City of Last Chances (The Tyrant Philosophers)

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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 Oppression. Political intrigue. Colonization. Religion. Poverty. Bigotry. Magic. Demons. Worker's rights. Crime. Revolution. Wrongful incarceration. These are all a part of this story by Adrian Tchaikovsky. 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. Carelia and Evene; the duo known as the Bitter Sisters. They lead one of the largest criminal organisations in Ilmar; the Vultures. Every scene they were in was full of menace and tension. There are two superbly unique regions of the city that really help emphasise the story’s themes of colonisation and cultural decay, that being the Anchorwood and the Reproach.

City of Last Chances really feels like a snapshot of a city. A guided glimpse at a world on the precipice of change, where the beauty of the story is in the slow and gentle unfolding of how the unrelated combine, rather than a race to the plot line. 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. But the old ways and beliefs have a habit of perpetuating and there’s an ancient power to those customs that the Pallssen covet, as they do all power.An interesting political fantasy about an occupied city on the cusp of rebellion. Like usual, Tchaikovsky employs excellent and unique world-building and a varied cast of characters that gives the reader a lot of different perspectives from which to view the conflicts throughout the story. There's a good mix of action and intrigue, and the fantasy elements add a extra dash of mystery that keep you guessing about what's going to happen next. Langrice: owner/barkeep of the Anchorage, the tavern with some sort of connection to the Anchorwood Hellgram: the bouncer at the Anchorage, a magic-user, and a foreigner come via the Anchorwood accidentally Fundamentally, that's what it is. An account of a stunningly wide variety of people's experiences in a city under occupation. And the differences of that experience... how one fact of existence can shatter and refract and become a hundred different perspectives on the same set of events, a thousand different responses. And because he is far from the only person fulfilling a role like that, and there are a lot of factions and contexts within Ilmar to be explored, this early phase of circling slowly round and round to gather all the points of view is necessarily a slow one. It is interesting, it is clearly beautifully thought out, but it is not always engaging in the way a driving narrative might be.

Magic Knight: Possibly more of a Magic WWI Soldier, but Hellgram employs both a conjured sword and spellcasting alongside his physical strength, a combination that makes him the best human(oid) fighter in Ilmar. Yasnic; a beggar priest of a dying religion. He is the last believer in a God that appears only to the faithful. The God in question is a withered little gnome of a deity that is constantly demanding alms of his only remaining priest. RUSLAV (Ruslav in Love Again, Ruslav's Master's Voice, Jem's Reasons for Leaving, Hospitality of the Varatsins, Ruslav in the Teeth, Nihilostes Loses A Convert, Chains, Price of Rope, Wings, The Bitter Sisters, The Dousing, Resurrections, Another Round). 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.I always enjoy reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's books and was so happy that he wrote another fantasy novel. This had what I was hoping for from previous books by Mr. Tchaikovsky's. I was invested in the world and the characters that lived in this. It was really well done and I'm so glad I was able to read this.

Yes, I know that what I'm describing is just a multi-POV novel. However, it really does feel like each chapter is a short story, and I think that's the correct expectation to have. If you're expecting a novel, you're probably going to be disappointed. If you're expecting a collecting of highly interconnected short stories, you might just have a great time.) This is a demanding novel, one that rewarded me with some of the most beautiful scenes I've read, but in the end left me exhausted, though still pretty satisfied. Fantasy Gun Control: Played straight despite Ilmar being in a fantasy version of the Industrial Revolution. Instead of guns, the most common ranged weapon are Palleseen batons-voice-activated wooden rods that use pure magic as fuel, and shoot out streams of burning hot magical force.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. A video review including this book will appear on my channel in the coming weeks, at https://youtube.com/chloefrizzle I’m rating City of Last Chances 6/10 as it features moments of Tchaikovsky‘s brilliance but was hard work in places too. That being said, it was a unique reading experience that I would recommend mostly because I’d be interested to see what other people think of this intriguing book. I’d especially recommend City of Last Chances to readers who enjoyed the sweeping scale, industry, revolution and political turmoil of Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness. City Of Last Chances sits very well within its fantasy lane, and although there is magic, mysticism and machinations to explore, Tchaikovsky elects instead to use these as a platform to deliver symbolic tales of rebellion and dissent, that celebrate the unexpected delights of collaboration without conformity. This well-wrought second installment in Tchaikovsky’s Echoes of the Fall epic fantasy series (after The Tiger and the Wolf) focuses on two major threats to the realistically magical world Continue reading »

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 structure does a great job of introducing you to a character before you read a chapter from their perspective - this gives you a foundation to work off based on the opinion and biases of the character interaction you met them through. It’s really quite delicately done and it was a pleasure to see who’s perspective we were going to get next, as well as what we would learn from them about current events or the world outside of Ilmar. Overall the worldbuilding in this book is exactly what I’d expect from Tchaikovsky, weird, filled with unique monsters and riddled with philosophical ideas. Those aspects I did thoroughly enjoy.