City of Last Chances (The Tyrant Philosophers)

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The hemp,” [he] growled. “The roughest hog-bristle hemp you have. But I will have the shave. Let my corpse show the rope burn.” 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. The Siblingries, factory workers who banded together first to resist the power of the Armiger factory owners. The Man They Couldn't Hang: By the end of the book, Ruslav, Lemya, Yasnic, Ivarn, and several other characters count as this. Ivarn even counts twice-over. A wonderful twisty stew of a book with a cast of fascinating characters, set against the brilliantly realized city of Ilmar.' Django Wexler

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. 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. Les Collaborateurs: Ilmari who join the Palleseen aren't uncommon, and can distinguished by their uniforms in a lighter shade of grey. The resistance groups hate them, and the Palleseen use them as Cannon Fodder. This is also true of the WWI-esque hellscape of a world that Hellgram comes from, where "the Great War" has entirely subsumed all of society. Indeed, while the world may be richly unique in its aspect, there’s also a joyous familiarity in the smartly exercised plot devices. There’s a Macguffin, a collection of unlikely heroes and a totalitarian state. All of which set the scene for a good solid dose of SFF.

Hot as Hell: The circle houses are Allorwen brothels specializing in this; their human workers are able to summon demons who customers can sleep with.

It took me a little while to wrap my head and heart around the happenings in this one. It’s odd and weird and a bit warped, and full of strange and often unlikable characters inhabiting a strange and decidedly unpleasant city that is teetering on the verge of major unrest, waiting for a tiny spark - a McGuffin, really - to set off a chain of disasters. There’s magic - it’s fantasy after all - but really it’s more of a veneer for the social divisions and bureaucratic oppression musings, and the city and tone at times reminded me of China Miéville minus the overuse of thesaurus. The city of Ilmar may be not as strange and beautifully ugly as Miéville’s New Crobuzon, but it’s decidedly unpleasant in a oddly fascinating way. Picture a city under occupation and on the verge of revolution. Imagine the streets teeming with discontent and bubbling with anger. Delve into each shadowed alcove and underground lair to discern who will light the first match and set fire to the masses, urging them to overrule the Palleseen regime.Eldritch Location: The Anchorwood definitely counts, being a Portal Crossroad World filled with bizarre armored fish-headed monsters who eat anyone who enters with a protective "passport".

Fundamentally, that's what it is. An account of a stunningly wide variety of people's experiences in a city under occupation. And the differences of that experience... how one fact of existence can shatter and refract and become a hundred different perspectives on the same set of events, a thousand different responses. Langrice; the owner of a inn called the Anchorage, which doubles as a gambling den, a safehouse and a neutral zone within the city. She knows many people and keeps many secrets. Gambit Pileup: After the death of Sage-Archivist Ochelby, every faction in the city tries to take advantage of the situation, try to hunt down their rivals, or uncover who stole the Archivist's priceless, protective Anchorwood charm. This eventually culminates in the Spark of the Rebellion. The Empire: The Palleseen Sway is a vast colonial empire, stretching over at least four countries (the Pallesand Archipelago, Allorwen, Telmark, and Nihilostes' homeland), and is the method by which the Palleseen seek to perfect the world by extinguishing religion, magic, and the cultures and languages of conquered peoples.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.