well. And I'm so happy I got to be back in this wonderful setting mystical Egypt again.
The haunting and the mystery of the supernatural being is still not what impressed me the most here. It's the world which continues to mesmerize me and I was even more impressed this time to see how culturally diverse it is and the technological and magical marvels of this booming metropolis. And added to this beautiful setting is the backdrop of the suffragette movement in Egypt and even though it's shown with more rose tinted glasses than what happened in our real world, I just loved watching a more hopeful and progressive world in this story.
While the previous short story was a murder mystery, this time its a haunting and we are following a different Agent from the Ministry, Hamed and new partner Onsi. Their characters are quite tropey, with one being the slightly experienced grumpy mentor and the other being an overexcited and talkative mentee, but it was a complete delight following them. We also meet other mysterious women who help them in their endeavor to find the supernatural being haunting the Tram car and I was quite enamored by them all and wanted to know more about them. And it made me so so happy to see mention of Fatma as the most famous investigator in the Ministry and now I hope she will be joined by both Hamed and Onsi in the full length novel releasing next year.
In the end, this is one author I'm so happy to have accidentally discovered and now I can't wait to read any remaining backlist of his and all his future works because I'm thoroughly enjoying his world building as well as characters. If you enjoy beautifully written diverse urban fantasy settings and fun mysteries with supernatural entities, then I highly recommend this novella. Also read the short story that I mentioned above and I promise you will fall in love with this magical steampunk Egypt just like I did. Even the audiobooks are narrated excellently, so you could opt for them if it's your preferred format. Now I'm just upset that the wait for the novel is too long but I'm left with no choice but to be patient.
Fun introduction to an interesting world. Some of the action scenes drag a bit but beyond, good stuff. Best part, the author's world building.
I am on my second P. Djèlí Clark novella, and all I can say is that I want to read everything I can get my hands on written by this guy.
This story takes place in an alternative history of Egypt after the Britsh rule was overthrown in 1879. Now, the year is 1912. Cairo is written as a mix of history, culture, steampunk, and magic. Djinns walk the world freely, ghosts haunt, and magic makes the world flow. This story stars a collection of characters, namely agents Hamed Nasr and Onsi Youssef. They represent the interests of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities. They get called in to investigate a tram car, part of the transportation system in Cairo, that seems to be haunted.
Nothing is as it seems, but they are tasked to fix the situation as speedily as possible.
One of the best parts of Clark's writing is the texture and beauty of his descriptions. He builds a fluid, and magical world that is on one hand, believable and on the other completely stretches the imagination. The story is fascinating in its own right, but the backstory and current of political tensions that flow behind the main characters are well done. Political upheaval is everywhere in the form of women's suffrage. Women are close to getting the right to vote, and that plays a massive part in how characters behave and relate to other characters in the story. The political climate is a live wire snapping and sparking.
Hamad, the lead investigator for the story, is a steampunk world-weary sam spade type character. He has seen a lot, experienced a lot, and has developed a certain pragmatism towards cases. At the same time as issues pop up he pragmatically handles them, he is also funny and adds a bit of mischievousness to the story. I enjoyed reading his interactions with various people and entities.
Clark writes a fascinating story, one that doesn't fall short. There are no coy or trumped up false moments. This is just fantastic storytelling, and I hope that he writes a full-length novel so I can read how he develops a story beyond a novella. He has a knack for creation and worldbuilding. I recommend it wholeheartedly.