City of Bones by Martha Wells

As I have said before, Murderbot is one of the absolute best characters to come out of SF in years. I remember when I read the description of Martha Wells’s All Systems Red and thought to myself “I’ve got to put that on hold at the library!”  And I was right - it was excellent. I have eagerly awaited each new Murderbot book and also read some of the Rakusa series when it was nominated for the Best Series Hugo,  it I have not made the time to dive into Ms. Wells's back catalog.  So I was excited when NetGalley and the publisher gave me an eARC of the reprint of City of Bones, one of Martha Wells’s earlier works, in exchange for an honest review. 

I enjoyed this novel.  We follow an unscrupulous relic dealer and a more naive trainee wizard as they work together to track down some ancient secrets.  The world building was very interesting in the novel - the striated society made sense and felt real.  Khat was an interesting protagonist - selfish but not unlikable.  The book was a little long,  it nonetheless enjoyable.  A satisfying early work by this author.