City of Last Chances (The Tyrant Philosophers)

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There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, 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. The novel is set in the titular city of Ilmar, suffering under the heavy boot of an occupation force left over from the city’s conquest three years earlier by the Palleseen, a people who seek “perfection” in themselves and others via “correct principles of law and thought.” While the city seems stable on the surface, it seethes with anger, resentment, greed, and ambition as various factions have their own view of what resistance looks like and who should lead any eventual rebellion should one occur, as well as who should benefit from it. These factions are not new-born from the conquest, but are long-standing opposed forces in the city: the criminal underworld, who have found little difference in the scorn with which they are treated by the overthrown duke and his aristocracy or the victorious Palleseen; the Armigers, the old families more concerned with a return to power rather than a return to independence; and the Siblingries, the factory workers who toil for the conquerors as they did for the upper classes before and feel oppressed by both. In the mix are the idealistic students of Gownhall University; the Allorwen, a downtrodden and mistrusted group of refugees from a land conquered earlier by the Palleseen; and most mysterious of all, the Indwellers, the enigmatic people who control the ways in and out of the Anchorwood, an ancient grove that acts as a portal through to other worlds for those who can pay the price of safe transport.

What you do get though, is to know a city and a set of characters that all feel – despite the fantastic setting – entirely human, and very real. The author describes in one chapter a set of paintings – small canvases, but epic scenes, with a knight dwarfed by darkness and yet resolute in his determination to face it down. His own words captured the feeling of this book best for me. I really loved it, thought it was executed so cleverly, and will be thinking about it for a long time yet. I was super excited to read this book after reading that amazing synopsis, I mean this sounded like a book that would be right up my alley. Portals to different worlds, a tyrannical regime and occupying force, a dark and magical setting, all of the things that I really enjoy in a fantasy read to be honest. And to top it off, one of my favorite authors as the writer of the story? Yes, you could say I was pretty excited to sit down with this book. 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. That’s just a very small flavour of everything Tchaikovsky has crammed into the story. There’s so much about Ilmar to discover and every single section of the city we explore is as captivating as the last.Portal Crossroad World: The Anchorwood becomes one on nights when the moon is full. Travelling through it is extremely dangerous due to the monsters that live there, so unless you're an extremely capable fighter (such as Hellgram), a traveler will need powerful, rare protective charms to pass through. City of Last Chances is a magnificent tale of life and revolution in the darkly magical City of Ilmar, told through fragmentary perspectives of its diverse residents and a seemingly omniscient view of concurrent, related events in the City. Tchaikovsky’s writing is clear and concise while painting an evocative atmosphere of grit, dread, and wonder — one of the book’s primary strengths. City of Last Chances was pretty good. Though I didn't like it nearly as much as his "Apt" series. The concept is cool- Ilmar is a complex city. Recently counquered by the Palaseen Empire, it faces turmoil from within and without. Multiple factions are involved. Mind Virus: The Reproach's curse is a fantasy version of this. Someone afflicted by the curse begins to believe themselves to be a member of the old Varatsin ducal court, hallucinates the Reproach as it was during Ilmar's medieval period, and tries to draw the uninfected into the curse by calling them ancient titles. Up till the very end, I had no idea how this was all going to wrap up, but when I had completed the last chapter, I felt very satisfied. The unpredictable nature of the City and the vast array of characters meant that there were so many directions the story could have taken, but Tchaikovsky balanced endings for all fittingly, bringing disparate elements into relevance and throwing some unexpected surprises in for good measure.

I loved the world-building of this city, but I expected that: I read a review that compared it to New Crobuzon in the China Mieville novels and that obviously got my attention, as that fictional city haunts my dreams. The concept of the Reproach is fantastic! I also loved the multiple characters and their perspective on the events and their unfolding. Event never happen to just one person, and this multiple POV approach made the story rich and nuanced. From the idealist student, priest going through a crisis, mercenaries and factory works, you get a rich picture of a city on the brink of civil unrest. I would recommend this to anyone who is willing to take his/her time and absorb this slowly. If I had been prepared for this kind of read I would have probably rated it higher. These two areas had me fascinated the entire time, and complemented the rest of the city and the story taking place within it so so well. Weird Trade Union: Although the Siblingries mostly function like normal unions, the fact that the factories they work in are mostly driven by demons means that they include hellieurs-sorcerers specializing in making contracts with demons-in their ranks. Creepy Centipedes: The Bitter Sisters use a giant one in their base to dispose of people they want to make an example of.

The people in question, the characters and perspectives, are what this book leans on most heavily. The cast is fantastic, and the way Tchaikovsky paints the picture of the city by weaving these characters and their experiences together is an absolute work of art. YASNIC (Yasnic's Relationship With God, Nihilostes Loses A Convert, Conservations About God, Price of Rope, Drinking Alone, The Apostate, Port to Nowhere, Another Round). The Dragon: While Sage-Invigilator Culvern is the most powerful Palleseen official in Ilmar, he spends most of his time suffering the effects of his curse, leaving Fellow-Inquirer Hegelsy to be the main face of the Palleseen occupation.

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. Despite the city's refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood – that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and distant shores.

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. State Sec: The School of Correct Speech serves as this for the Palleseen occupation, charged with the prosecution of magicians and religious figures, torturing captives and rooting out rebel cells. Accordingly, they are possibly the Palleseen School least-liked by the Ilmari, and even the other departments of the Pals dislike them for their power and ruthless enforcement of doctrine.

Not that there wasn’t a part of him that wouldn’t have shaken that demon’s taloned hand like a brother, but that would have been a step too far. And so he watched the beast being enslaved to them ills again and knew that even as he fought every day for a better life for his people, he was a collaborator in a larger war. And he hated it. Big Damn Heroes: Led by Shantrov, the insanity-inducing, hallucinatory forces of the Reproach are what save the refugees from the Gownhall from being arrested by the Palleseen forces set to guard the Anchorwood and Anchorage. I felt like there was much more story that could be told by the time I finished, but also felt that the ending was satisfying,Unfortunately I also had some issues with this book. For starters, especially the first 40%, is really slow. And that slow pace, combined with the dense prose made it a struggle for me to get through it.