Days of Shattered Faith
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
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Pub Date Mar 04 2025 | Archive Date Dec 05 2024
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Description
Welcome to Alkhalend, Jewel of the Waters, capital of Usmai, greatest of the Successor States, inheritor to the necromantic dominion that was the Moeribandi Empire and tomorrow's frontline in the Palleseen's relentless march to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world.
Loret is fresh off the boat, and just in time.
As Cohort-Invigilator of Correct Appreciation, Outreach department, she's here as aide to the Palleseen Resident, Sage-Invigilator Angilly. And Sage-Invigilator Angilly – Gil to her friends – needs a second in the spectacularly illegal, culturally offensive and diplomatically inadvisable duel she must fight at midnight.
Outreach, that part of the Pal machine that has to work within the imperfection of the rest of the world, has a lot of room for the illegal, the unconventional, the unorthodox. But just how much unorthodoxy can Gil and Loret get away with?
As a succession crisis looms, as a long-forgotten feat of necromantic engineering nears fruition, as pirate kings, lizard armies and demons gather, as old gods wane and new gods wax, sooner or later Gil and Loret will have to settle their ledger.
Just as well they are both very, very good with a blade…
Also in the TYRANT PHILOSOPHERS SERIES:
CITY OF LAST CHANCES
HOUSE OF OPEN WOUNDS
LIVES OF BITTER RAIN
Available Editions
EDITION | Other Format |
ISBN | 9781035901524 |
PRICE | $30.99 (USD) |
PAGES | 544 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
The third in the “Tyrant Philosophers” series, “Days of Shattered Faith” takes us to afar-flung place where the Palleseen Sway doesn’t yet have the iron grip it enjoyed over the characters and places of the last two novels. This provides the author with a marvelous opportunity to show us more of the world and exactly how badly the Temporary Commission for Ends and Means has fucked up perfectly functional civilisations in their greed for magic to fuel their continued expansion.
I love that this book is as immersive as possible with regard to showing you the foibles, practices, and history of Usmai and the Usmiat people, showing you how things work without explicitly explaining any more than is needed to understand the unfolding plot. This naturally also lends to humour when a character not familiar with the practices of the region (they didn’t even read the briefing dossier!) experiences traditions that spring richly from the page while also being utterly alien to a good Palleseen.
The characters are all well drawn, and the author does exceptionally well at giving you each character’s viewpoint in such a way that you can simultaneously sympathise with characters who have diametrically opposing viewpoints, and the ways in which both of them are partially right and wrong at the same time. It’s all very messy and human, and makes for a rollicking good read.
While the book takes the perspective of several characters through the story, everything feels more tightly woven and plotted than “City of Last chances”, although that’s partly because it’s building on the worldbuilding of the previous two novels and everything makes more sense.
It also helps that we see some familiar faces and continuing story threads in this book – though perhaps not ones you might have been expecting!
This novel managed the difficult balancing act of concluding in a highly satisfying fashion while also leaving me wanting more, a frond of tantalising threads carefully teased and left standing proud of the novel’s weft and warp to make me eagerly anticipate the next book.
It’s hard to say much more without venturing into potential spoilers territory, so let me finish this review by simply saying that “Days of Shattered Faith” is a real page-turner, a wonderful escape from the dreariness of autumn or winter to a sun-soaked land full of drama, humour, and a good few characters it’s a delight to despise.
This book is highly recommended for existing fans of the series; I think newcomers will be able to enjoy it as a standalone novel, but a reader who’s read the other books will get far more out of this one.
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