The world is dense and fascinating, if you want another deep dive into a dark world a la First Law, you've got yourself a winner. But while I wanted to know more about the world, I really didn't like the characters and couldn't get interested in any of them. I kept putting down the book and taking longer and longer before I picked it up again. I just didn't get sucked into that one and didn't feel involved. I cannot compare with the other books from the author, as this was my first, I got really intrigued by the cover and the synopsis, but the characterisation just wasn't for me.

Review will be visible at http://www.nerds-feather.com/2022/12/microreviewnovel-city-of-last-chances.html on the 8th of December (8am UK time).

City of Last Chances is a somewhat complex book. It tells the story of Ilmar, a city chafing under the occupation of an invading Palleseen force for the last three years. A city of many factions, for the occupation, against it, neutral and just... otherwise engaged. A city of various magics, both familiar and strange. A city of mysteries. A city of immigrants and occupiers and rich and poor and workers and feudal overlords and scholars and priests and gods and all manner of people in between... and all of whom are connected by threads of politics and obligation and camaraderie and rivalry and the shared experience of being in this city, at this time, under this regime.
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.

The story starts slow - we spend a long, long time on a different character's perspective every chapter, picking up a small figure encountered in the previous one and following them to the next. And as such, it takes a long time for the reader to find their feet, because the carpet is always being pulled out from under them. Many of those new chapters contradict, whether in assertion or emotional tone, what has come in the previous one, and so we have to reassess what we know and what we have seen, who has said what and to whom. One chapter's shabby but earnest priest become's another's pitiable, misguided beggar. A swaggering, cultured bravo becomes a simple, violent thug.

But as we get into the swing of things, we see the same faces circling around again and again, and eventually have some chapters told from the same perspective twice, and something begins to emerge. It's nothing so simple as a single narrative, but there are a lot of threads being pulled in complementary directions, and a general movement ripples out to affect all the characters we see, and things begin to happen in Ilmar.

I say "eventually" here because it is... eventually. The first 60% of the book is what I've described above - that steady circling around Ilmar, getting us every angle and view so we can see as much as possible what's happening, and really, deeply understand the city itself. Because for that first 60%, it is a book about the city, and the people as a great conglomerate, far more than it is a book about any of the individual moving parts. Those individuals are useful and interesting, more or less, but they are also quite often emblematic of factions and forces at work within the politics of Ilmar. One of the recurring characters, for instance, is Blackmane, a former magic user who immigrated to Ilmar when his own country was occupied by the Palleseen. His people, the Allor, live in a segregated and poverty stricken corner of the city, judged with suspicion by Ilmari and Palleseen alike, but also... useful. Their magic, their artefacts and their knowledge has its place in the city, though often in the criminal underbelly, or on the borderlines of acceptability. And so Blackmane is a useful window into that community. He tells us far more about the Allorwen experience in Ilmar than he does about himself as a person. Both are there, he's hardly devoid of character, but it feels like what gain most from him is another piece on the game board, another context, and his characterisation is just spicing on that dish.

And because he is far from the only person fulfilling a role like that, and there are a lot of factions and contexts within Ilmar to be explored, this early phase of circling slowly round and round to gather all the points of view is necessarily a slow one. It is interesting, it is clearly beautifully thought out, but it is not always engaging in the way a driving narrative might be.

However, once we pass 60%, we have gathered all the data and perspectives we need, and the plot begins to pick up. We move from watching people manoeuvring to watching them act, to seeing the carefully laid plans that have been peekingly revealed over the previous pages come to life, and forces outside of the mundane things of the city come to bear. And then it gets very engaging indeed. The plot blurs into view, and you see all the carefully laid threads coming swiftly together, and things begin to actually happen. And because we've seen so much of what went into it all, and because Tchaikovsky is very good at what he does, when that switch is flipped and things start happening, however suddenly, it doesn't feel like it comes from nowhere, or that there's some whiplash to it - it's just what we knew might happen coalescing. Even the mysterious external forces have been hinted at and talked about enough that, however inhuman and mysterious they are, their arrival on the scene never feels crowbarred in.

That being said, those external forces are something of a marmite aspect to the book. By the time I reached the end, I loved the role they had to play in the story, but they wouldn't be to everyone's taste, not least because they leave so much unknown and unresolved. They are a chaotic spectre hovering on the edge of reason and of the city, and to understand them would be to strip them of their magic, their mystique. But that absence of understanding is also an absence of resolution, and that isn't always everyone's cup of tea - especially when it feels, as this does, not like there are answers but we just don't have them yet, but rather that there may be no answers at all. Some magic is beyond our knowledge, in this book and this world, and we must simply accept that. In many ways, the wood on the edge of the city and what lies beyond it, a portal to other worlds that is discussed by the characters in hushed whispers, with its strange guardians who operate on rules no one else understands, are an element of folklore, not of magic, in the way they act upon the story. Magic might have rules and explanations - folklore is deeper, older and more oblique.

On the flip side of this, there are also the demons.

Ilmar is, as well as being a melting pot of different nationalities, as well as suffering under the yoke of occupation, a city that has recently undergone something of an industrial revolution. Some of the immigrants have brought with them the technology of... demons. How to raise them, bind them in contracts, and have them do large scale drudge work at a pace and capacity humans can't match. And so the demons power factories, and people who worked on farms a generation before now risk limbs in the demon-run mills instead. The analogy to the industrial revolution isn't subtle here, but it doesn't have to be - it's setting the scene for a city undergoing abrupt and dramatic change. But with demons. Because why not?

And so in terms of its scope, its ambition, and its ability to render a genuinely realistic view of a city on the cusp of revolution, one where class and nationality and wealth and power and religion and much else besides are taken into consideration, where the huge variety of factions are explored in enough depth to give the reader a genuine understanding of the politics of the place... City of Last Chances is immensely successful. I haven't covered a half of what goes into that scene-setting here, because there's just so much going into it, a review couldn't do justice to all the moving parts.

But... but.

By dedicating itself to that scope and ambition, the early parts of the book suffer, and suffer heavily, from a lack of momentum. The chapters are short, the perspectives change constantly, there's no real time to grow fond of or used to any of the characters, and we dot around so much without one or two or more consistent narrative drivers to follow that it does start to feel a little wallowing. It takes a long time for it to become clear what the story is, and longer still for that story to really get going. Once it does, it really does, and in my opinion, the rewards at the end both explain and justify what it takes you to get there. But it requires an amount of work and faith on the reader's part to do so, and that cannot be ignored. Equally, while the ending is, in my opinion, absolutely perfect to all the themes of factionality and politics that resonate through the story, it is also one that I imagine some would find unsatisfying. It is fundamentally a book that will reward interest more than immersion, and both more than escapism or a desire to be swept away by a story. If you can go into it happy with that, or become happy with that, it will be extremely rewarding.

3.5⭐️

This book is beautifully detailed and intelligent. The world building was immense and 5 star worthy.
Despite this I did not feel I connected to a lot of the characters and I wanted to get though some chapters to move on and get to the characters I wanted to focus on. There was a disconnect that I felt on and off and it’s likely I should have read this when I was in a different mood and I would likely give it more stars!
Overall a great piece of fiction but go into it ready for epic fantasy.
Many thanks to NetGalley for an E-ARC for an honest review.

I will start by saying this book took me a while to get into but ultimately did not leave me satisfied. I felt it was a slow burn with a lot of world building and character building for the first 40%. The city itself was displayed in an intricate portrait of blacks and grays, reds, and death, with a revolution stirring just under the surface and the occupants feeling trapped by the occupying forces.

I cannot argue with so many of the reviews. In fact, I am not usually one to read reviews before I post or vocalize my own. But I wanted to make sure I was understanding the story to the best of my ability and to understand the author as this was my first exposure to Adrian Tchaikovsky, although many of his other books have been well received and even won awards.

This book has a lot of characters and a lot going on. I kind of wonder if I should have started with a different book before jumping into his writing style. I love high fantasy and epic fantasy so this should have been right up my alley which is why I think I was the one to review it, but for me it felt a bit overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time. Again, we have a lot going on, but we don’t seem to focus a great deal on one thing or another. When I would put the book down between reads it was hard to want to pick back up because it felt claggy and difficult to delve back into. If this is your style, give it a chance. I think I need a bit more hope when I read a book otherwise, I don’t see the point of picking it back up.

If you are looking for a standalone fantasy novel that keeps edging you -- and its not insignificant number of dramatis personnae -- with the promise of a revolution, that's the book for you. The offer comes complete with a sliding morality scale (with occasional characters bouncing off it altogether), destitute gods, proletarian demons, idealist students and monster fuckers. If you are into that kind of thing.

The story does get told over an innumerable number of POV characters, though, that's a fact. A feature or a bug? Vote now on your phones. I found it to be a mixed blessing, overall.

Quite a few reviewers say they are frustrated with this choice. I actually am going to say the opposite: the choice to give the story many voices was the /right/ one, but my quibble is that it should have been done so /consistently/. The choice to have a tapestry of voices instead of an immersive couple of POVs works to serve the point of the book if you consider the goal of giving a picture of social unrest and power dynamics behind various groups of the oppressors and oppressed a primary one -- instead of a more conventional objective of making you care about the wellbeing of one-two of them. Through the first third of the book or so I had the impression that each chapter would be narrated by a different person, and a character mentioned by the previous narrator in passing would pick up the POV baton next -- and that way, in a conga line of the various faces from the crowd, would emerge a picture of what is in essence a revolution blueballed. I just think it's neat -- until it isn't. Because the new POV characters keep cropping off until the very last page, while three-four keep coming back to tell their own story, and there were a few instances where that felt too much. Choose a palette and stick to it, you know? I'd have taken either a narrow selection of POVs that makes me invested in these particular stories, or a plethora of equidistant ones appearing once never to be heard of again, but a mix of them just makes me wince and wish for a stricter editorial job.

The story plays out between many factions with their own agenda and a veritable parade of opportunists of all brands, none of them quite aligned on what's the right time and place to let the spark of a revolution to overthrow what is a relatively recent occupation by textbook totalitarian burocrats. I liked that kind of ambiguity -- and on reflection, I liked how it was resolved even, because if you walked away feeling dissatisfaction with as sprinkle of faith in the humanity yet to come. it was probably the angle the story was aiming for. A pretty cynical in its realism angle. From the host of characters, too, a few stand out whose arc was quite steep, some crashed and burnt but some others were meant to be immoveable to the point of unsinkable -- some by skill, some by luck, very few based on their moral stance.

It's a chonky book, but I like a fantasy standalone -- it was an enjoyable read, some quibbles aside. Thank you to #NetGalley for an advance copy of #CityOfLastChances.

I'm a sucker for world building, and Tchaikovsky delivers in City of Last Chances. Proceed with caution as it is a dense read, both with its prose as well as its subject matter. There's also a variety of characters, which is hard to follow at times. I'm not a fan of books where I have to take notes to keep up, or keep flipping back to remember what happened wit which character.

All in all, interesting.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the e-arc.



I love complex fantasy but unfortunately had to DNF at 40%. A combination of factors made me do this, including a slight reading slump. This fell flat for me and did not pick up at all as my reading went along. I usually never DNF so I might pick this up in the future.



It’s a challenging novel, one where the prose is beautiful and the world building is intricate. It does start quite slow so that impacts on the reading experience considering how dense this is.



I struggled with the multiple POVs which I usually don’t, as I didn’t’ had any emotional attachments with the characters. I didn’t feel the need to chase the plot as I didn’t care to what happened to any of them.



Is the first time reading the author and I am still intrigued with his work.

City of Last Chances is a large-scale multi-perspective fantasy tracking a varied cast of characters across a city in turmoil. It all begins at a gambling table, when someone stakes and loses a valuable ward stolen from an occupying official who promptly dies (having entered the nearby mysterious forest without said ward). This touches off a string of events that leave the city broiling unsteadily on the edge of revolution.

Tchaikovsky has furnished this book with a lot of interesting places and a lot of interesting characters, all with their own allegiances to various factions. The scholars and students of Gownhall, the immigrants and magic practitioners of Mirror Allor, the dreamily cursed residents of the Reproach, the Palleseen Perfecture with its Donjon, the resistance factions both noble and anything but…all of them were interesting and made the city feel both real and fantastical. This was my first Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I’m definitely planning to read more.

I'm someone who likes to get invested in the characters I'm reading about, and here my investment was a bit of a slow burn. Nonetheless, even before I grew invested, I was always interested in what was happening on the page. My favorite character was probably Yasnic, the forlorn priest of a dying religion who is hounded by his tiny, irascible god wherever he goes. But I also enjoyed getting to know Ruslav, Lemya, and the city itself. I would be interested to read more books set in this world.

I would recommend this book to fans of Babel and Jade City, and generally to people who like urban, city-based fantasy with a lot of factions and groups. I think anyone who finds the synopsis interesting would find the book interesting as well.

In City of Last Chances, Adrian Tchaikovsky returns to the fantasy genre after spending most of the recent past firing out high quality sci-fi. The novel is packed full of fascinating ideas and a new world is hastily, but mostly effectively, conjured into being. I found it challenging to keep a track of everything and everyone towards the beginning, though some characters are given a better chance to make an impact as the story moves on. Some plot strands were a little unconfusing and didn't really resolve in a satisfying way, to my mind at least.

Those things being said, I thought this was a great read, from its ominous beginning as tensions rise in the occupied titular city to its Les Miserables style ending. It wasn't as tightly plotted as I would have liked, but I can forgive Tchaikovsky almost anything when he writes in such an engaging and intuitive way. His language and the ways that he gets inside the heads of his characters is extraordinary.

This book is not for everyone, it’s a heavy read and I would recommend it to readers who enjoyed 1984, or any classic that focuses on Authoritarianism and rebellion. It is not as dry as 1984 and has a fantasy element which kept me reading.

In truth, I kept thinking of it as a Soviet Union fantasy, mostly due to the cover and the few Russian names. I was not alive during it’s existence and know very little to make a true comparison but I couldn’t unsee it. It is also not something I would normally reach for.

There is a large cast of characters, sometimes making it difficult to follow, while it is set in one city. The novel follows the conquered and the conquerors, providing many interesting points of view. It was really intriguing and a little depressing and horrifying at times.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read the City of Last Chances.

P.S. Loved the shrine at the end! Made me think of the Japanese “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons”

The synopsis of this book totally slayed. It seemed like this was going to be the next best fantasy book. I was really excited.

At first, I was thrilled with the book. The mystery was there from the get go, and the writing was beautiful. Then, everything splintered. By that, I mean that there were so many storylines and characters. it got incredibly confusing. It was just TOO much STUFF. It didn't get better. The entire time I had to stop and recall who they were, what their past was, where they belonged, etc.

The story was amazing. It would have easily been a five star read were it not for what I mentioned above. It is something that could have been worked on to make it the next best fantasy read. I still recommend the book, because it is a great story.

The summary of the novel on Netgalley really drew me in. When words such as ‘city under occupation’ and ‘on the verge of revolution’ that is like moths to a flame for me. It just makes me want to read it.

City of Last Chances isn’t a bad book but it’s not as good as I was hoping it would be. There are a lot of good ideas but it just didn’t quite connect for me.

There are two really good points: the worldbuilding is excellent and the writing is wonderful. Tchaikovsky has created a very interesting world and he writes the story very well. On the other hand, this is a double edged sword because the worldbuilding drowns out the characters and the writing feels too flowery for the plot. It might just be me but I think that story points such as revolution need a darker one than the one Tchaikovsky uses.

I wasn’t particularly fond of any of the characters and I ultimately found them rather forgettable. There are too many of them for starters and I never felt as I ever really got to know any of them and, as a result, I can’t remember anything about them.

City of Last Chances had the potential to be amazing, and it certainly wasn’t bad by any means, but it’s just not very memorable. It is written really well and the world is fantastically realised but the characters just aren’t memorable enough for me to enjoy. It was a little disappointing.

I had a little trouble with the many character POV chapters, but the world building and descriptions painted a beautiful world to enter and spend time in. I will most likely reread this one, as it has so much packed into it, I feel like I probably missed some things.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for this copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

A fantasy epic that's well-worth a read! As is typical with this genre, there is a lot of information and world-building packed in which can become a bit overwhelming at times but it comes with the territory. The ending really ties everything together.

The City of Last Chances is fantasy on a epic scale even though it all takes place within one city. The city of Ilmar is occupied by the Palleseens who have the perfect society and are committed to installing this across the world. Ilmar is inhabited by every sort of character you can imagine from refugees to students, the criminal underworld and priests (who are now illegal) and the city is on the brink of rebellion against the occupying forces.
The world building and characterisation in the novel were all brilliant. Each character and area of the city comes alive and is totally believable. I loved Yasnic, the only surviving priest of a God who has no followers and the students were fun too.
My main criticism is that there was just too much crammed into one book. There seemed to be too many points of view and too many settings so I never felt that I really got to grips with any of them. It’s as if the author put every idea that he had into this. The ending is great and things all come together but at times it felt like a bit of a slog getting there.
Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers, Head of Zeus for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a really good book as long as you take a few things in mind before you read it. For one, it is an epic fantasy -- full of a long list of characters and a setting that is vast even if it mainly takes place in a single city. For another, its magic, while quite present, takes a back seat to the totalitarian regime, rebellion, and a bit of worldbuilding mystery.

That being said, I followed the tale with some decent interest and appreciated the layered approach to the city's ongoing history.

Did always fall in love with the characters? No. But a few were consistently great.

I suppose my main concern or complaint is a purely personal one. I have always fallen absolutely in love with Adrian Tchaikovsky's SF and tend to find something a bit off about his Fantasy. I can't quite put my finger on it but it's still true. The places where I want exploration were shunted off track and while I DID like the social commentary on poverty and fascism and even the importance of language to frame the issues properly, I found myself wanting a different kind of book that has nothing to do with the quality of his writing.

I'm entirely certain that other people will get a lot more out of this novel than I did.

This was the first book I've read by Adrian Tchaikovsky, but it will not be the last. Its an ambitious story that depicts a deeply discontented city in the throes of revolution. Revolution is messy, tragic, hopeful, and most importantly, a process. This is a lengthy story, but every page of it was used wisely; sharing the history of the city, the fears and weaknesses of people oppressed, the mysteries and magic of the place and the mundane ways desperate people try to use these forces to their personal advantage, and the struggles of refugees within such conflict.

Gods and demons are forced to contend with the undeniable power of bureaucratic efficiency. Idealistic students and jaded gamblers struggle with comparable passion to change the world and to maintain the status quo to save their own skins respectively. The occupiers are united by the unhappy marriage of order and power which leads to self-righteous corruption that can afford only the barest level of self reflection.

Somehow Tchaikovsky managed to twine together fae magic, demons, magical industrial revolution, aliens, gods, income inequality, the cost of utopia, a light sprinkling of murder, and ghosts, and still produced not only a cohesive narrative but one that was so deeply engrossing I've lost sleep this entire week while trying to find out what happened next each night before bed.

I have no doubt that this will be a story that I revisit in the future and one that I will certainly be preordering so that I may have a physical copy to grace my shelves as well.

This book was incredibly hard for me to get into because each chapter was a different POV, so I couldn't really get into any character. Sometimes there were entirely too many details and it made it confusing and I had to re-read parts.
I did enjoy the premise of this book, but would honestly have to re-read to make sure I didn't miss anything important on my first read through.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the ARC which in no way bais' my review.

I have been searching for a fantasy novel to fill the hole left when I finished "Malazan" over 12 months ago, and I want to thank Adrian for writing this book. Although they are very different in style and scale "City of Last Chances" has helped fill the void, and I honestly can't wait to read more of his work.

I love the eloquent prose, and the deep lore that is unraveled throughout, and in such a way that suspends disbelief, and I was hooked from the first scene. It moves well, and gets scary at points, but never strays from its central story. Some scenes I enjoyed more than others, but each scene has its purpose.

That being said this is a big, vocabulary packed, Proper Noun wielding epic fantasy that will not be for everyone. If dense industrial WW1/Russian Revolution inspired fantastical insurrection is not your thing then you will struggle to finish this one.

The setting is "Ilmar", and it feels like a real turn of the 20th century factory town under occupation, until the supernatural elements trickle down. The "Anchorwood" that is just outside the town, is a gateway to everywhere, and nowhere. Oh…and then there is the "Reproach!" The Reproach is the paranormal icing on the supernaturally fantastic cake.

This may be one of the more incredible fantasy novels I have ever read, and I wish I could erase it from my mind, and read it fresh. I have never read anything like it, and it bends and melds genres flawlessly. I've been trying to find a way to classify it, and am settling on, Dark Industrial Fantasy, but there is so much more going on with it than that.

"City of Last Chances" focuses primarily on the cast of players involved in a game of chance, and they are unfortunate enough to be the last people to see a treasure that is "ante up'd" as a bet. This treasure belongs to the occupation, and they will do anything they can to get their treasure back. Everyone wants this thing, and literal wars will be fought for it.

Every reader will relate to at least one of the vast cast of characters that take turns being the point of view character for the third person Narrator. I lost count of characters but I related to some more than others, but all were well developed, and real.

There is Yasnic, the last priest of a vagabond healing God. Blackmane, a foreign Pawnbroker that deals in the magical artifacts from within the city, and from the Anchorwood. There are soldiers, students, resistance factions, professors, factory workers, and all manor of people drowning in the post industrial revolution city of Ilmar. A city ready to explode under the pressure of oppression, and the past that lead to the boiling point of the events in the story.

I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars, but it may catapult itself into my grading rubric for Fantasy Novels. If you love the dark, heavy, dense, purple prose of classic fantasy you will love this novel. If you are a student of history, and it's revolutions, and posses a strong imagination you will love this book. If you want an easy read that requires hand holding, and baby stepping to a fairy tale ending you will not like this book. I loved this novel, if you couldn't tell from the review, but if you give it a chance you will love it too.

Casablanca meets Les Mis with a teensy bit of The Maltese Falcon, all thrown in to a fantasy setting that is wonderfully textured, (slightly gratuitously) dark, and more than a touch overstuffed. Just like the actual literary Les Mis!

Basically Tchaikovsky has addressed reader complaints about everything being a trilogy nowadays by making a standalone that...could really have been a trilogy. There are some wonderful reveals and reversals here that powered me through the pages, but oh man, that's a whole lotta pages to get through, characters to care about, and (re)double-crosses to keep straight. And (except for one genuinely holy crap final discovery that's only incidental to the main plot but still super-cool), the sorta-shocking surprises hit a bit weaker when it's sorta-shocking surprise #24601 of the book, the grim darkness is feeling, well, grim, and all in all you're starting to take Tchaikovsky's number.

Still, there’s just so much fun, punchy stuff here that it’s hard to be upset by its overabundance. The ragamuffin forces of decaying, decadent Romanticism get to duke it out with brittle and hypocritical Rationalism while an entire Broadway cast of hapless student revolutionaries and slimy academics and blessedly amoral mystics look on and scurry out of the way, sometimes successfully. There are demons! The Industrial Revolution! I Can’t Believe It’s Not WWI magical trench warfare! Small Gods! MacGuffins! It’s a long and occasionally exhausting ride, but the highs are very high indeed, and Tchaikovsky’s lurking warning — that factionalism will eat us all even sooner than body-crushing fascists or soul-eating monsters — is only too timely. Well done.