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. I’m not sure what else to say. It’s an interesting book, unlike most fantasy being published these days. It's ambitious and intelligent. On the other hand, it’s also dense and difficult to get into, and I’m not sure if the effort to get through it is fully justified (deeply subjective). 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,

Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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This book, like all his work, is a rare find. An unpredictable, superb story set in a world that’s equally so. The characters both mesh into a truly strange setting and get feel real, with a stellar performance from the VA. The Herons, river smugglers who bring weapons into the city from the surrounding country, and who get refugees out. Arthur C. Clarke Award–winner Tchaikovsky (Children of Ruin) transports readers to a bleak dystopia in this powerful story of class conflict and climate crisis. In the not too distant Continue reading » 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.

Tchaikovsky's prose is a thing of beauty. It's dense but managed to transport me in the setting. The action scenes, the magical horror scenes and the richness of the inhabitants of this world left me many times in awe. He's clearly an author with a very rich imagination and very talented with words. Structure is not often the thing that I highlight when discussing fantasy novels, but Tchaikovsky has created a genuinely different take than I have read before. The book starts with a few characters being introduced, but then you start to realise that the chapters keep moving on to new people. We are told the story of Ilmar, not from the perspective of the individual, but the city as a whole. It is like Tchaikovsky has a beam that focuses on one person and then leaps across the city to another, always moving on to the next location with each new chapter. This whole story takes place in a city called Ilmar, otherwise known as the “City of Last Chances”. Ilmar is in the process of being colonised and occupied by a invading peoples known as the Palleseen. 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).We can’t bring perfection to the world without the threat of force. We can’t rely on the threat of force unless they know we will follow up on it.” The Palleseen Sway - their term for the grand outreach effort that had conquered Allor and Telmark and other lands besides - was always expressed as a great service to the world. A world bitterly at odds with itself, beset by superstition and ignorance, divided in countless ways: language, currency, laws, understanding. The Temporary Commission of Ends and Means, having brought perfection to their own islands, understood that their achievements could not stand so long as a tide of foreign chaos lapped against their shores. They had a duty. A crusade. They could perfect the world and improve the lives of all. 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. Tchaikovsky explores themes of oppression and revolution through characters at various levels of social hierarchy on multiple sides of the conflict. The impulsive passion and heart of youth in their idealized yet privileged shouts for freedom they have only a vague notion of, the cynical resignation of older figures who only talk of uprising but make do with unfair compromise, self-styled rebels who try to profit from the fighting. Caught up in all this are the people at the bottom of the pyramid who suffer either way, factory workers and demon slaves. There is even a perspective from a lowly demon from the Underworld, among my favourite chapters.

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.If you are in the market for a superbly written, complex and intricately woven standalone fantasy, with a large cast of stand-out characters, world-building that is metered out at a brilliant pace and a plot that will keep you effortlessly intrigued throughout, then this will be one to read. Ilmar is, as well as being a melting pot of different nationalities, as well as suffering under the yoke of occupation, a city that has recently undergone something of an industrial revolution. Some of the immigrants have brought with them the technology of... demons. How to raise them, bind them in contracts, and have them do large scale drudge work at a pace and capacity humans can't match. And so the demons power factories, and people who worked on farms a generation before now risk limbs in the demon-run mills instead. The analogy to the industrial revolution isn't subtle here, but it doesn't have to be - it's setting the scene for a city undergoing abrupt and dramatic change. But with demons. Because why not? Never Mess with Granny: A twofer. The Bitter Sisters might be older women, but they are absolutely terrifying in their positions as heads of the Vultures. When the rebellion begins, they even put on armor and carry weapons.

HELLGRAM (Jem's Reasons for Leaving, The Hospitality of the Varatsins, Ruslav in the Teeth, Breaking Things, Hellgram's War, Unity and Division, Resurrections). 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. It’s not a place to see through any kind of rosy shades. It touches on colonialism and oppression, exploitation and subjugation, naive youthful fervor and cynical calculated greed. It won’t give you the well-deserved feel-good moments of triumph of the good and comeuppance for the bad, or the bright future following some glorious Revolution. Tchaikovsky seems more of a realist than an optimist here, although there is a bit of dark humor at times. 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.

Read City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I pretty much love anything Tchaikovsky writes and quality-wise this was no different. Thematically however, this was probably the least up my alley out of anything I’ve read by him, which dampened my enjoyment.