A hypnotic slice of fantasy from Adrian Tchaikovsky's masterly pen, City of Last Chances leads the reader into the dark, richly imagined Ilmar, where every street holds an arresting tale in the shadow of doom.
Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller Adrian Tchaikovsky's triumphant return to fantasy with a darkly inventive portrait of a city under occupation and on the verge of revolution. 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.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781801108447
Number of pages: 528
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
Finesse and clarity of detail in the world building is the rock on which Tchaikovsky has built the City of Last Chances . . . the beauty of the story is in the slow and gentle unfolding of how the unrelated combine - SciFi Now
Paints a vivid detailed backdrop and populates it with colourful personalities and elaborate religious, political and economic systems . . . making a location the main character is a considerable challenge and it's testament to Tchaikovsky's skill that he can make it work - SFX
When things start to unravel, brilliant chaos ensues - Daily Mail
Has some of Tchaikovsky’s best prose . . . an absolutely fascinating study in human behaviour - SF Crowsnest
An intriguing tangle, dense, dark, ingenious, ironic, complex, often funny, and always smart - Locus
Endlessly creative . . . so much invention peeking around every corner - Patrick Ness
The rich, inventive worldbuilding and nuanced intrigues will have fantasy readers on the edges of their seats - Publishers Weekly
Ilmar is vividly alive with ideas, conflicts, and a sense of its own history – a truly breathtaking fantasy city, down every street a compelling story - David Towsey
A master at the height of his powers. This is epic symphonic fantasy, weaving a breakneck plot through a sumptuously dangerous world - Ian Green
An ambitious epic fantasy read that contains many quality elements and memorable characters . . . a unique reading experience - Grimdark Magazine
A powerful story about romanticism versus the truth of rebellion . . . It resonates with the world we live in today and is well worth investing your time in more than once - The British Fantasy Society
A gritty adventure fantasy of uncommon breadth, fashioning a universe brimming with magic and treachery - Foreword Reviews, starred review
Ilmar will live up to its many names in this clever and engaging fantasy - Booklist, starred review
[A] darkly comic but also potentially transformative guide to fantasyland - ParSec
A wonderful twisty stew of a book with a cast of fascinating characters, set against the brilliantly realized city of Ilmar - Django Wexler
A triumph of a book: wildly imaginative, immediately immersive and hypnotically compelling - Sharon Emmerichs
Interesting and beautifully thought out. . . in terms of its scope, its ambition, and its ability to render a genuinely realistic view of a city on the cusp of revolution, City of Last Chances is immensely successful - Nerds of a Feather
A mosaic of a novel . . . Highly recommended to those who love books where the city feels like a character - The Fantasy Inn
As the story pulls back to reveal the whole of the fresco, I discovered that once again Tchaikovksy had treated me to a clever storyline that subverted expectations and rewarded my loyalty - Geek Dad
An absolute tour-de-force of a book . . . unpredictable and absorbing - Birmingham Science Fiction Group
Tchaikovsky skilfully immerses the reader into [his] rich and diverse world, where magic and machinery intertwine, and mysterious figures with barely glimpsed back-stories step onto, and then off, centre stage - Concatenation
PRAISE FOR BEAR HEAD: 'Adrian Tchaikovsky's dissection of Thompson's appeal and ghastly genius is the thoughtful highlight of this unashamedly thrilling escapade. You don't need to have read Dogs of War to enjoy Bear Head – but why deny yourself the pleasure?' The Times 'Funny, appalling, gruesome and uplifting (often at the same time), Bear Head is propelled by a cracking plot that balances dystopian satire with a palpable sense of moral peril' Daily Mail. 'An absolute whammy of a read, and a must for anyone who enjoys a smart, fast-paced, hugely entertaining blast of speculative fiction... This is one of those books where you can just throw yourself and abandon yourself to a fabulous story, knowing you will be entertained throughout' LoveReading. 'A rousing good read' - Guardian
City of Last Chances is filled with beautiful, colourful imagery, rich narrative and intricate world building. A challenging but rewarding read - LoveReading
I love this so much. A sprawling steampunk, fantasy where 1984 meets Les Misérables. It is dark and oppressive shot through with the embers of rebellion just waiting to be stirred while strange curses that dance... More
This is no paint-by-numbers, run-of-the-mill fantasy novel. If Tchaikovsky didn’t lean so gleefully into traditional genre tropes I would go so far as to call it ‘genre-defying’.
The spectre of real-world 20th...
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This one took me a minute to get into, but once I did I was hooked. The multiple POV progressing the story can start off a little confusing but the further you read the more they link in a really satisfying way.... More
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