Book Review: Escape From Baghdad by Saad Z. Hossain

Escape From Baghdad by Saad Z. Hossain

Paperback, 304 pages

Published 2015 by The Unnamed Press

This is a novel about a subject and setting overdue for exploration in genre novels. The Iraq war has rarely been a topic in sci-fi or horror. The best example I can think of is John Shirley's Constantine tie-in novel Warlord. I have been waiting for someone to tackle the GW Bush lead Iraq invasion in genre fiction for awhile. EFB is set in the chaos about a year after the march 2003 invasion of the country looking for the phantom menace of Weapons of Mass Destruction. This sets a stage for a violent, chaotic crazy story that plays against the war torn city pretty straight at first, but in the second act stuff gets weird fantasy wise.

Probably the best thing about this novel is that it is not told from the point of view of a U.S. solider, the two lead characters Dagr and Kinza are locals whose lives were majorly disrupted by the invasion. There is one US solider character - Hoffman is an interesting one, but the majority of the story is seen through local eyes. This is something I liked as most of the media portrayal of Iraq that this country gets is from US solider's point of view.

Dagr and Kinza are doing what they can to survive, and in the process they discover a man in hiding that is wanted by both sides. They him as a means to get out of the city. There is more to this man, who has an ancient history and once they make there way across the city things get weird. Crazed Alchemists, immortals, magic time pieces are all involved but over all pretty subtle. I enjoyed this novel but it is played mostly straight. I actually would have liked it to be a little more crazy.

This is my first novel by an author from Bangladesh. It seems like it was well researched and felt like Hossain understood the city, but again what do I know. I also didn't laugh as much as I expected from the blurbs on the cover. The humor didn't work for me, but the characters and setting did. I didn't LOVE this book but I enjoyed and really respect what it accomplished. I certainly would read this author again.