City of Last Chances (The Tyrant Philosophers)

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The titular City of Last Chances is the city of Ilmar, a disparate and dangerous place where the local population are occupied by the Pallseen, a nation of serial invaders intent on unifying the world into conformity by insidiously replacing language and customs, and eradicating the history and culture of each land that they touch. 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). 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. 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. The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Most of the city's resistance factions are willing to get their hands as dirty as the Pals' are to free their city and make sure that they get to be on top instead of the other resistance groups when the city is free. This attitude is best exemplified by the murdering, terroristic Shrikes and the brutal, criminal Vultures.

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. The Anchorwood is a grove of trees at the heart of the Ilmar that pre-dates the city itself. This grove of trees is, at the right time, a magical door to a distant (and still relatively unknown) land that can only be reached with the help of protective magical artefacts and a native guide from the mysterious world on other side.

Creepy Centipedes: The Bitter Sisters use a giant one in their base to dispose of people they want to make an example of. A video review including this book will appear on my channel in the coming weeks, at https://youtube.com/chloefrizzle This book was one I had ridiculously high hopes for and may have had my expectations too highly placed. I remained impressed by the rich world that was developed and intrigued by the criminal workings, elite rule, and struggling masses within it. I did, however, feel a little distanced from many of the principal characters, for some reason, bonding more with their many plights than with their individual personalities. This did not ruin my overall enjoyment but I merely found it to be unlike the book I had predicted I would read. 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. Unfortunately, the City of Last Chances didn’t captivate me. It’s a sophisticated novel with many characters, a dense writing style, and complex intrigue. I found it difficult to immerse myself in the story or sympathize with its numerous protagonists. Things do fall into place at the end, but I had to force myself to read the book. And that's never a good sign.

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. Hoyst; the Palleseen hangman. A secondary character, one we only see a couple of times, but one of the best in my opinion. He sells to those that are deemed criminals a personalised noose, and shaves them to their preference before they swing. 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. But don’t expect your usual heroes and heroics. Those don’t pay off. It’s a place for those who work for self-interest, and all we can hope is that at some point it may align with what may be the lesser of evils. And don’t expect hand-holding and exposition - you are in the middle of it all, and Tchaikovsky expects you to figure it all out, and with a bit of an effort you certainly can, and enjoy it, too.His characters are mostly well fleshed out and interesting, and that was not easy I guess, considering there is a myriad of them. A major reason for this has to be the worldbuilding that Tchaikovsky always excels at. The City of Ilmar, City of Last Chances, is a melting pot of cultures and unique settings — the Allorwen with their specialization in demonic contracts, the Divinati mages, the masked and mysterious Indwellers, and the various local factions of Ravens, Vultures, and Shrikes. The Anchorwood, a normal grove for most of the month, serves as a dangerous pathway to countless other worlds during the full moon, and the Reproach is a dilapidated neighbourhood under a curse of grotesque bliss and horrific memories. The scenes where certain characters attempt to traverse the Reproach are easily among my favourite parts of this book. For some reason it often takes me much longer to love Adrian Tchaikovsky’s fantasy offerings even though I tend to have love-at-first-sight affairs with his science fiction.

That being said, I followed the tale with some decent interest and appreciated the layered approach to the city's ongoing history. Approximately every 8-10 chapters, there is a Mosaic chapter, which I would describe as a city-eyed view of happenings: summarising what is taking place throughout many areas of the city at the given time. As City of Last Chances progresses, we're updated regarding the potential revolution that is stirring underneath the surface: who will light the fuse, will the Palleseen military be prepared, what will the consequences be and what part will the supernatural elements of the city play? Dirty Coward: For all his talk of Ilmari history and freedom, Ivarn Ostragar turns out to be one, and as soon as his life and position are threatened by an actual revolt he tries to flee the city.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. 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. 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. 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.

When the second-most important Palleseen official in the city is killed while acting as an ambassador to the Wood, his protective charms stolen, the consequences ripple to every part of Ilmar, sparking a series of events that could lead to the city’s liberation, or to its destruction. Overall, this was enjoyable, but not Tchaikovsky’s best. I want to compare it to the Mel Brooks film *History of the World, Part I*, for two reasons. First is that this book is far from Tchaikovsky’s best, but “Tchaikovsky’s best” is a high enough standard that this book is still much better than average. Second, this book didn’t really mesh into a coherent whole for me. I feel like Tchaikovsky had a variety of cool ideas that he’d come up with over the years and never gotten to use, and threw them together here to try to make them work. It’s still a good book, just a little discordant. 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!” 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.If you have yet to try his works, City of Last Chances showcases his abilities incredibly well. From his prose and his wit to the sheer creativity of his worlds and characters, there is so much to marvel at here and I enjoyed it immensely. 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. 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. Inn Between the Worlds: The Anchorage is a variation; it isn't located between worlds physically, but socially. The building isn't considered a real part of Ilmar by the city's citizens, and the Anchorage's keeper acts as an ambassador to the Indwellers, which gives it a strong liminal quality.