I loved catching up with Yasnic and God in this book which follows on, after a little jump in time, from the City of Last Chances but with a different setting and a whole new cast (except for our favourite ex-priest and his grouchy God, of course!). This might even be my favourite of the two books as the characters were more connected and the plot less jumpy. Tchaikovsky’s writing is so incredibly detailed, and combines a host of unique characters and a lot of amusing twists and turns. This bunch of misfits feel like friends in no time and I enjoyed following them on their war effort through the goings on inside and outside of the hospital tent. There are power plays and politics, several imprisonments and a few new gods to keep us entertained. Banders was perhaps my favourite of this quirky bunch, with her charm and her scheming, she brought a lot of levity to the story and a few surprises of her own. This is a difficult book to put down and full of interesting, fantastical things and unusual people. It was interesting finding out more about each of the key characters, both their pasts and their presents, and seeing how they all fit together as a family of misfits through the highs and lows of their time with the Palleseen army. Hopefully we’ll see different parts of this world in another book, perhaps with some familiar faces!

Review: House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky book two of the Tyrant Philosophers.

Thanks to Netgalley and Head of Zeus for an arc of this book.

This is a standalone sequel to The City of Last Chances featuring one of the characters from the previous book. While reading The City of Last Chances will add some added context it is not necessary to have read it beforehand.

The Palleseen Sway is expanding its drive to perfection across the world and to keep their soldiers in the fight for such perfection they need to get them back in the fight and for they need a field hospital. However, sometimes achieving perfection means using the imperfect and to this end the one-time priest Yasnic also former god smuggler finds himself assigned to the Experimental Field Hospital led by the Butcher. Where they try to save who they can, but Yasnic might not be the best healing priest for this army hospital unit.

I really enjoyed this book the story hooked me from the start. The character of Yasnic was well written and his arc through the book saw some great development. The other characters in the book were all well written I especially enjoyed the characters of Masty an orderly and Banders who absolutely stole the show. She was one of the most enjoyable and chaotic characters in the book which includes a contrarian god.

The worldbuilding was really well done especially considering so much of the book takes place within the environs of the field hospital, but you get an idea of the world and what is happening in it and how the Palleseen Sway is affecting the world with it’s march towards perfection and those who oppose it and their own reasons for doing so. The internal politics of the army and the even the field hospital were so well written.

The plot was very well done and kept my attention and kept me guessing at times as to where it was going to go with some great twists.

I would definitely recommend this book for any fans of Adrian Tchaikovsky and fantasy. It was a great read and a world I want to go back to.

For no fault of the author, I didn’t realise that this was the second in a series and therefore struggled to get into the story.

The style of writing was quite unique for the genre - each chapter felt like a seperate Act, fast paced and relentless. I imagine it would be easier to keep track of what was happening and to who having read the first in the series so I would strongly recommend that first. I really enjoyed the dark humour, and Yasnic was a stand out rich character, but I feel the series is not for me.

Thank you to netgalley and house of zeus for an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Set in Ilmar, a city under occupation from the pallesteens, the characters of this book are not typical heroes, or heroes at all. The vast majority are morally grey (although I was happy to see Yasnic again), with any good or bad resulting from there actions being secondary to their own interests. I enjoyed the story unfolding through multiple povs and piecing together different people's information.

The story touches on colonisism, facisim and poverty, and I liked how this was done. I have seen multiple saying that they prefer the author's sci-fi work to his fantasy, but as this is the only series of his I've read this is all I have to base it on. I wish that there had been some more exploration into the world building as this is an epic fantasy, however a good amount was still done and I overall enjoyed this book, more so than the first in the series.

#NetGalley #HouseofOpenWounds

It honestly surprised me how quickly (instantly!) I got into "House of Open Wounds" as I had some trouble immersing myself in "City of Last Chances" at first. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this book, and I'm hoping against hope there will be a 3rd (I can't imagine where the story could possibly go from here, but it's Adrian Tchaikovsky so who knows?!). Adding both books to my re-read list.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Thank you Head of Zeus and NetGalley for the arc!

It was great to see more of this world. I found this slightly harder to keep a track of compared to the first instalment. Lots of points of view and I found myself getting a bit lost (but even being lost, the story-telling was really interesting).

This is a skilfully written story with clear themes and really interesting exploration of different ideologies. I think this will be one I re-read when I have some more time to really digest the story.

Interesting idea for a story to tell, intriguing characters, and a beautiful cover. The thing is we have here 44 characters and a story spread over 50 chapters. It feels like too much, at times it´s difficult to keep track of all the characters. The humor, the magic, and the rebellious characters are definitely on the positive side, yet somehow I didn´t find this book as captivating as I had hoped. Don´t get me wrong, it´s not a bad book, it´s just not for me. DNF at 40+%

M.A.S.H. meets Pratchett – a riveting, if horrific, read
The opening chapter dumps you straight into a war zone hospital and heaps of ripped, torn and charred flesh and while you’re reeling from that, introduces the remarkable characters who make up the accessory hospital unit which follow the Palleseen army. (Accessories are people who have been scavenged from beaten countries in previous wars and permitted or forced to work for the Palleseen in their pursuit of a perfect and rational world).
The Palleseen, use whatever comes their way in order to follow their ideal and this includes a wonderful cast of characters who use all kinds or irrational and imperfect magical and demonic aids to mitigate the effects of combat and render damaged combatants approximately fit to carry on – as corpses if necessary. Also, a young ex-priest who has a serious god issue.
Right from the beginning, you get the message that war is futile and self-perpetuating, and this never lets up, but there are many other messages in this book about what’s right and what’s possible and how to live with a god and what pacifism might mean when it’s enforceable. Not to mention a well developed theme about ideology and terrorism. Also, there are changing relationships, brilliantly developed without compromising the characters, who are as varied and complex as any you’ll ever find in this genre. Tchaikovsky has the same ability as Pratchett to present you with a cardboard typecast figure and immediately tear all its edges and show you someone different and real underneath.
The worldbuilding, given that it’s almost entirely set in a war theatre, is impressive – I haven’t read Tchaikovsky for years but I don’t remember him being this good. (Maybe I was looking for easy reading in those days). I’ll definitely read more of his work after reading this. It’s a big book and the plot keeps its momentum right through. Great read.
Many thanks to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for this ARC

Adrian Tchaikovsky's latest fantasy series has its second volume out now. The series features an atheist empire that is determined to achieve perfection and bring others along with them, regardless of whether they like it or not. The empire's ends justify their means, or so they believe.

These two books are modern, but not in the typical sense of the word. They are filled with magic, ghosts and gods, yet they are grounded in rationalism, ideology and the intersection between totalitarianism, idealism, and corruption. The setting is 19th century Europe, where the French Revolution becomes a wizardly ancien regime, ultimately leading to a proto-Soviet state. The author, Tchaikovsky, explores similar themes to Sapowski's Witcher books, depicting the decay of idealism into crushing military force undermined by internal corruption, which is a common Eastern European trope.

The story depicts the Palleseen army during a war that resembles the Great War, the Great Patriotic War, or Desert Storm. It explores the compromises that arise from ideology in the face of the brutal nature of war. These compromises allow for the existence of practices that the state condemns, as long as they contribute to the cause.

Immerse yourself in a world of diverse cultures, where magisters, necromancers, demonologists, and sonorists reside within the intriguing bubble painted by Tchaikovsky. Among them is Maric Jack, a former resident of Ilmar, who carries a charming dovecote on his back. This enthralling read promises to captivate and transport you to a fascinating realm of adventure and wonder.

On the one hand, I am very happy to be given the opportunity to return to the world of A CIty of Last Chances, full of marginalized gods, burocratic crusaders, and people from all walks in life being their opportunistic selves. House of Open Wounds features Yasnic, the last priest of an otherwise abandoned god (and what a petty tyranny of two that relationship is), who I liked in CoLC, but the novel can be read as a standalone. It's in turns grim and humorous, and it shares a lot of the structural elements with its predecessor, which may be the decisive factor in your enjoyment of the story: it's still very fond of not POV-hopping as much as a non-stop POV baton-passing, and the impression of a tapestry rolling fast downhill in creates, narratively speaking. I was not as shocked with the choice here as I was before, so it seemed more a feature than a bug tjhis time around, but I do remain sceptical of its benefits to investment ratio of this choice, as a reader. The momentum was huge, though, and the book was hard to put down - so overall, I enjoyed it.

I am very thankful to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel.

Huge thanks to the author and publisher for the chance to read this ARC, in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into this, this is no reflection on the author and I’m grateful for the opportunity to read this regardless.

This is the second book set within the Palleseen worldview but reads easily without the need to read the other story. Its focus is a small group of individuals associated with an army field hospital, but this is not a M.A.S.H clone. The central character is a disillusioned priest who still carries his god with him, literally; in fact, the story burgeons with a pantheon of deities and what remains of their followers. At its heart, the story deals with what happens to people and their gods when they become swallowed up by logic and the desire for clarity.

Each chapter is a coherent scene that centres on one of the characters and is seen from their point of view. This mechanism drives the plot forward but is also the novels major weakness, because there is no pause; something happens in every chapter. To compound this, there is no clear plot or destination to the book, it is just a series of scenes that follow on from and build upon what is known.

Characterisation is interesting and despite the relatively large cast, there is clear delineation in personality and role. The war and the drive to eliminate difference and faith are the reality but are also the villains against which the 'heroes' survive and ultimately fight, but it is a battle that cannot be obviously won. As such, the characters are seen as flawed along with their gods, ground down by an implacable foe.

The pace of the story is fast and despite it being a long novel, it is an easy read and is one that holds the reader even when there does not seem to be any progress.

The ending is a clever twist and one that is flagged to prepare the reader. There is a resolution to the plight of the characters, but it couldn't be called a happily ever after; rather, it provides opportunities for characters to have a future that is more of their own choosing.

It is an interesting book and I am glad to have read it, but having just completed it I wouldn't say I enjoyed it at this time, perhaps it will stay with me and I will come back to it at some later date. I would say it has the potential to be that kind of book. Recommended.

I would like to start by saying that this is not the sort of book I usually read. I find the number of different characters and plots too much of a challenge to follow.

While I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would, it still didn't win me over to this style. And I did find the characters and plots difficult to keep track of.

I won't attempt to summarise the plot here. I'm sure people can look it up on bookseller's websites who will do a far better job than I can!

But in my opinion, the book would have been better if it had cut some of the peripheral characters and some parts of the plot which felt a bit repetitive.

While I'm not giving this a glowing review, I do admire the author for being able to write a book of this length and complexity. And I'm sure fans of fantasy books will enjoy it - it's just not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

I'll admit to respecting and reading Adrian Tchaikovsky and have always admired and enjoyed his work.
None of that context matters when it comes to this book. It really doesn't matter at all.

I absolutely loved City Of Last Chances, which is the predecessor to this book. I found it so original, yet emotional in a way that few books are. I was then puzzled when this book was announced, as frankly how can anyone write a sequel to a book that defied so many expectations and in which, so many events and outcomes happened.

As such, I started reading this book with no clear expectations. Rapidly though, I was assaulted by the sheer tenacity of such a story of brilliance. This is a story like no other, full of loved characters from the pervious book, but the new characters jump into life in such a way, that it cannot be anything but love at first sight.
The story is written with such skill and panache, that it reads like no other. It is one of those supremely rare books that you want to read it as fast as you can to understand what happens next, but yet also read it slowly to appreciate every syllable. The finest book of 2023, the finest book Adrian Tchaikovsky has ever written, it is that good.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for an advance review copy of this book in return for a fair review. I took a long time to finish this book, but there were extreme mitigating circumstances that caused the delay, but suffice to say it did not grab my attention even when I had the time.
Like other reviewers I saw the parallels with MASH but I also felt echoes of Catch 22 and The Forever War. I enjoyed the world building but i felt there was rather too much blood and gore, albeit that it was about a war. I empathised with Jack and liked some of the other characters, but I felt the structure rather too loose, disrupting the storytelling.
I have several of the author's other books on my "Acquired, waiting to read" shelf and I will not accelerate nor put back their place in the reading order after this.

This was my first book from this author and I was pleasantly surprised considering I do not like epic/high fantasy. The plot was easy to follow however long chapters and long descriptions were not for me. I still did enjoy the plot and it's richness even though it felt like the author did not want to give away much to keep the suspence up.

OMG I loved this book, it drew me in with the first chapter and held me tight right the way through.

House of Open Wounds follows on from the City of Last Chances, and follows Yasnic, the former Priest of God and carrier of some other gods. He finds himself on the Pal front lines and in an experimental Hospital due to his miraculous healing hands (or at least God's decisions to heal when asked.) There he meets an oddball collection of people, who work there, where he makes friends and enemies, after all the Pals do not like anything different. And these people are as different as they get.

I love how Tchaikovsky can grab you up with his storytelling and hold you in his clutches until he is ready to let you go. He is one of the finest storytellers and world builders of our time, and I eagerly look forward to their work and have yet to be disappointed. Plus I was told he continues Yasnic's story as I loved him in the City of Last Chances.

A must-read (though please read City of Last Chances first, just for context.)

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s fantasy novel City of Last Chances came out earlier this year and was marketed as a stand alone. A richly conceived novel of a city under occupation and a revolt that brewed and exploded on its streets. There was so much world building around the city of Ilmar and plenty of characters left with futures in the air but it still did not feel like the start of a series. So it was a bit of a surprise when not six months later it turns out that Tchaikovsky has delivered an equally engaging but very different sequel, with only one crossover character (although in the end an extremely important one) in House of Open Wounds.
If City of Last Chances was a city-based revolution novel then House of Open Wounds is clearly a war novel. The book opens in and spends much of its time around a field hospital for the Palleseen army. It is the Palleseen, and their militant perfectionism, who were the occupiers and target of so much ire in City of Last Chances. Here, Tchaikovsky embeds readers in their backlines as they fight to a bloody stalemate with an implacable enemy in a war which is essentially over who should control the world. The thing about this field hospital is that it is staffed mainly by misfits and non-Palleseen magic users. So that when the last priest in Ilmar, known as Yasnic in the previous book but now called Maric Jack because no one cares to know his real name, and his box of forgotten gods turns up he fits right in.
Much like City of Last Chances, House of Open Wounds is a mosaic of a novel – building up a picture through multiple points of view. But whereas in the former those points of view were usually separate and on their own paths, this narrative centres very squarely on the staff of the field hospital – from their Chief, known as the Butcher, to the magic using “surgeons” to the orderlies. So that many chapters jump between then characters who are all in the same place at the same time.
The closest comparison to make for this book is the TV series M*A*S*H, but darker. There are not a lot of laughs to be had and Tchaikovsky does not shy away from the body count and the sheer barbarity of the war that is being fought. This is particularly the case as he has his characters interacting with those who are striving to make bigger and more deadly or more powerful weapons in a kind of magical arms race, not considering what might happen if the enemy were to then create similar weapons of their own. If nothing else this book is about the futility of war, the way the machine either grinds people down or forces them to try and change the rules.
House of Open Wounds is a long novel that spends a lot of time focussed on the characters and their ever worsening situation. But the characters are so engaging that the pages keep turning. And there is a slow moving plot underneath it all which keeps being hinted at. Tchaikovsky has great control over all of his revelation and how all of the pieces drop into place but it only really clicks into gear in the last quarter.
As with the previous book, The House of Open Wounds can easily be read as a standalone. Once again, the main plot points are wrapped up but the future of the characters is open. So that this may stand as a great duology or, hopefully, Tchaikovsky will take readers to another part of the world, perhaps with some of those characters, perhaps not, as he has left plenty to explore.

Sorry Mr T, you are just not for me!

The first book that I read of yours was Ogres and I absolutely loved it. The second book of yours that I read was Eyes of the Void and I decided it was a overly dense deviation. House of Open Wounds is too much like Eyes of the Void for me and so it will be the last book of yours that I will attempt to read. Sad really because Ogres was truly first class.

2022’s City of Last Chances introduced us to a rich and deep fantasy world, as the eponymous city was invaded by the Palleseen army (aside: I’m not sure if that is a slightly unfortunate bit of naming, no one else seems to be commenting but the thought stayed with me). An army on a never-ending quest to impose ‘Perfection’ on the rest of the world, even as that means occupying every city and kingdom one at a time.

Someone cleverer than me suggested that CoLC had a bit of a Les Miserables vibe to it – deeply embedded in some wild fantasy – and alas my own ‘clever’ observation was one that several others got to first: this sequel has such a ‘fantasy M*A*S*H* vibe’. Well, it does!

As the army marches, one unit is a peculiarly ‘experimental’ hospital unit, run by The Butcher (!) and staffed by rejects and outsiders. The Pals are generally against anything that smells of magic or – heaven forfend! – gods, and yet they are not so stupid as to miss the value in such things. As long as the practitioners aren’t open about the source of the miraculous healing that goes on, there’s just too much gain in someone that can absorb another’s wounds into themselves, or trap infection in jars via flute playing, and things of that nature.

Our main point of view character used to be known as Yasnic, who you might remember from book 1 (although I should say, it’s not essential to have read the first book – you would, however, get a little more of Yasnic’s backstory), but is now known as Jack, in that foreigners-and-their-unpronounceable-names kind of dismissive way. However, he starts to see the new name as a bit of a new start, as he continues to try to distance himself from being a priest of a small, forgotten god. Which is proving difficult, as god keeps berating him, not least for having to share his living space aka shrine with two other gods Jack ‘smuggled’ out of the city. That, in fact, is the crime that got him captured by the Pals – but, as the god in question is a powerful healing god – well, sort of – then of course Jack belongs with the medical team!

Unsurprisingly, a book that’s sent against war and the type of emergency medical cases that will bring, is going to go to some very dark places. Jack has a lot of philosophical issues to sort out, but then, so does god. The addition of several other ‘small gods’ is also very interesting, and how their various priests and acolytes deal with their own deities.

This is quite a sprawling novel, with many, many elements, many characters, many ‘issues’, arcs and stories – I’ve barely scratched the surface above. But, each and every thread is never less than fascinating, be that demons, dark pasts, or the dark arts of necromancy.

I did enjoy this, a lot – Adrian Tchaikovsky is an excellent writer. However, I probably liked City of Last Chances a little more. This one is just a little less on the fantastical side, and a little more full of grim realities of war, and that did make it a harder read. But it still has a black humour running through it at times, and overall is engrossing and rewarding – and recommended.