Fiction Reviews
Lives of Bitter Rain
(2025) Adrian Tchaikovsky, Head of Zeus,
£16.99 / Can$39.99 / US$24.99, hrdbk, 126pp, ISBN 978-1-035-91144-8
Lives of Bitter Rain is a sandwich novella that sits at position 2.5 in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Tyrant Philosopher series. Besides being a chronically prolific writer, with around 50 SFF books to his name, Tchaikovsky is best known for the excellent 'Children of Time' series. Initially this novella started as a collection of vignettes about a major character in Days of Shattered Faith, the 3rd full novel in the series. But the ideas just kept on coming and Tchaikovsky decided there was enough substance to publish a standalone book here. The way he describes it, it seems like this novel was written in a ‘fit of absent-mindedness’.
Speaking of colonialism…this is the origin story of Angilly, the child of Pal soldiers stationed in the territory of Jorokir. Angilly is orphaned, shipped home to be raised by the state and eventually stationed in the Kingdom of Usmair, where she achieves the rank of Sage-Invigilator.
All of those ranks and places will mean very little to you if you are not familiar with the series, so it is worth providing a bit of context about the world she inhabits. It is a world with magic, Gods, demons and curses. The major political power in this realm is the Palleseen. They are an expansionary civilisation with hints of the Roman Empire.
Their colonialism is motivated by rationalism and spreading the so-called Perfection. They don’t really hold any truck with superstition, but they are not above using magic when it is practical to do so. In fact, if they come across anything vaguely mysterious, they generally “decant” it into a battery of sorts to power their batons. The not-particularly-subtle symbolism of this practice really does a lot of work here; it tells the reader everything they need to know about this polity.
Tchaikovsky’s intent is that the full novels in the Tyrant philosopher series can be read on a stand-alone basis, with minimal character crossover. Ideally the Lives of Bitter Rain should be read either just before or just after Days of Shattered Faith. While I am sure one could go cold into Angilly’s origin story, my personal route was to start with the first book in the series beforehand, City of Last Chances. This is where world-building starts and can be recommended as a way into the series. City of Last Chances tells the story of a city under occupation by the Palleseen. It has a lot to be said for it: well written dialogue, political intrigue, comedic moments and a big helping of gothic horror. But it has an enormous cast, no central character and many factions across the cityscape – as such, while this is a rich and rewarding story, it does demand a lot of the reader.
Lives of Bitter Rain by contrast feels quite light. It has a single protagonist which makes the storyline easy to follow. It is also a fraction of the length of the novels. Instead of seeing the Palleseen from the perspective of the occupied, you get an internal viewpoint which paints this civilisation in a more benign light. In fact, you start with the viewpoint of a child and young cadet. It is the development of this viewpoint into adulthood, into something much more textured and conflicted, that forms the overriding arc of the story.
Overall, this is a satisfying and relatively self-contained read. It is easy to recommend this for fans of epic fantasy.
If you are not new to the series, you will not be disappointed in this tidy palette cleanser to set up Days of Shattered Faith.
Nic Pietersma
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