“I was trying to forcibly impose upon the djinn the experience of death... It was a refinement of a technique the wartime French DGSS had used to try to kill the one in Berlin. Their scientists in Algiers had cut a cylinder from what was allegedly a Shihab meteorite, one of the spent ‘shooting stars’ that has knocked down and killed a djinn. Our SOE was able to get the specs on the operation, and the meteoric iron the French had used did have a peculiar internal structure: fine straight fissures—something like the Neumann lines that are found in ordinary meteorite cross-sections, and which result from interstellar collisions—but these were all at precise right angles, and the French had concluded that this configuration was a unique result of fatal collision with a djinn. The scientists believed ...that the iron ‘contained the death of one of these creatures,’ and that firing the death into the Berlin djinn would kill it.” [p. 327]
One of the first novels I read on Kindle: my review from 2011 is here, and mostly still applies. This time around I was more aware of the period-typical attitudes: racism in particular, also colonialism, sexism, and classism.
I still admire Powers' portrayal of the djinn, a truly alien species, and his diligence on fitting known facts into a fictional history. The spycraft elements have more than a tinge of Le Carre, while the occult elements reminded me of Lovecraft (except without the racism, sexism and homophobia). Definitely my favourite of Powers' novels, though I keep meaning to give the Fault Lines series another try ...
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