City of Last Chances is the first book in Adrian Tchaikovsky‘s Tyrant Philosophers series, and was my first exposure to Tchaikovsky as an author. It is also the novel which prompted me to explore the rest of the series, and more of his works, and more of his ideas and thoughts on writing, and thus ultimately to the suggestion he made on Bluesky and elsewhere, that there was a small niche of similarly concerned works within Speculative Fiction for which City of Last Chances is an exemplar, and which he came to label Fantastical Realism.
I have discussed here on this blog (and over on Bluesky) how my reading in recent months was shaped by exploring this suggested sub-sub-genre and the various examples Tchaikovsky gave in defining/describing it, and in coming weeks I’ll add more reviews of those knowledge, but the best place to start is right here where the whole project was inspired, on the gritty streets of Ilmar, the eponymous city, and among the various bureaucrats, soldiers, monks, demons, patriots, professors, conjurers, thieves and priests who inhabit those streets.
The spoiler-free review here is probably apparent in that it inspired a whole reading journey. This is right up my alley, and will likely be up your alley too, if your alley twists through semi-industrialised factories, crowded with magicians and mystics and thieves and beggars, with gods and ghosts hiding in the gutters.
Ilmar is a complex blend of magic and myth, politics and power, theology and technology. The city has been recently defeated/colonised/invaded by the powerful Palleseen, an empire which is motivated by the pursuit of ‘perfection’, and whose manner of that pursuit is the rigorous application of rules which dictate every aspect of daily life for the Ilmar residents. Among those residents are a formerly-ruling aristocracy clinging onto ceremonial and symbolic power by collaborating with the Palleseen; the collectivist labour movements of ‘Siblingries’ of workers who toil in the factories of the city; the students and lecturers of the ‘Gownhall’ who are trying to maintain their political and academic independence; the Allorwen refugees whose way of life was marginalised and mistrusted even before the arrival of this new colonial power; the organised criminal syndicates that control the underworld parts of the city which other powers cannot reach; and the last dregs of the beleagured and outlawed religions which were once dominant but have now been largely crushed in the name of ‘Perfection’. Perhaps most-strange of all, a grove of trees still standing in an ancient wood, the ‘Anchorwood’, within which will intermittently open a portal to other worlds, and by this grove a tavern, staffed by those who can facilitate travel and trade through this portal… for the right price.
Tcahikovsky gives us perspective characters from each of these groups, and often multiple charatcers within a group so that the internal divisions and disputes are revealed. It’s a complicated cast, and sometimes a complicated task for the reader to make sense of each perspective, especially when the same event is viewed so differently by different parties, but this complexity is a strength of the novel. It allows Tcahikovsky to gives us a detailed and thorough overview of the society in which these characters operate, along with an intimate and personal view of their challenges and troubles.
While there is no real protagonist, per se, it was Yasnic who remained the most central figure in my understanding of events. The last priest of a very minor God of healing (so minor that he has no other name than God), Yasnic is trapped in a very personal relationship with his cantakerous and demanding deity. Yasnic is not a figure of great power or influence, often not even a figure of significance, but he is a sympathetic character, a well-meaning man burdened by his oaths and obligations, and yet unable to set them aside. He provides a moral centre to the novel (albeit a resolutely deontological one), and because he moves through the city in a way that a more prominent or more public figure cannot, he becomes a narrative unifier, interacting with other characters in oblique ways and tying various narrative strands together, allowing the reader to gather the intricately knotted stories, untangle them slowly and weave them into something larger.
It is a character-driven novel, and it is in those characters that its greatest strengths are clear, but it is well crafted in many other ways as well. The writing is highly engaging, with some memorable quotes and phrases. The plot moves along at a good pace, rarely sagging, rarely rushed, some twists-and-turns which are to various degrees unpredictable. The mysteries presented are strange and intriguing and reach satisfying revelations. The world-building is careful and considered and highly detailed, both fantastical and plausible, filled with both novel imaginative wonders and familiar themes. The stakes ratchet up, actions have consequences, petty motivations derail grand plans, people’s faults and foibles can harm themselves and those around them even when motives are pure. Motives are not always pure.
With such a large cast and with so many plots and sub-plots running simultaneously you do sometimes find yourself in the view of one character when you’re keen to find out how another is progressing. The novel has a lot to say and each character provides us with a lens through which to examine some weighty themes: the brutality of colonial oppression, the resistance of the oppressed, the limits of unification in a hierarchical labour force, the effects of lost faith, the relentlessness of obligation, the costs of our commitments, the ways in which we are able to convince ourselves to do the things we feel we must do, the reasons we provide to ourselves when we are unable to do the things we cannot.
As more and more peices are added to the board, and as their connections complexify, and as each characters personal motivations come increasingly into conflict with others, it seems that it will be a difficult task to bring all of the ambitious threads together for the conclusion, it is finely done and Tchaikovsky sticks the landing.
So 5 Stars, from me.
I would highly recommend this novel, especially to any reader who enjoyed Mieville’s ‘Perdido Street Station’ or similar ‘New Weird’, or the kind of Fantasy which of more about an early-industrial era rather than the medieval, perhaps something like Abercrombie’s ‘Age of Madness’ series, or to those readers who are as interested in the political machinations of Fantasy worlds as they are in the magic and mythology of them.
J M Melican 