City of Stairs:

City of Stairs by: Robert Jackson Bennett
Fiction: Sci-fi/Fantasy, 452 pages
Physical Book Count: 9
Book Count: 19

This was another book that a friend suggested that I would like.  It is much more a fantasy then a sci-fi novel, but as we were talking about sci-fi books and it has a dystopian feel and human like, but not human life forms in it, I put both in the labels.
As stated above this story doesn't take place on earth.  It is on a world where there are 3 very different humanoid  lifeforms; one that were chosen by the Divinities, one that were slaves until they found out how to kill the Divinities, and one that we know little about besides that they are sailors with out a king.  The killing of the Divinities happened many generations before this story started.  In fact the main character, Shara is a descendant of the Kaj, who is the one who killed the Divinities.  She goes to the city of Bulikov, the city of stairs, that once was the center of the Continent where the gods and their chosen people lived, to investigate a murder of a historian that she knew.  Once there she finds she finds much more going on then a simple murder.  She also has to deal with her past, as a former lover is an important city official, who may or may not be a part of the conspiracy that she has got caught up in.