A Stranger in the Citadel by Tobias S. Buckell

Published by Tachyon Publications on October 17, 2023

A Stranger in the Citadel is set on a human world of the far future, one that still recalls legendary names like Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Some more recent legends have become gods: Washtun (the god of honesty and transparency, in whose honor cherry trees are planted); Elv (who is honored by music festivals and blue suede shoes). Much knowledge of the past has been lost, largely due to the destruction visited by the archangels.

The story begins within the walled city of Ninetha. The Lord Musketeer protects and rules the city with the help of his musketeers, although he is clearly protecting the interests of the affluent. His ancestors likely built the wall so that the blessings of the Cornucopia — a machine attributed to divinity that manufactures medicine and food and most other things people might want, apart from weapons— are kept from the peasants, who eat a bland daily diet called vittle.

The musketeers are purportedly the children of the Lord Musketeer, but they are raised and trained by a warrior named Kira who is also a religious zealot. The religion’s most sacred principle is that books are evil, that writing is sinful, that “thou shalt not suffer a librarian to live.” People believe their ancestors made a contract with the gods — renounce books and you will not go hungry.

A librarian named Ishmael makes his way from New Alexandria to Ninetha, carrying his library on his back, hoping to gain and spread knowledge. He is captured and is about to be killed when Lilith, the youngest muskatress, intervenes. Her desire for mercy is sacrilegious to Kira but Lilith knows a secret that even Kira doesn’t know — her father has a book.

Lilith’s knowledge eventually sparks a religious revolution that brings down her ruling family. Much of the novel consists of Lilith in flight, following Ishmael to the top of the world, pursued by Kira and later by a slow but relentless archangel. Lilith finds that other communities resent Ninetha for keeping the benefits of its Cornucopia for the upper class. One community has adopted a power-sharing structure that causes Lilith to question the privilege with which she was raised.

The story of the archangels is a bit muddy, as is the novel’s ending. Perhaps the archangels are robot travelers from space who have their own religion to spread. The archangel’s explanation of a human death ritual is a bit puzzling.

Lilith is the kind of young protagonist whose mind is open to discovery, perhaps making her appealing to fans of YA fiction. The ignorant book banners who make parts of America deplorable might have inspired the novel, but the lessons Kira learns about books were made in more compelling terms by Bradbury, to whom the librarian alludes. Despite its worthy but not quite successful attempt to be something more, A Stranger in the Citadel works well as an adventure story in which a religion of banned books happens to form a background.

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