Science Fiction Book Review Podcast · Luke Burrage

SFBRP #575 – Adrian Tchaikovsky – City of Last Chances and House of Open Wounds – Tyrant Philosophers #1 & #2

·1 hr 18 min·5 clips

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s city uses demons as contracted factory labor.

1. Science Fiction Book Review Podcast episode SFBRP #575 reviews Adrian Tchaikovsky’s City of Last Chances and House of Open Wounds. 2. Luke Burridge hosts with Juliana, his regular co-host, and both discuss two Tyrant Philosophers novels by Adrian Tchaikovsky. 3. The episode asks what Tchaikovsky does with empire, magic, and occupied cities across the first two Tyrant Philosophers books. 4. City of Last Chances is set in a conquered city held by the Palisade, which Luke describes as bringing “order” and “correctness.” 5. Luke names Yasnik, Roslev, Blackmane, Lemya, Vidzia, Ivan, Mother Gormay, and Statlos as viewpoint characters in the first novel. 6. The hosts compare the first book’s city structure to Perdido Street Station, with a sprawling industrial city and a shifting cast of viewpoints. 7. Luke says the Palisade uses demons as contracted labor in factories, with magic harvested and rendered into fuel canisters. 8. He links that system to resource extraction, colonization, and the deliberate stripping of magic from objects and places. 9. Luke also says the occupied city has many levels of authority, with local officials answering to bosses above them and beyond them. 10. He compares the empire’s bureaucratic order to 1984-style departments and to a version of Esperanto-like standardization. 11. Luke argues that the books complicate allegiance by making listeners root for both occupied-city bureaucrats and the empire’s lower-level administrators. 12. He compares that effect to Andor, where the audience can sympathize with imperial characters before seeing their actions more clearly. 13. He says Yasnik is bound to a god he can see, even though the god and priest resent each other. 14. The first book also includes a hidden forest or gateway area that can lead to other lands, plus a place called the Repose. 15. Luke mentions a Divine City that he reads as an Omelas-like city from Ursula K. Le Guin. 16. He says the second half of the first book moves into student unrest, barricades, and a Paris-like uprising. 17. The episode’s tone is conversational and digressive, with Luke switching between summary, comparison, and audiobook narration notes. 18. Luke and Juliana pause for clarifications, and Luke repeatedly corrects himself as he moves between the two novels and earlier Tchaikovsky books. 19. Listeners who like Adrian Tchaikovsky, occupied-city fantasy, and morally mixed empire stories will get the most from it. 20. Listeners wanting a spoiler-light, plot-summary-only discussion may want something shorter.

As heard by us

A lively double review that makes two Adrian Tchaikovsky books feel like a real argument.

The review works best as a back-and-forth between Luke Burridge and Juliana, who turn two Adrian Tchaikovsky books into one clear argument about what each story is doing.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Two Adrian Tchaikovsky books, one long review about cities, barricades, portals, and strange doors.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Science Fiction Book Review Podcast