by Jeffrey Ford
First published 2003
Cley works as a physiognomist in the Well-Built City, where Master Drachton Below rules with absolute authority. Cley reads faces and bodies to reveal people's pasts, secrets, and futures. He serves as judge and jury for Below's regime. Below discovers a fruit that grants immortality and sends Cley to investigate its location in the remote mining town of Anamasobia. Cley interrogates the townspeople one by one, using his skills without difficulty. Then he encounters Arla, a beautiful and intelligent woman who carries a dangerous secret. Her revelation threatens to destroy everything Cley believes about his world and could bring down the Well-Built City itself. This World Fantasy Award winner takes readers through a reality where imagination and truth blend together.
Genres: fiction, science-fiction, mystery, fantasy
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Well-Built City, Anamasobia
Period: 20th-century
256 pages · Paperback · Tor