City of Last Chances (The Tyrant Philosophers)

Product Information

City of Last Chances (2022), by Adrian Tchaikovsky, is one of those novels that I completely admired all the way through but had a hard time connecting to many of the characters, so that while the reading experience was enjoyable, it was more an intellectual pleasure than an immersive, emotional one. But as we get into the swing of things, we see the same faces circling around again and again, and eventually have some chapters told from the same perspective twice, and something begins to emerge. It's nothing so simple as a single narrative, but there are a lot of threads being pulled in complementary directions, and a general movement ripples out to affect all the characters we see, and things begin to happen in Ilmar. Langrice; the owner of a inn called the Anchorage, which doubles as a gambling den, a safehouse and a neutral zone within the city. She knows many people and keeps many secrets. The city and it’s people are walking the line between total assimilation into the “Palleseen Sway” and all-out riots-in-the-streets revolution. We witness happenings that relate to the criminal underworld, academia, workers and demons, refugees and outsiders, forgotten gods, and magical artefacts from a wide range of perspectives. Ilmar is the novel’s main character though, and this includes distinct and atmospheric areas such as The Reproach, The Hammer Districts, and The Anchorage. I found The Reproach to be a haunting and intensely interesting part of the city and I adored my time reading about that area and its inhabitants most of all.

Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Tchaikovsky (Children of Time) wows with this inventive and empathetic story of courage, science, and magic. Though Lynesse is the mere Fourth Daughter of the Continue reading » Picture a city under occupation and on the verge of revolution. Imagine the streets teeming with discontent and bubbling with anger. Delve into each shadowed alcove and underground lair to discern who will light the first match and set fire to the masses, urging them to overrule the Palleseen regime. Body Surf: The reason why no-one ever kills an Indweller. The other Indwellers will demand compensation through someone else, preferably the slain Indweller's killer, wearing the dead Indweller's mask, which causes the Indweller's spirit to possess the new body.This is an epic drimdark fantasy from Adrian Tchaikovsky, currently a standalone. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for March 2023 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group. The book is already on the longlist of BSFA and possibly will be nominated for other awards in 2023.

Ilmar is vividly alive with ideas, conflicts, and a sense of its own history – a truly breathtaking fantasy city, down every street a compelling story.' David Towsey But never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse. This is also true of the WWI-esque hellscape of a world that Hellgram comes from, where "the Great War" has entirely subsumed all of society. They’re nothing but hollow men. They believe in nothing, they fight for nothing. Their whole perfection is a nothing! If we show them that we will not be erased, I KNOW that they will break. The Turncoats will cast off their uniforms. The people, the Armigers, all the birds, maestro! All of them. But it has to start somewhere. Someone has got to tell them NO, while there still IS someone. Or else we’re less and less until we’re gone!” Ahoy there mateys! I enjoyed this novel even if I have no idea what the point of it was. The story takes place in a city called Ilmar otherwise known as The City of Last Chances. It is a city in turmoil. Foreign occupiers with the goal of "Perfection" are in control everywhere except the Anchorwood. This wood has a door that opens up to other dimensions? I am not sure how or why it works. There are resistance factions in Ilmar but none work together.

Featured Reviews

Tchaikovsky (Elder Race) takes a sharp look in this twisty social satire at a world in which, due to genetic modification, the 1%, now called ogres, literally tower over the 99%. At over six Continue reading » My single issue with City of Last Chances was, as noted in the intro above, my inability to really connect with the characters beyond one or two. Don’t get me wrong; they were all interesting. Rich, complex, well-characterized. But something — possibly the number of them, possibly the structure which had me shifting from one to the other, maybe their own often guarded nature — created a sense of distance. The exception for me was Yasnic, who won me over pretty immediately and for whom I had a soft spot all the way through to the end. A thank you to Cassie Waters from Head of Zeus for inviting us aboard the book tour for The City of Lost Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky. While she kindly provided an arc of the title, this review and my thoughts are my own.