(Title: City of Last Chances / Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky / Publisher: Head of Zeus / Publication Date: December 8, 2022 / Total Pages: 496)
Back Cover Blurb
There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse.
What will be the spark that lights the conflagration? Despite the city's refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood - that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and different shores.
Ilmar, some say, is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places.
Review
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.
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