More accurately 4.5 stars as there were flaws. An occupied city where people from many backgrounds have come together, with a mysterious wood/portal and a ghostly off-limits area, a story of the potential of rebellion, revolution. Told from multiple viewpoints from all sides makes for an excellent novel.

At first this can be confusing (particularly if you leave a few days gap in reading) in remembering who is who, though as well as the story the background, interconnections, and overview of place and events unravels and develops as things progress. Well worth early perseverance to overcome any concerns. What emerges is a detailed, multi-facted picture of the place and events and what feels like a more 'real' portrayal of potential revolt rather than the 'good vs evil' that puts me off most trad. fantasy, complete with messy and incomplete strands or ends. Even the most unsympathetic characters engender understanding at least, if not 'support'.

There are gaps - if there isn't going to be a sequel it would be better to know more about those from the woods and other worlds - but very much worth your time if you like something different from fantasy.

Cities are fertile ground for writers of fantasy. Readers of this genre don’t have to think hard to come up with places like Terry Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork or George RR Martin’s King’s Landing. While these cities come alive through their characters, some recent books have been deliberately c casting the city itself as a character – books such as Sam Hawke’s City of Lies or Daniel Abraham’s Age of Ash. So much so that the term “urban fantasy” has gained traction as a subgenre of speculative fiction (although it is used more widely tha. Prolific British speculative fiction writer Adrian Tchakovsky returns to the fantasy genre with one of these. City of Last Chances is as much, if not more, about the city of Ilmar and its peculiar history and character as it is about the numerous denizens who he follows through the plot.
When the book opens, Ilmar is chafing under a years long occupation by the Palleseen. The Palleseen claim to bring order and correct thinking to the places they conquer but it is not long before the cracks become apparent in the Palleseen philosophy – none moreso than the early death of one of its high ranking officials after he loses a particular valuable protective item in a brothel. This death is the match that sparks a slow build up towards an uprising which seeks to free the city from its oppressors. Tchaikovsky charts this build up through the various factions of the city – the underworld, the nobility, the student body, the refugees, the workers and the last priest– but also from the point of view of various Palleseen movers and shakers.
City of Last Chances is a mosaic of a novel – constantly shifting perspective but keeping the action ticking along. But this is in the service of some ferocious and detailed world building in which each of the factions has sub-factions and all are only working partly in support of or against each other and partly for their own ends. This is a fantasy novel so there are also lots of interestingly deployed magical elements – the role of gods, the mysterious Anchorwood and its even more mysterious protectors, the spirits of old Ilmar that haunt an area of the city called the Reproach, curses and creatures.
While Tchaikovsky has been publishing more in science fiction more recently, he has plenty of fantasy in his extensive bibliography. Tchaikovsky returns to the genre with a bang. City og Last Chances if a kind of eldritch mix of epic and urban fantasy with some political undertones and full of fascinatingly grey characters in a city that lives and breaths off the page. And while it takes a little while to establish all of the players it builds to an expansive, chaotic, surprising and satisfying conclusion.

This book, which is standalone, is set in a city that’s been under foreign occupation for several years. The occupiers have the goal of “perfecting” the world, so naturally anything not already “perfect” according to their rigid standards must be … perfected. Naturally this is hard on the populace.

The city seethes with discontent. You have students talking about glorious revolutions in lecture halls and taverns. You have the old aristocracy, who is all about supporting a rebellion so long as they end up back on top. You have the workers, for whom the new boss is pretty much the same as the old boss and needs to be reminded of where their wealth comes from. And you have the city’s criminal element, who are against whoever is in charge.

And you have a mysterious Wood on the edge of the city. Sometimes it’s just a stand of trees you can cross in a few strides. But other times it becomes a vast and mysterious forest, and a path to … elsewhere. If you have the right protections that will let you past the monstrous guardians. Our story begins when the #2 of the occupiers sets out to cross the Wood (because whatever is on the other side could undoubtedly do with some good old fashioned perfecting), yet the magical totem that will let him pass has been mysteriously stolen, with unfortunate consequences for him.

The story unfolds from a variety of different POVs. A student girl brimming with patriotic enthusiasm. The academic she idolizes, who talks about patriotism but mainly does a good job of self-promotion. A street tough. The last priest of a nearly-forgotten god. A dealer in blackmarket magical goods. The keeper of the Anchorage, an inn by the Wood that serves as a waypoint. More and more get added as the story goes on, providing a mosaic view of events.

(Pro tip: pay attention during the first two chapters - dinner at the priest’s cheap boarding house and a game of chance at the Anchorage, respectively. You meet a lot of the chief characters very quickly in those two scenes. I got about 10% into the book, was having trouble keeping track of everyone, and went back and restarted and paid better attention.)

Overall, this was enjoyable, but not Tchaikovsky’s best. I want to compare it to the Mel Brooks film *History of the World, Part I*, for two reasons. First is that this book is far from Tchaikovsky’s best, but “Tchaikovsky’s best” is a high enough standard that this book is still much better than average. Second, this book didn’t really mesh into a coherent whole for me. I feel like Tchaikovsky had a variety of cool ideas that he’d come up with over the years and never gotten to use, and threw them together here to try to make them work. It’s still a good book, just a little discordant.

A city on the verge of revolution. A sprawling fantasy with a host of characters, well written if at the start a bit confusing but worth persevering with
I received this book from Head of Zeus and Netgalley for a review.

This was a struggle for me. Disjointed storytelling failed to keep my interest - a DNF ultimately. My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Imaginative, twisty, intriguing - everything you’d expect from Tchaikovsky, in this fantastic novel! So pleased to have been among the first readers, and I’ll be recommending this to everyone!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review.

*thanks to NetGalley for sending me an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review*

Rating: ✦✦✦✧✧ (I was initially planning to give 2 or 2.5 but I decided to give proper credit to a couple of things in the book)

Let's start by being honest: initially I wasn't planning to finish this book. The first two-three chapters had left me so confused that I thought I should just give up and look for something else.
But people on Reddit told me to just toughen up and go on because things would get better eventually.
And they did.
After reading almost the whole first half of the book.
Still better late than never though, right?

✓ PROS
Since I don't want to seem like someone who only knows how to complain (although I do that a lot), let's start from the things I appreciated in this book.

• Everything concerning the Reproach. Now, I can't really say much about it because it would be a spoiler and I absolutely don't wan't to ruin your reading experience. But I can say that as long as the Reproach was involved I was sure I would deeply enjoy that chapter. It added that spooky, creepy element to a sci-fi fantasy book that would have otherwise been a bit more plain.
• Same thing goes for the Woods and its inhabitants (and/or guardians?). I was actually kinda sad and disappointed when I realised that many of my doubts regarding both the Reproach and the Woods weren't going to be solved. But maybe it's exactly the unsaid that made them more attractive and involving.
• There are several types of creatures and people cohexisting (again, I won't say anything more to let you find out on your own). There could have been the risk of making the whole story seem kind of unlikely, like putting a dragon and an alien in the same story, but from that point of few everything runs smoothly and feels "right".

✗ CONS
What was the main reason that almost led me to DNF the book?
• The highly fragmented narrative style. The narrator is external (not omniscient, though), but in each chapter it follows closely one of the several main characters. The main issue is that, at the beginning, the interactions between the main characters are close to none, and very short. Because of that I had the impression of reading separate stories that had nothing to do with each other, and I initially was overwhelmed by all the characters. Things get obviously better the more the story goes on, but the problem of using several POVs is the risk of having some of them more frequent than others, and therefore kinda forgetting about the "minor" ones.
• Maybe because of the fragmented narrative style and the particular nature (in some cases left unexplained) of some characters, I couldn't empathise with any of them. I might have had a kind of liking for a couple of them just because of their attitude or their wittiness, but not the affection that I feel towards characters of other series.
• In terms of plot, I think I would have probably enjoyed it more if it had been a bit more balanced. The idea of building up tension until the revolution sets off is not completely wrong, but it exhausted all my energies to the point that I thought "ok, please make this end soon, make anyone win as long as I can finish this". Which is obviously a pity since the second half of the book is the one that has more action and plot twists.

All in all, I suggest you to try reading this book if you like:
• stories about revolutions
• momentarily creepy vibes
• magic
• conspiracies

Really could not get into this book and struggled to work my way through it. It might be the slow start or the lack of connection to the story but I DNF'd with about 100 pages left. The story has lots of interesting characters but the story itself was a bit too overwhelming for me, as I struggled to keep on top of what was important.

Welcome to Ilmar, a vast and complicated, city at the border of other worlds. Home to an occupying force, refugees of many nations, factions of resistance, guilds and plenty of criminal elements. It’s a pressure cooker of a city and it doesn’t take much for it to explode.

I was really impressed by this complex and brilliantly realised world Tchaikovsky throws us into. It took me a little while to get my bearings but it is worth it. There are many hidden agendas, layers upon layers to discover and the rug pulled under your feet a few times. I did find the middle part a bit baggy but when it gets going it really gets going.
It's a fun, sprawling fantasy novel with a contemporary feel to it.

This book is unlike anything I’ve read and I’m still not quite sure what I think of it. It was an incredibly slow read, but I did enjoy it. The writing is very dense, but the style is unique. It was very interesting to see this complex plot play out through the eyes of so many characters and in so many little moments.

It was a little hard to keep track of all the characters and I was surprised at how many perspectives we read from. In the first 25%, there were no repeat chapter perspectives. The characters show up in other chapters and it was interesting to see them through the other characters' eyes.

I’m very interested in checking out Tchaikovsky’s other works.

Thank you to NetGalley, Head of Zeus/AdAstra Books, and Adrian Tchaikovsky for an e-arc of City of Last Chances in exchange for an honest review.

City of Lost Chances was one of my most anticipated NetGalley approvals. I love Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time and Children of Ruin and I was so looking forward to jumping into fantasy. This book explores a world on the brink of government overthrow, caught in turmoil with occupation and censure.

Unfortunately the detailed and extensive exploration of politics didn’t thrill me the same way an exploration of science did. I really struggled to become immersed in the story with all the jumping around between characters and ultimately couldn’t make it until the end.

I’m one of those that was bored out of my mind in Kings Landing and lived for Danaeyrs, Arya, and John Snow storylines in A Song of Ice and Fire, so I probably would have realized this wasn’t for me if I had looked more closely! If you prefer historical fiction and politics especially surrounding political unrest, this is for you!

This book has a pretty unique structure, whereby you follow many different perspectives in this city, from different woks of life. This added an additional layer of depth, but also made things quite dense and took time getting used to.
Tchaikovsky's writing style is great here, and there are some emotional moments that really connected with me….⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My thanks to Head of Zeus - Ad Astra for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘City of Last Chances’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

While I have a number of Tchaikovsky’s science fiction novels and novellas, I hadn’t to date read any of his works of fantasy. So, I was excited to read his latest, heralded as his ‘triumphant return to fantasy’.

It is a long, complex novel in which Tchaikovsky creates a portrait of an occupied city on the verge of revolution. For the past three years Ilmar, known as the City of Last Chances, has been under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation. Ilmar’s diverse population also has to contend with the influence of a powerful criminal underworld, the oppressive hold of its factory owners, and the crippling legacy of poverty. For good measure there’s also an ancient curse on the city.

There has always been a darkness to Ilmar as at its heart is the Anchorwood, a primeval grove of trees, where when the moon is full a portal opens to strange and distant shores. Some say that Ilmar is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places.

I was grateful for Tchaikovsky’s opening lists of the factions of Ilmar and the Palleseen Occupation as well as a handy Dramatis Personae.

As always Tchaikovsky’s world building was excellent though the movement between its multiple character viewpoints, the competing political factions, and the often dense prose did demand a close reading. It wasn’t a novel to zip through.

Amidst the dark fantasy were flashes of humour, including some bawdy moments. I also enjoyed the portrayal of the various gods, including some insect ones. Tchaikovsky really seems to like bugs.

Overall, an intriguing, intelligent political fantasy that proved a satisfying and immersive reading experience.

Fans of Daniel Abraham or Anthony Ryan will love visiting Ilmar, under occupation, where dangerous and contagious magic runs riot at the edges and underground and where the invaders seek to control the people of the city and their beliefs. Every single character draws you in, makes you feel for them, see things from their perspective - you want them all to win, even the ones you don't like! I really hope there is a book 2 because I can't wait to see what happens.

I think there is a theory that while science fiction is a literature focussed on change and development, fantasy is, rather, focussed on restoring what has been lost. "Space: the Final Frontier" vs "Return of the King", or something like that, with a good outcome seen either as transformative progress, or regression to The Golden Age.

In his new novel City of Last Chances, Adrian Tchaikovsky creates a whole world poised on the knife edge between these alternatives. He introduces us to Ilmar, also known as the City of Bad Decisions, a place with the reputation of being a last refuge for the unlucky, the stateless, the desperate. (I'm reminded of the nickname for Oxford, "City of Lost Causes"). There are rumours of a way out - a gateway out of misery - but the price of passage is high, leaving most of the malcontents, runaways and displaced populations stuck in Ilmar, their unique and disparate cultures decaying on that great compost heap of a town.

The Ilmari themselves have their own problems, though, now being ruled by the Palleseen, who, recently invaded, hanged the Old Duke, made Ilmar part of their Sway, and set out imposing their ideas of perfection. (The Palleseen idea is a thing called 'The Perfecture', a glorious model society which all nations should want to be part of - those that won't sign up are clearly backwards, disruptive and sorely need to be brought to help).

The participants in this story are many and varied; among them are refugees who have settled in Ilmar (some after escaping from the Pels); factions among the Ilmari - most of whom are notionally part of a 'resistance', something Tchaikovsky shines a rather merciless spotlight on; and the Pels themselves. There are also hints of darker, older powers perhaps best alone. That gives a great many viewpoints including - to mention just a few - the last remaining believer in God; a man who's stepped out of another world where he was prepped for a merciless war, but who's lost his wife and is set only on finding here; an idealistic student radical; a foot soldier for the criminal gangs; a union organiser who's seen and suffered; and an cynical old academic who gives a nod to revolution in his classes while cutting deals with the Pels in the shadows.

That last is something of a theme here. The disparate rebel factions - students, aristocrats, thieves' syndicates and smugglers - have quite different views about how to free themselves from the Pels' yoke, and when a seemingly innocuous incident blows up into riot and uprising, nobody has a plan, or much of an idea how to proceed (apart from raking off all they can in the chaos). That unfolding response, and countermoves by the occupiers, forms the texture of this story, together with desperate attempts, by a number of the characters, to track down the missing artefact that sparked everything off. That's important, because an avenger seems to be hunting down all those who may have secured the treasure. The decisions made here, by everyone, will determine who lives and who dies as the flame of revolution spreads...

City of Last Chances is a weighty and absorbing book, one I'd place far, far away from the run of fantasy or SF. Tchaikovsky clearly isn't buying into that simplistic binary that I mentioned at the start. The past of Ilmar isn't a desirable state to be brought back, but no future looks bright either. Better perhaps to remain on that knife edge, maintaining a complex relationship with the Pels. But that takes a lot of work and has a cost. Perhaps it's easier just to bring out the banners from the days gone by?

Nor will you find heroes or villains here. More or less everyone is - as in real life - out for themselves (I'd exclude from that idealistic student Lemya) or at least heavily conflicted. Take that union leader, for example, Father Orvechin. He's focussed on improvements in the conditions of his workers and, in the longer term, perhaps the overthrow of the Pels. But the factory owners who oppress his people are native aristos, not Pels, and the factories are kept turning by demons who are themselves enslaved, oppressed workers - workers that Orvechin is willing to see kept in their bonds, because they're not his people, though he knows that one day this will haunt him.

This whole sense of Ilmar as a nest of collaboration, compromise and negotiation with power, and that maybe that is just about the best things can be, is revisited and reworked throughout the book. The Pels themselves are split into different blocs who are willing to cuts deals when it suits them. The aristocrats ('Armigers') desire one future, the siblingries (unions and workers' guilds) another. At times they cooperate, at others they don't. The same goes for the other actors here. Picture a giant game of repeated Prisoners' Dilemma, played out in real time, with magic, lost deities and demons thrown in too, and you get some idea of the complexity and fascination of this book.

That may make the story sound academic or dry, but it's really not. It's passionate, urgent and angry. Tchaikovsky's central theme of compromise and collusion is shot through it, pulling against and reinforcing individual motivation is countless ways, different for every character.While there are so many of these that one can't really anoint any as the focus, they are all intricately, convincingly realised and the business they are about gloriously integrated with the setting and the wider history that is sketched. There was only one point at which a particular strand seemed to me to jar - when a mysterious assassin, otherwise not included in the story, played a part on behalf of unknown employers whom we never hear any more about. Apart from that very brief interlude though, this book was a marvellous symphony of clashing goals, missing information and immediate danger that had me hooked throughout. I would strongly recommend it.

An epic fantasy with interesting characters and good pacing!

I enjoyed the worldbuilding as this is my first fantasy novel by this author. I did like the plot and how well rounded it was. Overall, a fun read but did pick up about halfway through!

Thanks to the publishers and netgalley for an e-arc!

I’ve enjoyed Adrian Tchaikovsky’s science fiction books so I was keen to see how his fantasy compared to this and was happy my request was approved by NetGalley for the arc of City Of Last Chances.
I received a copy of this book for a free and unbiased opinion.
This is a hard review to write. I didn’t really love the book as much as I thought I would ( although I didn’t dislike the book as much as I thought I would after I finished it either).
So, I’ll focus on the good first. The world-building is truly epic and expansive- The city of Ilmar and the surrounding cities( especially the city that has a fixed population and any child that doesn't meet the grade are evicted!) are the true core of the story. Ilmar is the place for people who have nowhere else to go and the writing captures it perfectly. The descriptions of the city and its people just highlight the last chance saloon of this city.
The city is occupied and the tensions between invaders imposing their culture and religion over the occupied people of Ilmar are beautifully described and ring true.

But there are far too many characters in the book and by the end, I couldn’t keep track of them and couldn’t really have a sense of them or their purpose, I found it hard to keep track of the plot and just felt a little lost by the end,
While I imagine fans of epic fantasy with plenty of characters and great world-building will love this book, it just wasn’t for me.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of my favourite authors so I was thrilled to be approved for this book. It's the first fantasy I have read by him and it won't be the last. Admittedly there were a lot of characters and factions to keep track of, but once I was about a third of the way in it all started to become familiar. As with the author's science fiction books, settings and world building are brilliant. I could really visualise what I was reading and I could certainly feel the general oppressiveness and unease that was so pervasive. The one thing I struggled with was feeling a connection with the characters. But I still greatly enjoyed the story and the writing, as usual, is lovely to read.

City of Last Chances was the first fantasy novel I’ve read by Tchaikovsky after falling in love with his science fiction. In a similar way to his other books, I was engrossed by his writing style and the world building, but occasionally struggled to follow events.

We enter a world of conflict, where unrest brews between residents and an invading force. Multiple narrators give us a thorough understanding of what’s going on: students dreaming of revolution; a professor putting his reputation first; shrewd businessmen; a priest with a God only he can see; factory workers… We’re introduced to all elements of this world.

The multiple characters work to establish the setting, but comes with a cost. The switch in narrators means it takes longer to appreciate the full picture of events. There’s a lot going on: an invading force; gods; a woodland that’s also a portal; and a city of the undead. For the first third of the book, it feels like trying to play catch up.

But once you get your head around it, you’re in for a heck of a ride. There’s growing tension, a fast-paced plot - despite the length of the book - and escalating danger from all directions. If you like impossible odds with characters that you root for from the beginning, then you’re going to love this.

City of Last Chances is a high-end fantasy, not for those wanting to dabble. If you’re ready for an epic adventure, this is the book for you.

CHARACTERS
🔲 mary-sue party
🔲 mostly 2D
🔲 great main cast, forgettable side characters
🔲 well-written
✅ complex and fascinating
🔲 hard to believe they are fictional

PLOT
🔲 you've already heard this exact story a thousand times
🔲 nothing memorable
✅ gripping
🔲 exceptional
🔲 mind=blown

WORLDBUILDING
🔲 takes place in our world
🔲 incoherent
🔲 OK
🔲 nicely detailed
✅ meticulous
🔲 even the last tree in the forest has its own story

ATMOSPHERE
🔲 nonexistent
🔲 fine
🔲 immersive
✅ you forget you are reading a book

PACING
🔲 dragging
✅ inconsistent
🔲 picks up with time
🔲 page-turner
🔲 impossible to put down

A fascinating story but goodness was it slow.

I have a hard time reviewing this book because while I think it was incredibly unique, it was still my least favourite read by the author so far.

Let's start with the good. Tchaikovsky's character work is still superb and honestly, considering how many different POVs this book deals with in so few pages it's truly impressive he managed to make them all so different and real. At times it felt like I was reading about the history of some foreign city and not fictional characters, which is especially amazing since the book wasn't that long.

Closely relating to this, the world-building was extraordinary, it gave the much-needed background to the characters and the story between them. I would love to read some novellas set in this world focusing on the different cultures and times in history.

My main problem with this novel was its pacing. The author tried something different with the narration style where (at the start in particular) the point of view jumped between a bunch of cast members without much connection. While I really liked the idea theoretically, after all, you need a lot of people to really describe the atmosphere of a whole city, it didn't really work for me. The story felt disjointed at times and the plot barely progressed. It got better towards the end when I was familiar with all the characters, but it took me a very long time to get through this book because of this.

I'm still a big fan of Tchaikovsky and after this stand-alone, I can't wait to get into his fantasy series! 😊