Review: Fire Boy

Fire Boy by Sami Shah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After years of me not reading this book despite Aimal Farooq's ravings about how awesome it was, I've finally gotten around to it. Well, I think part of the problem might have owed to the fact that, since this book was published in Australia, most libraries in the Bay Area didn't carry it - nor did any of the other California libraries I can potentially special-order from. But at some point recently, I think Aimal brought the book up again, or maybe she told another of her famous djinn stories. Something along those lines? Maybe, in this or some other universe. The point being, I finally looked again, found that the Palo Alto library had Fire Boy and gave it a long-awaited order. And though this book be relatively short, it's a punchy little piece of Pakistani urban fantasy, living at the intersection of Neil Gaiman and Mohsin Hamid with a touch of Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacements thrown in for good measure. All I'll say is this: the local libraries better have the second half of this duology. One of them. Somewhere in California.

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