I'm a big Adrian Tchaikovsky fan, so I'm always excited when he has a new book. This one did not disappoint. One Day All This Will Be Yours is a sardonic take on time travel. It was complex and wonderful. The humor is absurd and I loved it. Tchaikovsky's brain is really next level--definitely recommend this one!

Synopsis: The unnamed narrator is the last time soldier, surviving the War To End All Wars, and the end of causality. He created a kind of bottleneck at the end of times where everyone who wants to time travel to the future has to pass through. There, the narrator holds his grounds and kills off the trespassers, no matter if they come from the steamage, from ancient Greece, or newer times. His motivation for this is that there he wants to prevent another time war. After having killed other time travellers with his superior technology, he uses his own time machine, travels back to the deceased one’s time, and corrects everything there so that nothing can come up from there anymore.

The personal downside for him is that he is a single, won’t ever produce offspring.

He’s dumbfounded when a pair of humans arrive at his planet and call him Grandpa. Even more astonished, he finds out that his future-to-be-love-interest is quite different than expected.

Review: With this hilarious novella, Tchaikovsky enters Scalzi-territory: Grand schemes waved away with a half-sentence, comical scenes, flippant tone of the grumpy, mysanthropic narrator.

The last couple of books I wondered if Tchaikovsky will go into a repetitive production cycle, or find back to his creative mood again. What a joy that he’s back again.

There is also an interesting romance in it, because the narrator’s relationship with his future wife is the exact opposite of romantic. The narrator wanted to fall into his arrogant trap that he will win against everyone, just because he can. But Tchaikovsky resists the easy way out and gives him an equal opponent.

Just don’t expect a Hard SF explanation of the setting or proper analysis of time loops. But if you love cats or dogs, you’ll adore Miffly, the fluffy pet dinosaur.

Recommended for some light, fire-and-forget reading session.

One Day All This Will Be Yours: Signed Limited Edition by Adrian Tchaikovsky | 02 Mar 2021|Rebellion / Solaris

There’s a soldier waiting at the end of time to kill anyone that tries to get past him. Not to protect the timeline, because the Causality War made that idea a non-starter, leaving all of time in disconnected shards. He’s the last time-warrior, having killed off all the others, including numerous versions of himself, and he just wants to keep anyone from starting it all over again. So he keeps a farm, cheerfully greets anyone who shows up in the chronological bottleneck he’s created, kills them, and does whatever he needs to keep them from having ever shown up.

How does that all work? Causality was the first casualty of the war, so don’t worry about it too much.

Then one day someone he didn’t expect shows up, and his mission becomes much much more problematic. Suddenly he’s both the hunter and the hunted, and it’s not just the future of the past that hangs in the balance.

The bad news is that this is being released as a signed limited edition, though it’s also available in audiobook. The good news is that it’s clever, darkly funny, tremendously thought-provoking, and unlike most time travel fiction, ultimately surprising. Of course, it is. It’s by Adrian Tchaikovsky, one of the authors that manage to make science fiction fresh without being stuck in the genre’s past.

The perfect book for the end of times. And it's funny!

The story follows a misanthropic bastard who got so sick and tired of the war, decided to take matter into his own hands, and save the end of times. And he worked hard to make sure it stays that way.

Packaged in a witty, dry and sarcastic narrative voice, the book has the perfect balance between portraying the dread of war, the horror that is time machines, and still keep the humorous undertones throughout the book.

One of the wonderful things about Tchaikovsky’s writing is that when I pick up one of his books, I never quite know what to expect. There is only one other author I can think of who is quite so magnificently versatile – Jo Walton – and she isn’t nearly so prolific.

Even so, this one was a complete surprise – especially the magnificently dark humour. I don’t think I’ve ever read a first-person narrator of Tchaikovsky’s with such a persona, I both loved and loathed our hero’s insouciant bounciness as he works unceasingly to keep a very broken world fixed in his own unique fashion… It would be very easy to drop spoilers here that would blunt the reader’s ability to experience this book as the author intended, so I’m going to do my level best NOT to commit that sin. I was mindful that the blurb didn’t let the cat the out of the bag, so neither shall I.

But I will say that all is not what it first appears to be – I was both captivated and horrified by the unfolding events, which also left my brain aching at times. Timey-whimey stuff happens that has major consequences. But I devoured this compelling read in two sessions and surfaced after that ending, mulling over what I’d read. And wondering what I would do in similar circumstances. Highly recommended for science fiction fans who appreciate something a bit different. While I obtained an arc of One Day All This Will Be Yours from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
8/10

Time Wars – clearly the Stars are no longer enough for us. Science Fiction loves the idea of epic conflict and the idea of Time itself being constantly rewritten opens up many ideas for stories. It’s a cornerstone of the new Doctor Who; comic companies like Marvel and DC have used his for many many many and indeed many reboots; while in fiction everyone from HG Wells to Bradbury and more recently El-Mohtar and Gladstone have explored what this would mean for humanity and now into that conversation Adrian Tchaikovsky in One Day All of This Will Be Yours has delivered a darkly humorous tale that explores the last survivor of the Time War who finds to their alarm that they aren’t the last one standing.

Our unnamed narrator is the survivor of the Causality War – the war that really ended all wars as it ended up breaking the entire space time continuum. After the viciousness of a war that led to constant re-writes of history and counter strikes by time travelling armies our Traveller decided after the last battle that enough was enough. Our Traveller finally found a home in one slice of remaining time to create the Perfect Day, have a farm and take a break from it all. On occasion sampling with the aid of the last remaining time machine any moment of remaining history that appeals be it to get new farm equipment from the Soviet Union or watching a Shakespearean play. The only fly in the ointment the occasional rogue time traveller from another fragment who strays into our Traveller’s land. Our Traveller doesn’t like to share, and this usually leads for the intruder to death by dinosaur and a re-write of history for their particular society to close that avenue of time travel down one highlight making Einstein give it all up for the Patent Office. All is going well until our Traveller is told he is not going to be the last human and instead will be the founder of a brand-new twee society.

If novels like This is How You Lose The Time War are the warm ray of hope then this is the decidedly British dash of cold water to make you shiver but delivered with a cheeky grin. On the face of it our Time Traveller is and they admit it a bit of a bastard. Having had enough of the endless war that has lasted lifetimes and removed their reliable memories of their previous life and family they are fairly ruthless in sharing existence with anyone else who may change what little they now have. But Tchaikovsky cleverly builds a character firstly who you like – they have a dry but wicked sense of humour and as the story progresses, we find out how bad this war was – our lead has some serious PTSD. We end up liking them and indeed when we find out what the Causality War actually involved it may indeed be hard to blame our narrator for a decision to get away from the human race. When potential new humans do arrive, they bring all the baggage of the past with them and does anyone really want to go through that again?

I’ll be vague on the other characters that we meet as that’s very much the fun of the story. But this a novel that does have love, fear, anger and regret in it while laughing in the face of time paradoxes. Tchaikovsky turns the mood on a sixpence so one moment we can be laughing at a Les Misérables time meddling joke and then sit in awe watching the collapse of the time space continuum or stare horror watching the end of the world. Tchaikovsky is using all the standards of time travel stories and there are some easter eggs for seasoned SF fans but even for a general reader there are laughs and thoughts a plenty. How can anyone refuse a tale with a feathered dinosaur called Miffly that eats one of the most evil dictators around?

Although this is a story with some cynicism and anger at the dark side of humanity that loves to destroy things for their own gain there is also a joy in being just human expressed. Putting aside wars for enjoying the experiences that humanity creates; possibly even making a connection with someone without knowing it or a deep-seated urge to stick two fingers up to authority fingers. In other words, this is a tale that manages to be both a lot of fun but also thoughtful and hopeful. Like our Time Traveller get comfy in a chair and have a perfect day reading this with the world outside switched off.

One Day All This Will Be Yours is fun, sprightly paced, and kind of lacking in substance like cotton candy.

It's a first-person story of the last time traveling veteran of a reality warping conflict who discovers that instead of ending history, he's the beginning of a new one. It's an area of science fiction that's been well explored, and although Tchaikovsky doesn't bring much new to the table here, the resulting novella is a good disposable piece of entertainment.

Tchaikovsky excels at engaging the reader with approachable prose, and the plot is well structured. There are moments in which his writing is quotable and intensely enjoyable. But the primary protagonist doesn't seem well fleshed out, and many of the set pieces (such as the future utopian society of his descendants) seem cloying and unconvincing.

If you're a big fan of Tchaikovsky, this is worth a pick-up.

But this book is not as insightful as Tchaikovsky's previous works; not as painfully necessary or as moving as Dogs of War, not as inventive and fresh as Expert System's Brother, and not as clever and empathetic as Doors Of Eden. Given the number of books that Adrian Tchaikovsky publishes in a given year, there's bound to be a few that are weaker than the others.

<i>I have sat in the palaces of the Minoans before the Bronze Age Collapse. I have dined with the egalitarian philosophers of Harappa in the Indus Valley before the world turned and ground them to dust. I have taught whist to Archimedes shortly before a Roman soldier gutted him. Ahd yes, human achievement is a grand and splendid little candle in the great vast night of causality, but there's only so often you can watch it be snuffed out before it's easier to become the snuffer.</i>

It's not an easy thing to be the only survivor of a time war, as our narrator will shortly tell you when reading this book; the novelty of jaunting about in time wears off quickly when all you can do is wait for someone to come along and blow everything up.

Misanthropic? Certainly, but he owns it, and there's a degree of humour that helps to reduce the sting. Miffly is the only exception to his strictly enforced no visitors policy; I can see why, she's instantly endearing. In fact, I liked her more than said narrator, truth be told, even if there's plenty of evidence that he's probably right about humanity. I just prefer a little more light in the dark, as objectively good as this was.

Ahoy there mateys!  Adrian Tchaikovsky's work is always enjoyable so when I saw time travel and dinosaur I said Arrrr!  This was exactly as expected.  It was a quick and humorous read where the mechanics of the time travel made me noggin ache a little but I had a lot of fun.

The grumpy ex-soldier standing at the end of the broken world and broken time is a hoot.  How he spends his time (pun intended hardy har har!) is just delightful.  Sure he is crazy but that be part of the fun.  And the dinosaur is just plain awesome.  It's short at 192 pages but it was silly good.  The plot did bog down just a tad.  But that was very, very minor.  Recommended.

So lastly . . .

Thank ye kindly Rebellion / Solaris!

There is a British sardonic tone which some times filters through in a certain kind of science fiction which owes a fair debt to Douglas Adams but also is just baked into the psyche. Lots a matter-of-factness followed by a distressing aside where you discover that the whole planet is about to be destroyed or all of time is split into discrete broken chunks. The whys and wherefores of the the situation with "broken time" in 'One Day All This Will Be Yours' isn't the point, its just the set-up to provide our colossal scale misanthrope with a situation. He is the last man at the end of time, bubbling himself off from the rest of broken time, acting as an endpoint and ensure no more time travel again (to ensure his own survival). He allows himself the odd jaunt to history, often ancient Greece, to get drunk with others or watch a play, and in possibly the most British line here, an Ice-Cream Sundae in a Reading TGI Friday's (its a fun line, but also the most telling bit of characterisation here that his lead is not in any way a bon vivant).

The novella develops a wrinkle when he discovers that he isn't the end of time, and feels somewhat queasy about potentially being responsible for a remarkably tedious utopia. Again this feels like Tchaikovsky playing a very British card, a distrust of boring utopias. There is a lovely sense here that along with all the murderous fun that comes with a genre savvy audience being a step ahead, that actually turning his time travel fait accompli into a temporal version of Mr & Mrs Smith is a lot more fun the the gotcha aha ending that the scenario sets you up for. Of course this is daft, the book says with a wink, lets have some fun with it.

Tchaikovsky has often been happy to employ his sense of humour, the Dogs Of War books certainly have plenty of humour baked into the character introspection, but One Day All This Will Be Yours feels like more of a flex in that direction. And its a test he passes with flying colours, this is if nothing else, lots of fun. A meta-commentary of time travel sagas without really caring about the mechanics, but also a challenge in writing a sympathetically despicable character. And whilst he was never going to write the most moving time travel romance of the decade, that ship has sailed, it is heartening to find quite how lovely the eventual central relationship becomes. Lots of fun!

[NetGalley ARC]

Following a war fought with time travel that went horrendously wrong, a lone solider sits at the edge of all known time. His job; to make sure no-one gets past this point, with the aim of preserving a future where humans do not make the same mistakes.

This was so bizarre and brilliant. A completely unique take on time-travel, told through a darkly humorous lens. The writing was engaging and fast-paced, with enjoyable and complex characterisation. Very thought-provoking, with interesting commentary on the state of the world and our current trajectory. And let's be real, the real star of the show was the pet allosaurus Miffly.

My very first Tchaikovsky read! I was so excited to get started and found it was a highly original take on the pitstop at the end of the world and time. As long as you don't think too hard about how smart the protagonist could be -- since they put together many of history's megalomaniacs and thought they'd all congeal into an army and fight for him. So, as long as you don't think about that, you'll find this read to be an enjoyable one. It's also not a chunkster, so I doubt you'd even want to put it down before you're done. The parts where the heroine shows up and goes up against the male lead were my favorites, obviously! I would have liked a happier ending, though.

Utterly misanthropic and funny. This feels like the heir of Kurt Vonnegut's <i>Cat's Cradle</i>, a bitter but somehow still life-affirming "postepochalypse." The last "multidimensional time warrior" waits at the end of human history for fellow travelers. He first feeds them to his feathered dinosaur, Miffly, and then goes back to make sure their versions of time machine technology never exists. Earth's history has been irreparably ruined by the Causality Wars, and he's determined to make sure it never happens again. Of course, his own future unexpectedly throws a wrench into his plans....

<spoiler>I will be haunted by the ending for a long time to come:

"They look at me, perfect eyes in perfect, perfect faces. "You have no idea," they say, "what we have done to protect our tweeness. You cannot imagine the sacrifices we have made, the elements of society we have expunged, the differences we have ruthlessly exterminated, so that we can life cosy, untroubled lives in our perfect world. And when we go back, we'll erase the memories from our minds so that we don't have to know either, and we can go about our pleasant, banal existence utterly untroubled by the mountain of bones we've built it all on."

Holy shit, that's terrifying. </spoiler>

Received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Solaris/Rebellion Publishing for providing an ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way. Also, please note: this is a very short book (under a hundred pages), so that's why my review is shorter than usual and not broken down into sections.

Since the book's blurb is enthralling (enough for me to request a review copy), but a bit cryptic, here's mine: After the war that broke time itself, the last man living in the last future goes out on a limb to preserve his never-ending peace, until an unexpected visit changes everything. But, you know - whatever. ODATWBY has got a killer premise (no pun intended) however you look at it, and one I've never encountered before.
This is such a perfect little book. I mean, it knows what it wants to accomplish, and it's perfect in that regard. I usually reserve 5-star ratings for books that - among other things - sport characters who really vibe with me on some level, but the rules don't apply here. The main character is an anti-hero if you ever saw one...but the author manages to have us sympathise with him. The other characters have their own agenda as well, and will stop at nothing until they get what they want...except they're not evil. Judging from the official blurb, one would expect the lead to perform a noble act or two in order to avoid more destruction, and maybe to go back in time in order to prevent it to happen at all...but that's not the case, because after all, humanity has never been able to abstain from breaking everything that is - even time itself eventually - so why bother? Also, didn't going back in time use to be a huge chunk of the problem, until it became THE problem? And isn't time irreparably damaged anyway? Part philosopher, part misanthrope and part cynic (but with a dark humor streak), the nameless lead - supposedly the last man living in the last future - just want to keep enjoying his high-tech (mock) Arcadia and playing with all of history...or what shards of it remain...except one day (so to speak, because in the last future there aren't "days" anymore) a big, totally unexpected "something" thwarts his plans big time (or so to speak, because time...well, you know the drill).
So...this novella is outrageous, over the top, entertaining and hella creative, packed with small and not-so-small twists and (mostly) never-heard-of time-travel outings, and even peppered with the cleverest spin on the grandfather paradox. On the other hand, as I said, it poses a serious question: is there anything humanity can be trusted not to break, although in good faith? Really, the best of both worlds 🙂.

Adrian Tchaikovsky has created a delightfully awful character and concept in this story of a time traveller living at “the end of all time” after numerous, terrible wars, tending his farm and living with his lovely, terrible pet, Miffly. (Can I just say how MUCH I loved Miffly!)
Things are placid and safe, and if he wants to see a show or eat an outstanding meal, he can pop into his time machine and take a spin back to some earlier time for his experience.
And everything is going so well for him, till it doesn’t.

The main character is both a bad person and refreshingly honest about his intentions. He’s funny, jaded, murderous, and dangerous, and he makes his decisions sound so reasonable.
I liked Tchaikovsky’s take on the circularity and predictability, of human behaviour, however horrible that might be.
I am such a fan of this author’s work; each story tends to be different from the previous. I like time travel stories a lot, and this was a darkly humorous entry, and basically, I liked it a lot. Especially Miffly.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for a review.

Oh boy, but this book made my head hurt! I tried (stupidly) to keep track of timelines and events, and realised about a quarter of the way through that I had to let it go - just like the main character had. It's an incredible story, possibly the best time travel book I've ever read. The writing, of course, is beyond fault. The characters were very enjoyable, even if some were annoying. More, please!

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Rating: 8.5/10

One Day All This Will Be Yours is a thoroughly entertaining smorgasbord of historical figures, time-traveller culls, advanced technology-fulled spats, and Allosaurus petting. There are enough drones and missiles and alternate timelines to sate any sci-fi fans need for it, all packaged with a highly addictive tone of voice, a character that is pretty-well-damned happy with their lot and won’t sit by while someone’s trying to ruin the peace – they only want the end of time to themselves so what’s the big fuss about?

The plot, in short, is about a man, a time-warrior, who has made his own bottleneck at the end of time so that anyone trying to travel to see how far into the future – and past the wars – they can go, all end up at his little slice of paradise; only, he isn’t going to let anyone past. Nor can he let anyone live with the information. And when a message from the future turns up, well, he must sort that out indeed. It’s a short one this, at some 137 pages, so easy to chow down on in an evening. To me, this novella was the Fall of Man, but in reverse. This is about a man who has found Eden and doesn’t want to share it with anyone, even if he’s the only one left who can turn the end of time into a new beginning. It certainly packs an awful lot of storytelling into a short piece, in some senses we go from the beginning to the end of time, and it’s such fun with a voice that’s so … jaded about the whole thing. But he’s got a lot to be annoyed about. He did take part in a causality war that shattered time into tiny pieces.

That jaded voice was what pulled me in, and why I kept reading; the plot is intriguing, but the character is even more so, he speaks with a tired lilt soaked in war, but more importantly in education. It struck me that he’s a bright, intelligent individual with a wealth of years behind him – also helped by the fact that’s he’s been able to traverse fragments of timelines, speak to Einstein and many more importants from history. The story tells us that he’s a well-travelled time-traveller, but what makes it genuine is that the voice reflects that experience. So, not only do we have someone who is telling all these things, but he manages to wear that in the way he speaks and what he speaks about; it is my first time reading anything by Tchaikovsky, but it was a delight if anything for the way that the voice and the story match up.

The latter half of the story had real Mr & Mrs Smith vibes (sorry … or enemies to lovers trope) and all the advanced tech that goes on with an argument at the end of the world was believable – scores of drones, genetically engineered creatures and dinosaurs. It really did get intriguing when they turned to despicable people from history to do their bidding. A Battle Royale of Historical Nasties. I mean, it really did tickle me when they had several versions of Stalin, Hitler and others duking it out in the latter half of the book, only for them to turn on them because who wouldn’t want to see those historical figures meet a … Miffly end?

Overall, for how short the read was, and it being the first time I’d read one of Tchaikovsky’s works, I had a great time and would recommend it. Thanks a lot to the team at Rebellion for sending me over a copy – I really did appreciate it.

The problem with inventing time travel, and more to the point with using it as a ‘final deterrent’ kind of warfare, is that the only sure way to make sure your enemy doesn’t change your history to make you more like them, is to alter their history first to make sure they’ll not argue with you in the future. And then you get home and can’t tell if the changes are from your actions, or if your counterpart got in before – after? – you and this is their… oh, safe to say it’s a mess. And as more and more operatives are sent back to alter more and more times, the inevitable is the complete destruction of time.

The sole survivor of the Time Wars has found an island of a moment, a bottleneck in time, and set up an idyll for himself. It’s a lonely kind of life, he supposes, but at least there’s Miffy – his pet Allosaurus. And actually, he wants for nothing, because he can nip back to any moment in time to collect items, or argue with Michaelangelo, or just to get thoroughly drunk.

And back in his one perfect moment, he has a job: to make sure that every other time traveller who finds their way to this funnelled moment in future history doesn’t get the opportunity to start any more Time Wars…

That’s an awful lot of description for a novella, I do apologise! But the concept is the main thing here, and there’s a lot crammed in to a relatively short narrative. And really, I’ve not given anything away!

I found this an absolutely blast to read. Tongue seems firmly in cheek, and our narrator is my kind of sarcastic comedian. With the power of visiting almost any moment in the past, his use of the ability was refreshingly chaotic and very in keeping with the character’s cynicism about everything that happened.

I think, however, that the ending could be a little divisive. I personally loved the denouement and yet felt things were left a little unfinished-feeling. Other than that, though – and it’s a minor complaint! – this was just perfectly told and such an intriguing idea. And such fun to read :)

Another novella by Adrian Tchaikovsky, another great story.

There you are in your souped up, H.G. Wells’ steampunk time machine, traveling to the end of time. And you meet this guy who is all alone. He has the best set-up ever, a ranch that goes on for miles, nifty equipment that you can get lost in for years and his own time machine. He’s witty, chill and even cooks you a gourmet meal - and you may get to meet Miffly.

Fun, well written story that even includes the standard Tchaikovsky weird creature feature; a feathery Allosaurus.

Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC for an unbiased review.

Back at the start of this year, One Day All This Will Be Yours featured on our list of 10 most anticipated sci-fi and fantasy novels for 2021. At the time I suggested that if you enjoyed 2019’s smash hit novella This Is How You Lose The Time War, then perhaps Adrian Tchaikovsky’s tale would be the book for you. I stand by that assertion now, but I’d like to add that if you didn’t like This Is How You Lose The Time War – and I’m guessing it was the language that put people off – then you should definitely also read Tchaikovsky’s book.

Alright, I’ll stop the comparisons there, because One Day All This Will Yours deserves to stand by itself. On the surface, it is a deceptively simple story; the last surviving time warrior of the Causality War has set himself up on a farm at the very end of time, and spends his days making sure that the war never happens again by catching wayward time travellers and stopping them from using their technology to incite another war. I say a simple story, but obviously that is a relative term when it comes to science fiction, and especially time travel. I personally tend to enjoy time travel stories best if there is a light touch; I don’t need to know the details because I’ll never understand them anyway. Tchaikovsky, a giant of the science fiction genre, knows this well.

The narrator explains just enough, and we are left to fill in the gaps as best they know how. Everyone is happy.
It also seems simple due to the minimal number of characters, the minimal number of settings, and the economical way in which our unnamed narrator tells his story. But again, it is a deceptive simplicity, because that leaves a lot of the room for the narrator to muse on all manner of things, from war and trauma to art and the nature of humanity, and everything in between.

The thing that makes this brilliant little novella so wonderful is the fun that Tchaikovsky has had with it, especially when the narrator is hopping through time, dancing on the fragments. It is like a wish list that I’m sure many people would make if they had the same ability. The narrator goes everywhere, and historical figures like Blackbeard and Achilles are there just because it is fun. There is a Les Misérables joke that should feel self-indulgent, but it just works because Tchaikovsky has earned it. My favourite part is when the narrator goes to see Two Gentlemen of Verona starring Shakespeare’s original clown, rather than the more popular Hamlet. It is such a hilariously hipster thing to do but it works because by then the narrator is completely endeared to us.

He is very funny; dry and completely self-aware. As he introduces us to his sunny little life on his sunny little farm he says:

'How I love the rugged outdoors! Living out here with nothing but the fields and the animals and literally the best technological support that anyone ever invented.'

He is tongue in cheek from page one, and totally honest with the readers. We know what he’s up to, and the things he does to protect his peace. At first, it doesn’t seem much of a problem. But as the story progresses, there is an underlying sense that this is a desperate and deeply traumatised man. He will do quite literally anything to stop the war every happening again, and just because he does it with a jolly tone and a matter-of-fact attitude, it doesn’t make it better. But the truth is, by the end of the story, we are completely on his side. Tchaikovsky draws you in and he’s pulled the rug away before we even knew we were standing on one.

Review copy provided.