I confess I didn't really like <i>House of Shattered Wings</i> - there were a lot of promising things in the setting, but that book seemed like it was trying to do too many things at once. This book is a marked improvement. The focus is narrower (or, at least, starts out much narrower, and slowly expands, rather than trying to immediately juggle a bunch of storylines - and even at its busiest it never has as many balls in the air as the previous book) and the general vibe of "combat hospital populated by a bunch of weirdos and associated fugitive gods" is more interesting than the "occupied city with some revolutionary movements" vibe of <i>Shattered Wings</i>, if for no other reason than I've never read a book with that setting. The closest thing to it is something like some of the Black Company books, with some low-ranking soldiers being carried along with a large army without being able to do anything but make the best of it all. Time to roll into Book 3.

Absolutely tremendous. A wonderful character study that culminates into one of my favorite finales of all time. A morality play about friendship, war, loyalty, faith, devotion and the absolute inanities of constant war, HOUSE has characters so well-drawn that I felt for each and every one of them. The banter between the hospitalers was reminiscent of the Malazan marines and the style and tone felt like I was reading a beloved KJ Parker novel. Tchaikovsky hit this one out of the park and I can't wait to read SHATTERED FAITH.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the early read.

Adrian Tchaikovsky does it again!!! I highly recommend checking this one out!!

While <i>City of Last Chances</i> is a panoramic view of a city under occupation, the sequel is a laser-focused look at a group of magic users staffing an battlefield army hospital. It's a brutal read, but well worth the effort.

Received via NetGalley.

Incredible sequel! This built on book 1 in such a compelling way and moved things in an interesting direction.

Thanks so very much to Netgalley and the publisher for kindly providing me this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. I do reviews on my main social media platforms and will be providing my full review there as I get through my TBR blacklist. Thanks again!

I loved this book, although I do realize it will not be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s very long, and is not as much plot-driven as just structured episodically, with the point being the journey and not the destination, with heavy emphasis on characters. In the analogy where a regular book is a two-hour compact blockbuster, this is more of a measured multi-episode season of a TV series. And for me it was worth all the hours spent — and there were many of them, alternating between long walks with audio version and many pages of a (very belatedly started) ARC copy.

The setting changed from the first book. Instead of the streets of an occupied city-state, we get the days in the routine of the experimental field hospital in the middle of a war that is a blend of fantasy and World War I trench warfare. There’s no heroism, just the need to survive and in the process maybe do a little good in the times where everything seems hopelessly awful.

Only one character from the first book, City of Last Chances, makes it to this one. Formerly known as Yasnic, he now is Maric Jack, a foreigner forcibly taken into the occupier Palleseen army and assigned to an experimental field hospital where healing is done with magic, despite the supposed Palleseen rationality. Jack’s companion, willing or not, is his God, the diminished remnant of god of healing who will save you from your injuries by turning you into a determined pacifist or else — not great for the soldier trade as far as anyone in the army is concerned. Jack joins the ragtag bunch of the hospital attendants, but unlike the true ensemble cast of the first book in this one Jack takes most of the spotlight, streamlining the narrative.

The daily life of the hospital is brutal, and even if we don’t see the war directly we get to see its fallout on the sidelines, a bit of realism among the magic. And it’s often grim and mostly dark — and yet not utterly depressing, peppered with (often darkish) humor and grey morality. The episodic day-to-day life of the hospital staffed with conquered people in the conqueror army is surprisingly fascinating and immersive, and even slower pace was captivating. Demons, necromancers, priests of formerly powerful gods, lost heirs to the throne, thieves, alchemists, poisoners, divine healers, golems, flying islands and all kinds of opportunists — it all mixes exceptionally well, written sharply, cleverly and with precise intent, leading to a book even better than its predecessor.

4.5 stars.

——————

Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA | Head of Zeus for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of Tchaikovsky's best. He takes everything great in City of Last Chances and refines it here, making the story more focused and thematic depth more poignant. It's also funnier and just as inventive, featuring necromancers and demons as well as some fun magic. The prose is maybe the best I've seen from Tchaikovksy. I wish the ending had built to a more bombastic conclusion, but the story was always going to be a bit smaller, following chiefly a medical tent during a war. Loved it though and can't wait for the next one.

House of Open Wounds returns us to the world of City of Last Chances where the emergent military power the Palleseen (pals) are still seeking to bring their brand of perfection to the world. In order to do this, they seek out all sources of magic and the religious orders that support this magic and adapt it to their own ends, either through threat of force or converting to energy to fuel their war machine.

House of Open Wounds, moves us beyond the occupied city of Ilmar to just behind the front lines of the war effort, in to an experimental field hospital. This particular field hospital is under the command of a necromancer and made up of misfits. Thanks to the necromancer soldiers of the Pals can do more than just give one life. The hospital misfits include the ever demoted Banders who has a knack for finding trade goods to oil the wheels, the Butcher who actually runs the hospital and knows his way about many different medicines and dishes, and several former priests and priestess of almost dead orders making the use of what remains of their powers.

Our story follows the former priest Yasnic and his pacifistic curmudgeon of a god from the first book. Here Yasnic has been captured for god smuggling and based on his reputation for healing sent to the hospital, where he is renamed (Maric) Jack. He carries a shrine upon his back that houses god and two other forgotten gods. The other priests and gods at hospital's command are able to control their powers to subvert infection or disease, 'balance' wounds or purify through fire, however Yasnic does not have control over the miraculous healing his god gives out. And their is a major catch, anyone healed by god must become a pacifist for if they carry out any aggressive or harmful action, god takes back his gift of healing. Something that goes against the very nature of soldiering.

Like other works of Tchaikovsky, House of Wounds is highly character driven, pieces of detail or character background become quite important later on. It holds its basis in the wars following the wave of European rebellions and uprising in the 1840s and the question of what limitations should their be for magical healing? War often serves as a boon to technological and medicinal development, but against great loss of life, destruction and suffering. A key theme is the conflict of healing those damaged by war to only have them face combat again.

In their starred review, Publisher's Weekly * likens the book to "M*A*S*H written by an uncharacteristically somber Terry Pratchett."

Recommended to readers of high fantasy, war fiction, or character driven adventures.

*Publisher's Weekly "House of Open Wounds." https://https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781035901388

Follow-up to City of Last Chances, it follows one of the characters—an embittered priest who can’t seem to get rid of his god of healing—who’s captured by the fascist Palleseen and put to work in an experimental hospital, where they allow otherwise forbidden magics if they’re in the service of healing Palleseen soldiers. The various characters all have their reasons for aiding the war machine, from ambition to dull acceptance, and the key question of the book is whether there is anything in the future but relentless horror for them. I quite enjoyed it (despite this description!).

This was phenomenal! It's like a dark "day in the life kind of tale" of a military unit. Like M.A.S.H meets suicide squad. It's very character driven and there's very little if any plot, so if thats not your jam then be wary. Character driven stories can be hit or miss for me but this just worked SO well. And the characters are well worth it. They're funny, witty, endearing, and most of all despicable. Even if character driven stories aren't your thing I'd still urge you to give this a try.

I liked this more than The Ciry of Last Chances and it's got me jazzed for the next installment later this year. Tchaikovsky's writing has the ability to make things work when they kinda shouldn't. The man is a writing machine and his work is impeccable. All in all I'd say this is a great price of writing and I look forward to reading it again sometime.

I ended up having to take this in small doses, because unsurprisingly, when you blend the horrors of frontline medicine with the world that Tchaikovsky came up with for the prior book (City of Last Changes) you get what can best be described as turbo nightmare material, in the best kind of way. You get to see him working in the in between of how the Palleseen would absolutely work around their own philosophical positions to be able to use the Gods that they capture, and unsurprisingly, taking a WWI esque approach to battlefield medicine into a fantasy world is a great read. Absolutely take the time to go and read this, especially if you wondered distantly about the war that was mentioned in the last book.

The House of Open Wounds is the second book in the Tyrant Philosophers Series and follows the story of Yasnic from the City of Last Chances. I found this book was much easier to get into from the start than the first book, which took a while to develop all of the different characters and their different backgrounds and histories. Instead, this book focuses on a small group of quirky characters that are part of a Palleseen special hospital unit.

After having enjoyed <i>City of Last Chances,</i> I was very happy to check out this followup as well. The inclusion of a list of characters at the beginning helped me to get back into the world-building for this series, which is complex.

This is a very different book to its predecessor, yet somehow they work together. While <i>City of Last Chances</i> focused on a city under repressive occupation, <i>House of Open Wounds</i> focuses on a field hospital where the violently colonizing Palleseen army brings their wounded for experimental... treatments. While the first book's setting is sprawling, this one's is almost cramped; while the first perhaps focused more on factions, the second is very much a book about a handful of individual characters.

There are a lot of themes here. The characters working in the medical hospital are in many cases using magical forms of healing, though the Pallesseen ostensibly want to eliminate these given their violent hostility to the religious traditions of those they colonize. There is plenty of discussion about what kinds of tactics are justifiable while fighting a war (a war the reader, I think, cannot support). Religion and religious commitment are also a main theme. Overall, I enjoyed this - the character development is excellent and the multi-POV writing is effective.

These novels are set in the same universe and share one POV character. While reading this book's predecessor first would fill in some character backstory as well as some context, I feel like these could mostly be read as standalones.

<i>Thanks to NetGalley, Bloomsbury, Head of Zeus, & the author for providing me with an ARC to review.</i>

<i>Content warnings:</i> gore, body horror, violence, murder, death, medical content, medical trauma, injury detail, torture, war, grief, xenophobia, religious discrimination, colonialism. While there is some comic relief, this book absolutely does not shy away from depicting war's violence. Gore and violence throughout.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

First, what can I say but I love everything Adrian puts out. This picks up right where the first one left off and it just got better. Great storyline and twist and turns in this book. Highly recommend.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s House of Wounds is a ferocious indictment of war and conquest. Picking up about a year after “City of Last Chances” in his "Tyrant Philosophers" series, the author drops you immediately into a nightmare, as a Pallaseen mobile army hospital staff works, often desperately, to triage and treat an ever-arriving number of wounded.

The mobile army hospital and its eccentric staff of misfits are the focus of this big book. While the previous entry chronicled the stirrings of rebellion in Illmar against its Pallaseen conquerors, this deals with the heavy burden of trying to save wounded, only to send them back out to commit violence and die.

Tchaikovsky introduces all new characters, except for one, Yasnic, Illmari and formerly acolyte of a cranky God. Yasnic is thrown in with the mobile hospital staff, who deal with an ever-arriving onslaught of ravaged and torn bodies. The staff’s leader, the Butcher, triages the wounded, while Alv, heals terrific injuries using her magic to take an injured soldier’s damage into her body. In fact, the healers use a variety of abilities and skills, whether drugs, surgery, magic, or necromancy to save soldiers’ lives.

Yasnic has no medical skills, but can fetch and carry. He keeps a box with him that contains God, and an assortment of other gods. God is incensed that Yasnic is part of an army; but Yasnic was offered little option by the Pallaseen after the rebellion. Yasnic is dubbed Maric Jack by the others in the hospital, and gradually becomes part of the group.

Each member of the hospital has their own magical skills and functions, and we get to know them slowly. From the outset, we know there are multiple magic systems, and some frictions amongst the staff, but much more politicking in various elements of the Pallaseen army: invigilators, archivists, spies, monitors, etc.

When Yasnic/Jack convinces God to help him save lives, the being heals some soldiers, which causes tremendous disruption and anger, particularly for those who are invested in the constant Pallaseen conquest of other countries. There are a number of delicious scenes of Yasnic arguing with God while trying to figure out who he is now, and of the various muckety-mucks plotting to mitigate Jack's actions, while the bodies continue to flow into the hospital.

This book was darkly comic and disturbing; in densely written prose, Tchaikovsky had a lot to say about the impetus for war and those invested in the use of violence, its effects on the healers and troops, the obligations of duty, as well as tolerance for different cultures and religions.

Tchaikovsky constantly balances horror with humour, and even amidst all the crushed and mangled bodies, there are moments of great humour, camaraderie and warmth.

As a loose follow-up to "City of Last Chances", this succeeds. As a standalone story about the ethics of the use of violence, this works outstandingly well.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Bloomsbury USA for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Wow.

This book has so much going on, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it won't be the right book for every reader. The world building is intense, but oh so good. I am not accustomed to reading books like this and it was an experience. I look forward to reading more books by this author.

The second book in the Tyrant Philosophers Series
Previous Review of <a href=https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4982937599>City of Last Chances</a>

Although this is the second of the series, it can easily stand alone; however, given the rich and detailed world-building on top of what we find in the first book, I would still recommend reading them in order. In addition, there are a couple of characters carried over … a former priest of God and God himself, a grouchy healing deity who constantly berates his former priest … who, having [partially] abrogated his religous vows, is suddenly is able to see all gods. This prompts him to try and smuggle what is left of them away from the Palleseen Sway and its army of logic and reason that is fighting to suppress all superstition and piety in its pursuit of perfection … only the be captured and pressed into service as a foreign auxiliary in an experimental field hospital for the Palleseen army. The nod to the TV show MASH is so obvious this comparison can be found in nearly every review for this book. Apparently the inexorable of reason and perfection was able to pause, at least momentarily, to the practicality of results from a misfit collection of divine healing, necromantic arts, demonic sorcerers, petty grifters … until “Maric Jack” bring his coterie of fading deities that he was trying to smuggle out and completely disrupts the “orderly” conduct of the army with his unpredictable healing god who demands complete pacificity from those graced with his healing power … something that is anathema to a soldier’s lot in life.

Okay … so … like the previous book, the dystopian world-building is some of the best that I have ever encountered and feels so real that you can easily place yourself in the story … which is fortunately, because the buildup is sooooo slooooow that the only thing that kept me coming back to pickup the book again and again for the first half of the story was this and the incredibly beautify prose (I really enjoy how Tchaikovsky plays with language here). There is just not a lot of action and the cast of characters were hard for me to like much … I didn’t hate them, but they just didn’t have anything I could easily identify with. It picks up nicely on the back nine though and I was able to push through that in just a few sittings and was able to better appreciate the long buildup (it was worth it) and I thought that the ending absolutely fantastic.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#HouseofOpenWounds #TheTyrantPhilosophers #NetGalley

While we have seen the Palleseen as occupying conquerors in City of Last Chances, we've never seen these people engage in open warfare against their enemies. It is not a pretty sight. House of Open Wounds shows us the immense scope of the horrors that the Palleseen unleash against their foes in pursuit of their elusive 'perfection' and the horrors set against them in turn. The book's focus is on a small crew of misfits and outcasts manning an experimental hospital station who are tasked with dealing with the shocking casualties that these clashes produce, through magical, religious, and other means not sanctioned by the Palleseen authorities. Through misadventure and misfortune upon compounding misfortune, this group of barely tolerated people will be put through the wringer and find themselves in a situation where the full might of the army is threatening to crash down on them.

Adrian Tchaikovsky has d0ne it again with this book, an incredible and weird mix of M*A*S*H, Catch 22, and some of the wildest fantasy this side of reality that just works. I cannot describe how this novel makes it all work, but it does so and it does so with flying colors. Come for the premise, stay for the characters, the twists and turns, and the brilliant resolution that had me smiling the entire time I was typing this review.

In this captivating read, the author masterfully weaves a narrative that is both engaging and thought-provoking. Through a blend of richly developed characters and a meticulously crafted plot, the book offers a unique exploration of its central themes, inviting readers to immerse themselves in the story's depth and complexity. The narrative is paced perfectly, balancing moments of intense action with thoughtful reflection, ensuring that readers are hooked from the first page to the last. The author's ability to evoke emotion and create a vivid, immersive world is truly remarkable, making this book a must-read for anyone looking for an exceptional literary experience.

Beyond its compelling storyline, the book stands out for its insightful commentary on the human condition, weaving philosophical questions into the fabric of its narrative. The author's skillful use of language not only enriches the text but also elevates the reader's experience, offering new perspectives on familiar themes. Whether it's the intricate dynamics of relationships, the exploration of identity, or the confrontation with ethical dilemmas, this book tackles complex issues with sensitivity and intelligence. It's a testament to the power of storytelling to illuminate the nuances of life, making it a valuable addition to any book lover's collection. Regardless of genre, this is a work that resonates on multiple levels, affirming the enduring impact of well-crafted literature.