City of Last Chances (The Tyrant Philosophers)

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There have been criminal elements, religions and it sits by a mysterious Wood with itself a reputation for magic, death, monsters but also the opportunity to visit new unusual places.

The shifting perspectives blend in the mystical Ilmari melting pot and I was always wanting to read more. I did, however, feel a little distanced from many of the principal characters, for some reason, bonding more with their many plights than with their individual personalities.

We ARE Struggling Together: Almost every one of the city various resistance factions hates the other groups, even though the Pals oppress all of them-the Siblingries dislike the Armiger families for being their long-time industrial overseers, the Armigers hate the Vultures for being criminals who would bring chaos to Ilmar if they came out ahead in a revolt, and everyone sees the Gownhall students as a bunch of inevitably doomed, naïve fools. God used to be worshipped everywhere in Ilmar yet his followers are dwindling to the point where God can only be seen by his high priest, Yasnic. Culvern's body is wracked with constant pain, bursting pustules, and a truly horrible smell that strips varnish from wood. We are told the story of Ilmar, not from the perspective of the individual, but the city as a whole. The threads of multiple extraneous plotlines intersect deliberately and invisibly to bring about a bigger picture, dimensioned in beautiful complexity.

The titular City of Last Chances is the city of Ilmar, a disparate and dangerous place where the local population are occupied by the Pallseen, a nation of serial invaders intent on unifying the world into conformity by insidiously replacing language and customs, and eradicating the history and culture of each land that they touch. 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. The “underdog uprising” always lies on the horizon of promise, but the way in which everyone has their own agenda here — as groups and/or as individuals — constantly interferes with any attempt at serious revolution, as well as allowing room for thoughtful exploration of serious topics such as labor-owner conflict, the refugee experience, fascism, colonialism, the desperation of poverty, and more.The city of Ilmar may be not as strange and beautifully ugly as Miéville’s New Crobuzon, but it’s decidedly unpleasant in a oddly fascinating way. 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.