TBR Review: City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Description

Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller Adrian Tchaikovsky’s triumphant return to fantasy with a darkly inventive portrait of a city under occupation and on the verge of revolution.

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.

What will be the spark that lights the conflagration?

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.

Ilmar, some say, is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places.

Ilmar, City of Long Shadows.

City of Bad Decisions.

City of Last Chances.

My Review

I’ve had this book for a while, I have the Goldsboro Books special edition, a paperback and the audiobook. I need to get The House of Open Wounds in paperback so I can read it. I have it as audiobook too, but I read faster than the audiobook. The third book is due out soon, I’ve ordered it from Goldsboro Books to complete my collection.

The Palleseen is an empire that wants to be perfect, and enforce its perfection on the rest of the world. This novel interrogates the nature of empire and the stories empires tell themselves to justify their actions. It also interrogates the history of revolutions. There are many groups wanting revolution, but only on their own terms. The upper classes are never going to bring the revolution if they’re comfortable in the current order and if they’re not going to be on top in the new order.

The author was at FantasyCon this weekend, and I went to one of the panels he was on, about science fantasy. I would describe this book as very much science fantasy. There is a balance of science and magic, and the science could be magic, and the magic science depending on where you’re standing.

The world is fully developed and the characters are complex. They’re visionaries, venal, full of fire and anger. The added intrigue of the people from the woods and the Reproach brings a mythical feeling to parts of the novel, which contrasts with the story of the industrial strikes in industries powered by demons.

I enjoyed this novel and am really looking forward to getting my teeth into the next book. Sorry I’m not being as verbose as I usually am, but I’m recovering from the Thursday to Monday fiesta that is FantasyCon, I’m exhausted, and I have two more books to review yet.

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