City of Bones is a standalone fantasy novel from Martha Wells. It's a revised 2023 edition from an older 1995 novel. It follows Khat, a non-human kris, who is a relic hunter in the tiered hierarchical city of Charisat and his colleague Sagai. Khat gets offered a job by powerful people he can't refuse, and this job escalates into world-breaking danger.

This is a dystopian world where the oceans have been burned off into dangerous desert wastes. There's some mostly broken Ancient relics and art from a previous era. The Kris are a human-ish species bred to live in the wastes specifically. There's some magic that a rare few can use (but not too much, less they lose their minds, which reminds me of Surviving Sky recently too.) All of these details make this feel like a dystopian world but it's not Mad Max-esque apocalyptic survival either; it's hard to pin down in a way that made it feel quite fresh for me.

(It's also definitely got some classic Martha Wells exploration of ruins. It's funny to me how much this is a consistent type of set piece across her work!)

I enjoyed Witch King and I quite enjoyed this book, but it's interesting to compare a little. Both books have intricate and novel worlds, and I think they're both character-driven works. However, City of Bones shines a much closer light on the world (or arguably concerns itself with a more narrow slice), and so in the end its closure feels much more satisfying where worldbuilding and plot details come together. City of Bones wraps up almost all of its plot and character threads, while Witch King left me with so many unanswered questions about the world.

Here's some extra spoiler-y thoughts too.