Tor.com Publishing is thrilled to announce that Hugo Award finalist and Alex, Nebula, and Locus Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark will return to the historical fantasy universe from “A Dead Djinn in Cairo” with a full-length novel!
Cairo, 1912:
Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie. After preventing the destruction of the universe last summer, Agent Fatma’s one of the Ministry’s top agents.
So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, Al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world forty years before when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, but had been missing since. This murderer, however, is also claiming to be Al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions against supernatural beings and humans alike. Moreover, his dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo and quickly earn him followers by the hundreds.
With her Ministry colleagues, a new partner who’s tougher than she looks, and a mysterious person from her past with powers granted by the goddess Sekhmet, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this Al-Jahiz imposter to restore peace to the city – or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…
Clark had this to say about the new project:
I guess I like doing things in stages. “A Dead Djinn in Cairo” was the novelette. The Haunting of Tram Car 015 is the novella. Now I’ve finally gone and done it—a full-length novel set in an alternate 1912 Cairo of djinn, airships, & magic, featuring the decidedly dapper Agent Fatma, special investigator with the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities. Completing this book was some of the most fun I’ve had in writing & worldbuilding. Thrilled it’s found a home at Tor, and can’t wait to get it into readers’ hands!
Tor.com Publishing is also excited to share two additional new novellas from Clark, a historical fantasy titled Ring Shout, plus a second project that is as-yet untitled. Ring Shout a fantasy set during the violent summer of 1919, follows a young black woman with ancestral powers who may hold the key of stopping the Ku Klux Klan from unleashing bloody chaos across the United States using literal movie magic. The second, untitled novella will feature a league of undead assassins.
Said Clark:
“Why go with one novella, when they let you have two! Both of these stories come from ideas that have been rattling around in my head. The first, Ring Shout, is a bit of African-American Southern Gothic (with spirituals, magic swords, and monsters, naturally) set against the backdrop of the Red Summer of 1919. The other novella is a bit more secondary world traditional fantasy—as much as undead assassins, infernal contracts, and mercurial gods can be considered traditional. Excited to have Tor.com Publishing help bring both these stories to life.”
