Fiction Reviews
Pretenders to the Throne of God
(2026) Adrian Tchaikovsky, Head of Zeus – Ad Astra, £22 / Can$40.99 / US$30.99, hrdbk, 512pp, ISBN 978-1-035-91497-5
As the Palleseen's campaign to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world rages on, Eres Ffenegh – 'the City on the Back of a Crab' – is the next state slated for conquest. But its citizens won't give up sovereignty easily. The siege has dragged into Eresi winter and the defenders - both locals and Pal renegades - hold an uneasy alliance against the enemy at the gates, while the Pal army is constantly looking over its shoulder for the next self-destructive dictate of their government back home.
Within the city, Devil Jack, a good man apprenticed to the notorious conjurer and bawd known as the Widow, is driven to bargaining with hell to get back what he's lost. Meanwhile Kiffel ea Leachan is the city's champion, a child of privilege who's just lost everything to the invaders. Both must try to survive the siege and make their own destinies in a world that's cut them loose. Outside the city, the Pals have been desperately waiting for reinforcements to take the city, but when the new soldiers finally march in with winter it's the sort of help that might just damn them all...
This is the fifth book in Tchaikovsky’s 'The Tyrant Philosophers' series, which comprises three previous novels and a novella, and follows on from City of Last Chances, House of Open Wounds, Lives of Bitter Rain (the novella), and Days of Shattered Faith. Lives of Bitter Rain was actually published after Days of Shattered Faith but is actually a prequel to that novel. The series will finish next year with the publication of The Grave of Perfection.
However, back to Pretenders to the Throne of God. Before this novel starts there are a couple of useful sections to help the reader on their way consisting of a Dramatis Personae which gives us the leading characters in the city, those who are besieging it, some other characters, key locations, terminology, and the Elements of the Palleseen Sway which basically lists the names of the ruling body of Pallesand, and the various schools responsible for things like learning and magic, and art and law, etc, etc. This is followed by a map of Eres Ffenegh giving us an aerial look at the city and also a view from the sea. The map is the work of Joe Wilson who also did the impressive wraparound cover.
The story itself is told over forty-two chapters, with some of them being called 'Mosaics'. Tchaikovsky has always demonstrated a knack for wonderfully titled chapters and continues that trend here with chapters called 'Recalibrating the Dead', 'The Woman Who Went to School With the Squid-Pope' and 'A Day in the Life of the Conjurer’s Familiar'.
As we have learned in previous books, the Palleseen Empire is on the march to impose reason, order, and what they consider perfection on other countries and cultures, remaking them in their own image, but have they expanded too far and is Eres Ffenegh – the City on the Back of a Crab – one territory too far? The Palleseen have the might but within the city walls, the people have put aside their differences and stand united against the invaders and are prepared to make them endure a terrible winter if they want to get what they want. Again, we are in the company of Devil Jack, or Yasnic, as he was previously known, a recurring character in the series, who has gone from being a priest to the other end of the spectrum by becoming an apprentice conjurer, contemplating dealing with the devil to get back what he has lost. Meanwhile Kiffel ea Leachan, the city’s champion, is struggling to reinvent herself after her magical sword was destroyed.
In the relentless march for conquest the Palleseen have made their own deals with the devil to maintain their momentum, embracing the dark arts when it suited them, but now it doesn’t and they are going to turn against their own to preserve their sheen of perfection and loyal servants now find themselves branded as heretics and on the sharp end of political expediency, among them is Fellow-Archivist Dantell, known as The Stoat, who will have to flex all her considerable political muscles if she is going to survive this purge from within.
Characters aside, the world building is one of the best features of the series, and Eres Ffenegh is a setting that keeps on giving from living walls to a lighthouse with a deadly beam to a brothel inside a demon temple. All in all, Pretenders to the Throne of God has memorable characters on both sides of the barricades, but perhaps there are too many plot strands bubbling away here. You really have to pay attention and remember characters and events from previous books in the series which raise their ugly heads here, so with any series if you haven’t encountered 'The Tyrant Philosophers' before, you really have to go back to City of Last Chances and work from there, double-so in this instance as the final book in the series will go back to where it all started in book one.
Quite simply, 'The Tyrant Philosophers' is one of the best fantasy series of recent years, if not in this century, and Pretenders to the Throne of God is another worthy addition to the series combining great characters with great world-building, and is full of heart, emotion and dark humour. Recommended, of course.
Ian Hunter
[Up: Fiction Reviews Index | SF Author: Website Links | Home Page: Concatenation]
[One Page Futures Short Stories | Recent Site Additions | Most Recent Seasonal Science Fiction News]