City of Last Chances

The setting is reminiscent of the industrialized magic setting of Robert Jackson Bennett's Foundryside. There are quite a few narrative threads but I did not find it overwhelming (as an audiobook, fwiw).

The villains are bureaucratic, venal, and hypocritical. They are also a "foreign occupation", but Tchaikovsky spends as much time poking fun at patriotism and nostalgia as he does explaining the (many) failings of the occupiers.

The would-be heroes are various of combinations pompous, naive, violent, passive, venal (again), opportunistic, and cowardly. It is something of a magic trick of character development that one's sympathies are clear. It isn't even that one identifies with some of the character's cynicism (although there is a bit of that).

As an academic, I endorse books where the main villains are academic organizations. Imagine if not only were University administrators not going to save us, but if they were the ones the whole of society needed saving from.

I laughed out loud several times while listening to this. At some points it has an almost Pratchett-like wit (if Pratchett had been doomscrolling for another decade, instead of shuffling off this mortal coil).

Ok, this book was very fun and gave me some of those excitement in the streets feels at moments I am just always there for. Going in blind to the story, it took me way to long to feel invested in the story, it being fantasy and starting off with a tale about god, I was pretty much ready to swipe left on this one. But then the world came into focus and I was hooked.

I read a review that said in the fantasy world, it's hip to be exploring the magic/creatures/polygod world's through a lens of the industrial revolution rather than bronze or medieval developments. And within this modern trend this is Adrian Tchaikovsky's contribution to that.

I couldn't help but map Marx's capital onto this world, updated by my stronger and stronger appreciation of Tchaikovsky's work and left politics. We have main characters from the factory works, lumpen proles, sex workers, students, immigrants, and heretic theologians. The book explores a world colonized by an analogue of Roman Catholic conservatism and empire. There is even a parallel of Marx's theory of dead-labour embodied in commodities as magic embed in objects, which lends them value and can be distilled and extracted to produce further value.

Definitely a strong nationalist anti-colonialism bent to the societal tensions, with nostalgia and ghosts of feudal ethnic powers and the folk cultures and traditions lost to urbanization and proletarianization.

Reading it as a Marxist, one would be happy by its interpretation of struggle, class and modernization with greater heed paid to the lumpen proles and gender. Reading it as an anarchist, there are critiques to be made around the appeal of nationalism, hierarchy, and power as little fiefdoms and warlords struggle to remain dominant above and sometimes oblivious to the peoples struggles in the streets.

I would highly recommend this book, 1 of 2 in the series as of yet, as a fun read that gets your heart racing while both escaping from this world to better view it as an outsider.

Probably gonna stay in my top 5 of 2024!