I would like to thank Cassie from Head of Zeus for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher - Head of Zeus

Published - 8/12

Price - £20 hardback £7.99 Kindle eBook

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 distant shores.

Ilmar, some say, is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places.

Ilmar, City of Long Shadows.

City of Bad Decisions.

City of Last Chances.

I am a city dweller. I love them they’re full of history; different groups and traditions and you can walk from a beautiful ancient park to either hi-tech splendour or occasional full on Industrial wasteland - often not far from each other. Cities are a lifeblood for people; safe havens and sometimes a place of rebellion. In fantasy where would we be without Lankhmar, Ankh-Morpork or those mysterious taverns where all adventures can start? Often a city can be a seen as an organic machine with all these elements working together imperfectly. But sometimes cities are where the tensions arise; where people debate are they actually free and then the elements of the machine are more like dominoes all carefully lined up and awaiting a nudge. Reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s new fantasy novel City of Last Chances we get an energetic tale that starts with that nudge and then we follow all the knock-on effects in one occupied city but one with an additional level of magic and the supernatural that makes the consequences even more interesting to watch develop.

Ilmar is an ancient city with a reputation for wildness. There have been criminal elements, religions and it sits by a mysterious Wood with itself a reputation for magic, death, monsters but also the opportunity to visit new unusual places. But as with many parts of the world it is now occupied by the Palleseen. A people who dislike things they cannot control and work very hard to instil order and control - and the hangman is never idle. The old Duke was executed; new leaders installed, monitoring is ever ongoing and ambitious Pel officers tend to just see Ilmar as an opportunity to gain power and prestige. One such is Sage-Archivist Ochelby who has decided to brave the woods with a group of soldiers; he has explored the traditions; he is carefully prepared and yet soon finds that he has been cheated…and very swiftly dies. But the death of such a high-ranking Pel figure is the stone dropped in the water and the ripples of his death creates arrests, uproar and opportunities across all parts of Ilmar society. That can lead to rebellion, repression, profit or power and there are so many factions who now try to turn events to their advantage.

The best way of escribing reading this is watching a train of dominoes fall. This is a complex and ambitious reading experience. We are dropped pretty much in the deep end just prior to Ochelby’s death (who we will not mourn). We have as readers to work hard to try and understand this world initially and the impressive thing is that Ilmar is really the main character. It is a huge sprawling city in a vaguely 19th century East European feel with a touch of occupation by a totalitarian power. But on top of this we have regions filled with monsters; curses, haunted areas that control the populace, crime gangs, rebels (some of whom are also crime gangs) and black-market magicians. it it huge and you slowly get told little histories; tales told about certain groups of key characters and their relationships. All delivered at speed but there is so much of it to follow and learn how Ilmar actually works.

I quite enjoyed this dense storytelling approach as a challenge to sit back and enjoy the ride and as its an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel I should know it will work. The dominoes trail of plots will split up - we meet student revolutionaries; migrants with magic; hidden priests with near extinct Gods and ambitious crime lords plus ever more Pel officers seeing this as opportunities to get power or finally bring Ilmar to heal. Just when you think you have a handle on things lets introduce demons, a city quarter than can take your mind and replace it with others and we scale up and down the society from workers to nobles as the storyline about how everyone wants to control the city (or stay alive in it) develops. Oh did I mention the human-eating monsters? Nothing to worry about…probably

My advice is trust the book, Let it guide you and these elements do all come together eventually. It is a dense but for me intoxicating tale that never stands still. Every scene has consequences for the main storyline or the particular characters we follow at any one time. You will have to be patient for certain parts of this world to be explained but they will be. As the story progresses, you’ll start to see the shape the fallen dominoes are now making. This is a tale that explores how a city is never simply good or evil just in its own way alive; they carry their history with them always even when some want to eliminate it; that even when occupied there are those residents happy to profit as well as those willing to fight back and sometimes a change of leadership is just a new manager and a lot of what happened before will do so again.

City of Last Chances is an unusual fantasy novel in terms of scale, complexity and approach; but I think that is exactly what we need more of. I like having to put the pieces together in a story and in this case having to learn some patience as to discovering exactly what is this story going to be about. I think you won’t forget Ilmar in a hurry and it does have a message as we see regularly on our screens every day that no city ever stays the same for long espeially if freedom is being sought. Well worth your time!