City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world. As their legions scour the world of superstition with the bright flame of reason, so they deliver a mountain of ragged, holed and scorched flesh to the field hospital tents just behind the frontline.
Which is where Yasnic, one-time priest, healer and rebel, finds himself. Reprieved from the gallows and sent to war clutching a box of orphan Gods, he has been sequestered to a particularity unorthodox medical unit.
Led by ‘the Butcher’, an ogre of a man who’s a dab hand with a bone-saw and an alchemical tincture, the unit’s motley crew of conscripts, healers and orderlies are no strangers to the horrors of war. Their’s is an unspeakable trade: elbow-deep in gore they have a first-hand view of the suffering caused by flesh-rending monsters, arcane magical weaponry and embittered enemy soldiers.
Entrusted – for now – with saving lives deemed otherwise un-saveable, the field hospital’s crew face a precarious existence. Their work with unapproved magic, necromancy, demonology and Yansic’s thoroughly illicit Gods could lead to the unit being disbanded, arrested or worse.
Beset by enemies within and without, the last thing anyone needs is a miracle.
My Review
I immediately started listening to House of Open Wounds after finishing City of Last Chances, and am now impatiently awaiting the release of Days of Shattered Faith. Where book one does and industrial fantasy take on the revolts and rebellions of the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, book two takes us to the battlefield hospital, a la M.A.S.H., with outlaw priests and tortured souls performing miracles to save the lives of their conquerors.
We follow Yasnic who has become a smuggler of gods and his punishment for rebellion against perfection is to work in a field hospital, patching up Pall soldiers along with a crew of outcasts, led by a poisoner and a necromancer. It’s a bit bewildering for the priest, who is and isn’t a priest. He’s in an on and off relationship with his god. He falls in love with a daemon and discovers one of his colleagues is a king. It’s quite harrowing, especially when his god starts healing soldiers.
Who can no longer fight. This sedition spreads through the army as people discover that actually they quite like not dying horribly in battle. It causes a bit of a stir.
Other stuff happens, but you’ll have to read the book for yourself.
I enjoyed the development of Yasnic’s character and his relationship with his god. It’s complicated and he goes through a lot of emotions as he trues to break away. Like anyone, or any society, moving away from religious belief, he realises he depended on his god for companionship and that the relationship is abusive and co-dependant, and finally breaks free, although longing for the simplicity of his previous life. It’s subtly done and though provoking.
The language is evocative and highly descriptive. I love the change of perspective between characters, seeing events from different sides, although we mainly follow Yasnic. We get a glimpse of the complex histories and societies of the world, and the inherent hypocrisy of ‘perfection’ and imperialism is cleverly explored. The lies of imperialism are skewered nicely.
The magico-scientific basis of religion and technology is consistent, although different cultures and traditions manipulate the same forces in their own ways, and have their own explanations. I quite enjoyed the way Tchaikovsky uses the use and abuse of Divinati magic to point out the complications of trying to force one system into working within another, and the loss of context and safe guards that go with it. It is particularly resonant as I was also listening to a book about indigeneity in North America and the cultural of indigenous practices and their co-option by non-indigenous Americans. If you take the practices of of their context, then the power of the practice is removed or even corrupted (think wellness wankers using sweat lodges and killing people).
Tchaikovsky always has a point to his work, or at least I can always glean a theme and lessons in reading his books. That may just be a me thing, but even so, I end up thinking.
This book is the second in the series and I think it could happily stand alone, as you get enough background for the characters and the world in reading it, but reading in order helps to put some events in context and in the wider world.
Excellent narration. Love the accents.
Another fantastic book from Adrian, highly recommended.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 