I'll start by saying that I am a long time Tchaikovsky fan and that I've always been impressed by his range. He writes over a number of different genres and each book has a very unique premise. City of Last Chances is no different! This is set in Ilmar - a city being crushed under a heavy occupation, a criminal underworld and an ancient curse. And hey, there's some portal fantasy for good measure! I loved the premise and adored the world-building, particularly in the early stages of the novel. I also thought the ending was fantastic (in true Tchaikovskey fashion). It should be said that this is definitely a book you need to dedicate some time to when reading as there are a lot of characters & plot threads to keep track off. Overall a great read for fantasy lovers!

Adrian Tchaikovsky does it again!

'City of Last Chances' reminds me a lot of one of his other recent-ish stand-alone SFF novels, 'Cage of Souls'. Partly because I SLIGHTLY struggled with them both, in terms of not having any characters I could really feel for, and the overwhelmingly grim dystopia the story is set in.

That said, an undercurrent of 'readability' still runs through this book, and regardless of character and plot, it's the author's sheer dazzling imagination that, as always, had me coming back. There are, as there always are in his novels, some completely brilliant premises, all well-oiled cogs in the machine of the narrative.

Tchaikovsky and/or SSF newbies may want to start with something else from his extensive backlist, but this is otherwise another memorable outing from a master writer.

(With thanks to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)

Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of my favorite authors and I read everything he writes. Add to that the stunning cover of City of Last Chances and see me drooling over it. The publisher was kind enough to accept my request for a ARC and I started reading it immediately.

Unfortunately, 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 fsymphatize with characters. Things do fall into place at the end, but in truth I had to force myself to read the book.

I'm not sure what to say. It's an interesting book, unlike most fantasy being published these days. On the other hand, it's dense difficult to get into, and I'm not sure if the effort to get through it is fully justified or if I would recommend it to everyone. Fans of challenging and complex narratives should definitely give it a try, though.

I read an ARC copy of City of Last Chances from NetGalley and Head of Zeus publishing. Thank you for this opportunity.

That said, this is one of those books that I’m scrambling to find positive things to say.

This is a book about a city on the edge of revolution. It is currently occupied by one group, but several others are fighting to take over or take back the power they lost. There are small players that find themselves pulled into the big picture, and also stories of those trying to move the people scrambling as things both move forward, but often not as they first imagined that it would. There are many players, many different wants and needs. All of them hate each other, and once they get what they want, they’ll go back to stabbing each other in the back and hating each other openly.

And it’s all too much.

Yes, it’s a me thing.

This book has a market. It’s magic and politics, and deep lore, but to me, it was like a Dungeon Master setting up his world with the characters setting up their history inside of the city and each other before they all got together and really started their adventure, and I didn’t want that, I wanted to start reading about after the adventurers had gotten together so I could experience the world through their exploration, maybe that way it would be more coherent and the characters would actually feel like they had growth instead of the forced bit of “what” they did get.

I don’t know. It was just too many different characters that the story bounced around for me to keep track of and try to figure out who I was supposed to care about in the long run, and in the end, I didn’t really care what was happening to the city or any of the individuals.

his is the second book by Tchaikovsky that I have read (the first being a SciFi story) and this author is quickly becoming a favorite that I will buy on sight. To start with, being a logophile, the story here was a veritable playground of obscure english vocabulary within a context that often used the 4th or 5th definition to give the reader an exotic feel within just inventing new words. This all facilitates some of the best world-building that has ever come my way, creating a dark, gritty foundation that was extremely easy to visualize and enter into. The only downside here was that the rich prose was so complex that it slowed down my reading speed quite a bit, although that also enabled me to better enjoy the beauty of it all. Definitely a fan here. For those having trouble keeping track of everything, there is a gloss in the front.

The world is an interesting dystopia with an occupying force dedicated to the rational perfection of their world, by force if necessary (aka an authoritarian society). The City is a crossroads of sorts, with the soldiers of the perfect trying to control a diverse population previously under the thrall of magic and miracles while expanding through a mystical forest to dimensions unknown (although the beasts within are very dangerous and should not be taken for granted). Close by is the Reproach, a ruined part of the old city barely contained by sigils and wards to keep ghosts of long dead nobles from driving men mad. Wondering amongst all of this are priests and forgotten gods, sorcerers and demons (who power the factories of the Hammer districts), prideful academics keeping the flame of resistance alive, and typical street toughs (who rule the Gutter districts) and a rather eclectic collection of immigrants and refugees .. giving the world a feeling of depth rarely encountered in a single book and left me wanting more.

There are a lot of POV characters in this story; and that is usually a bad thing, but the author makes this work better than most. Each character seemed to be fairly unique with something that actually added to the story when they were appropriately introduced … weaving in and out of the main plot so skillfully that each switch felt natural … and I enjoyed most of them … even the bad guys. All of the motivations seemed reasonable and even somewhat predictable within the evolving chaos of the story (most of the action are the characters reacting to what just happened prior). The interactions between them all kept me guessing on where the story was headed all the way to the end with several notable mysteries and surprises. This works well with all of the political intrigue that is front loaded, but the action does pick up with some character weeding towards the end (not a big deal as you don’t really spend enough time with any of them to get attached).

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#CityOfLastChances #NetGalley.

I was super excited to read this book after reading that amazing synopsis, I mean this sounded like a book that would be right up my alley. Portals to different worlds, a tyrannical regime and occupying force, a dark and magical setting, all of the things that I really enjoy in a fantasy read to be honest. And to top it off, one of my favorite authors as the writer of the story? Yes, you could say I was pretty excited to sit down with this book.

And for about the first 50 pages or so my excitement was truly rewarded as the book sets up all of the main conflict and the mystery of the Anchorwood quite tantalizingly. And Tchaikovsky's elegant prose carried the narrative beautifully as it always does. It was just after this point though that I began to have a difficult time concentrating on all of the different storylines as the chapters begin to jump back and forth across a number of different characters. I found myself wanting to read more but becoming slightly frustrated at having to continually refer to the glossary to see who the people were in each chapter and which of the numerous factions they belonged to.

And yet I couldn't deny that the story also had me sucked in because I wanted to find out what was behind the mystery of the Anchorwood and the lore/history of the enigmatic city of Ilmar. The Palleseen were also a very intriguing enemy force that believes every facet of society from magic, to arts, to education, and to language, must be controlled and overseen by different schools that are maintained by the government. It actually reminded me a lot of the fascist and totalitarian regimes that we've seen in our own history, and so this was a fascinating aspect to the story that I'm sure Tchaikovsky did on purpose.

With all of this going for the book I was truly hoping that my difficulty focusing on the cast of characters would get better and that eventually everything would click and I would hit my stride. Ultimately though it continued throughout and there were more times than not when I felt my concentration wandering to the point where I just put the book down fairly often.

The ending was pretty satisfying but again, this one just didn't grab my attention the way so many of Tchaikovsky's books have done in the past and subsequently it hampered my enjoyment a little and I have to give this book a lesser star rating as a result. However, please don't be put off by my experience, it may just be a case of the wrong timing for this kind of book. Others may really latch on to the intrigue, deception, and deep world-building. In the end, this was a good but just short of great read for me for many of the reasons I mentioned.

Ilmar, the City of Last Chances. A dazzling return to Fantasy for Adrian Tchaikovsky, an author who, in my eyes, can do no wrong.
Gorgeous worldbuilding, rich characters, and a dizzying plot - what a brilliant read

Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of my favourite authors of whom not every book I love. In my opinion evvery one of his books is different and you never know what to expect. For me personally, I love Guns Of The Dawn and not much liked Children of Time but I know it could be different for everyone.

This time he surprised me too. City of Last Chances is an unique book, connecting vrious characters with one constant which is the city. I found the book interesting in construction but not easy to follow sometimes. Sometimes the book has just too many vievpoints and with a complex plot, it makes it only harder to know what's going on.

I think that City if last chances is a good book for fantasy lovers, who are looking for something with an unique prose and style of writing. The plot is not easy, but if you read carefully, you can see, it is wise and original. And I would recommend it to everyone who wants something fresh in a fantasy genre.

Overall is was a good book.
It took me a long time to get into it.
I felt like it was a bit too complicated for me both in the way the characters were introduced and the way they story slowly grew to make them meet.
It’s all probably because it didn’t completely catch my mind but at the end it was a good book with really good cultural references!

The world building in this is out of this world (literally!), it is exquisite and elegant. The nuances have been explored and the intricacy is mind blowing. I cannot stress how wonderful it is, the story itself, is is fascinating and wickedly real at points.

**thank you netgalley for the digital arc!**

this book took me quite a while to finish and i sat with my thoughts about it for a while after as well. while i felt the writing was good, i thought it did feel a bit convoluted at times & therefore i had some trouble following the story. maybe it’s a result of me not being used to this type of book & probably a matter of personal taste.

i did however find the world building quite interesting and that made me keep reading. the fact that we jumped from perspective to perspective a lot managed to take me out of the story sometimes, but some of the perspectives were page turners as well, so i’m a bit befuddled.

personally this book probably wasn’t for me, but i’m certain it’s the perfect book for a lot of people out there!

Unfortunately this was a rare DNF for me. I can’t really put my finger on why. I made it about 40% but there’s too much world building here it reads more like a dungeon masters guide.

Did I request an arc of this book solely because of the cover? Yup, I sure did! It's gorgeous and I don't feel bad about it at all because I ended up absolutely LOVING this book sooooooo much.

City of Last Chances is a sprawling steampunk, fantasy where 1984 meets Les Misérables. It's dark and gritty and I loved every single moment of it. The novel's narrative is woven through the eyes of a host of different characters, Watching the story play out through a myriad of perspectives (some characters we come back to again and again) while others we only get to enjoy for a moment) kept me interested and wanting to keep turning to the next page.

At the heart of this story is the city of Ilmar: a haunting and captivating place that is connected to a much wider and very dark place. I finished reading this book in one sitting and give it 5 stars without any hesitation. Will be adding more Tchaikovsky to my TBR list ASAP.

Highly recommend City of Last Chances for anyone who is looking for a totally immersive escape from reality for a few hours. Beautiful cover. Stunning story. Just lovely.

I DNF’d this book – I usually enjoy Tchaikovsky’s writing but this was too dense – the factions were impenetrable and even after reading around 15% of the book I didn’t know who anyone was or what was happening. I understand this is part of a larger series and it’s always difficult to jump in as a new reader but there was no character/event to hook me into the story. There were some interesting elements to the story, based on what I read, but it wasn’t clear how all the characters tied together. Overall, I’ve given this 2 stars as the part I read was well written and I think if I had more knowledge of the setting I may have been able to get more out of the book.

An intricately plotted world with POV characters that offer a welcome range of understandings of the events as they unfold. I can't stress enough what a rich experience this book offers -- the description and sense of history offer an immersive reading experience.

Just mazing! Very epic, wonderful writing and plot. Great characters. There isn't a single thing I didn't like in this book!

This author is new to me but I have to say, this was a fabulous book and I loved every second. A brilliant mix of fantasy and sci fi.

🌃 City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky 🌃

Wow! He’s done it again. It really amazes me how Adrian Tchaikovsky can write so well - so effortlessly - in such a short space of time. I read in an interview that most of his first drafts hardly need edited and that he produces an entire novel in 6 months to a year!

His newest novel, City of Last Chances is incredibly intricate and well researched. Honestly, for me - even though I love fantasy, including Tolkien, Raymond Feist etc - it was a bit too heavy and I struggled to keep up.

BUT, a lover of heavy fantasy will absolutely enjoy this. I wish I had more time to truly enjoy this epitome - to wander through the cleverly woven plots and subplots - but alas, time is my enemy.

So make sure you give this one a go - because Adrian Tchaikovsky is truly a master of fantasy!

A great entry back into fantasy from a master of the craft. Mixing the best parts of both his fantasy and sci-fi novels, Tchaikovsky stands out as a voice to not be reckoned with.

An interesting political fantasy about an occupied city on the cusp of rebellion. Like usual, Tchaikovsky employs excellent and unique world-building and a varied cast of characters that gives the reader a lot of different perspectives from which to view the conflicts throughout the story. There's a good mix of action and intrigue, and the fantasy elements add a extra dash of mystery that keep you guessing about what's going to happen next.

That said, I did have some trouble connecting with the characters. There were so many POVs that I didn't get spend very time with each character before the story jumped to a different one to keep the plot moving. And especially at the beginning of the book, each character's chapters include a little too much backstory dumped into the present narrative, which slowed the pace a bit too much.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but it's not my favorite offering from Tchaikovsky.