The Tyrant Philosophers
3 primary works • 4 total works
Book 1
WINNER OF THE 2022 BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
'Endlessly creative... so much invention peeking around every corner' Patrick Ness
Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller Adrian Tchaikovsky's triumphant return to fantasy with a darkly inventive portrait of a city under occupation and on the verge of revolution.
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.
'Ilmar is vividly alive with ideas, conflicts, and a sense of its own history – a truly breathtaking fantasy city, down every street a compelling story.' David Towsey
'A master at the height of his powers. This is epic symphonic fantasy, weaving a breakneck plot through a sumptuously dangerous world.' Ian Green
'A wonderful twisty stew of a book with a cast of fascinating characters, set against the brilliantly realized city of Ilmar.' Django Wexler
'A triumph of a book: wildly imaginative, immediately immersive and hypnotically compelling.' Sharon Emmerichs
Book 2
Behind the front lines of a crusade to scour the world of magic, the crew of a field hospital confront the horrors of war. A companion novel to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s award-winning fantasy novel City of Last Chances
City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world. As their legions scour the world of superstition with the bright flame of reason, so they deliver a mountain of ragged, holed and scorched flesh to the field hospital tents just behind the front line.
Which is where Yasnic, one-time priest, healer and rebel, finds himself. Reprieved from the gallows and sent to war clutching a box of orphan Gods, he has been sequestered to a particularity unorthodox medical unit.
Led by ‘the Butcher’, an ogre of a man who’s a dab hand with a bone-saw and an alchemical tincture, the unit’s motley crew of conscripts, healers and orderlies are no strangers to the horrors of war. Theirs is an unspeakable trade: elbow-deep in gore they have a first-hand view of the suffering caused by flesh-rending monsters, arcane magical weaponry and embittered enemy soldiers.
Entrusted – for now – with saving lives deemed otherwise un-saveable, the field hospital’s crew face a precarious existence. Their work with unapproved magic, necromancy, demonology and Yasnic’s thoroughly illicit Gods could lead to the unit being disbanded, arrested or worse.
Beset by enemies within and without, the last thing anyone needs is a miracle…
Reviews for City of Last Chances:
‘Paints a vivid detailed backdrop’ SFX
‘Brilliant chaos ensues’ Daily Mail
‘Some of Tchaikovsky’s best prose’ SF Crowsnest
‘An intriguing tangle… ingenious’ Locus
‘Endlessly creative’ Patrick Ness
‘Rich, inventive worldbuilding’ Publishers Weekly
‘Ilmar is vividly alive’ David Towsey
‘A master at the height of his powers’ Ian Green
‘An ambitious epic fantasy read’ Grimdark Magazine
Book 3
Welcome to Alkhalend, Jewel of the Waters, capital of Usmai, greatest of the Successor States, inheritor to the necromantic dominion that was the Moeribandi Empire and tomorrow’s frontline in the Palleseen’s relentless march to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world.
Loret is fresh off the boat, and just in time.
As Cohort-Invigilator of Correct Appreciation, Outreach department, she’s here as aide to the Palleseen Resident, Sage-Invigilator Angilly. And Sage-Invigilator Angilly – Gil to her friends – needs a second in the spectacularly illegal, culturally offensive and diplomatically inadvisable duel she must fight at midnight.
Outreach, that part of the Pal machine that has to work within the imperfection of the rest of the world, has a lot of room for the illegal, the unconventional, the unorthodox. But just how much unorthodoxy can Gil and Loret get away with?
As a succession crisis looms, as a long-forgotten feat of necromantic engineering nears fruition, as pirate kings, lizard armies and demons gather, as old gods wane and new gods wax, sooner or later Gil and Loret will have to settle their ledger.
Just as well they are both very, very good with a blade…
Also in the TYRANT PHILOSOPHERS SERIES:
CITY OF LAST CHANCES
HOUSE OF OPEN WOUNDS
LIVES OF BITTER RAIN
Jarokir... Bracinta... Cazarkand... Lemas...The Holy Regalate of Stouk... Usmai. LIVES OF BITTER RAIN is the story of Sage-Invigilator Angilly of the Palleseen Outreach Department and the accidents and questionable life choices that lead her to become Resident to Usmai, greatest of the Successor States, inheritor to the necromantic dominion that was the Moeribandi Empire, and tomorrow's frontline in the Palleseen's relentless march to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world.
That conflict is the subject of DAYS OF SHATTERED FAITH, this story is about how Angilly ended up so far from home.
It begins in distant Jarokir...
And it begins with fire…