City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky Blog Tour

 I do quite like a mixture of Sci-Fi and fantasy when I read a book and I got a good mixture of the two when I read Adrian Tchaikovsky's latest novel, City of Last Chances.

There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse.

What will be the spark that lights the conflagration?

Despite the city's refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood – that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and distant shores.

Ilmar, some say, is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places.

Ilmar,

City of Long Shadows.

City of Bad Decisions.

City of Last Chances.

This story is epic.

And I mean that for its size, the amount of characters it contains and for the varied changes in setting within the world that Adrian has built.

I was drawn in by the synopsis, extremely mysterious.

Now you know a story is good for me when I haven't been put off by the sheer volume of what it contains.

I'd say this is a story that is just as much about the city itself (Ilmar) as well those that inhabit this treacherous place. Ilmar became a character of sorts too.

Tchaikovsky has done a fantastic job of detailing everything. I was fully transported into this different setting.

Not a tale to be read quickly.

Slow and steady.

I read this over several days. Sometimes going back over pages to make sure that I'd remembered certain things correctly.

It's one of those books that I'm finding hard to review as I feel like I'd also need to go into a lot of detail to convey all of the brilliance that this novel contains.

Complicated in the best of ways.

Creative, complex and calculated is how I'd describe this novel.

This was my first experience with a book by this author and it definitely won't be my last.