Its residents are currently under the control of the foreign power of the Palleseen and their strict rules. It is fundamentally a book that will reward interest more than immersion, and both more than escapism or a desire to be swept away by a story.

Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Lincolnshire before heading off to Reading to study psychology and zoology. Tchaikovsky (Children of Time) launches his Final Architecture series with a dazzlingly suspenseful space opera. ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY was born in Lincolnshire and studied zoology and psychology at Reading, before practising law in Leeds. It is like Tchaikovsky has a beam that focuses on one person and then leaps across the city to another, always moving on to the next location with each new chapter.Interservice Rivalry: One of the big hinderances for the otherwise-overwhelming power of the Palleseen occupation. He subsequently ended up in law and has worked as a legal executive in both Reading and Leeds, where he now lives. The Dragon: While Sage-Invigilator Culvern is the most powerful Palleseen official in Ilmar, he spends most of his time suffering the effects of his curse, leaving Fellow-Inquirer Hegelsy to be the main face of the Palleseen occupation. They succeed in putting down the students' revolt and the Siblingries' march, but they lose a lot of their men to the students, the Siblingries and the Reproach with little chance of getting replacements in the near future, the factories that produce materials for their war efforts are going to be out of commission for a long while, and the wider resistance movement of Telmark still exists.

Individuals and groups that have opposing attitudes or who act in a manner that doesn't align with the guidance presented by the occupiers are dealt with promptly. Accordingly, they are possibly the Palleseen School least-liked by the Ilmari, and even the other departments of the Pals dislike them for their power and ruthless enforcement of doctrine.

I remained impressed by the rich world that was developed and intrigued by the criminal workings, elite rule, and struggling masses within it. I found The Reproach to be a haunting and intensely interesting part of the city and I adored my time reading about that area and its inhabitants most of all. The exception for me was Yasnic, who won me over pretty immediately and for whom I had a soft spot all the way through to the end. The Palleseen Sway - their term for the grand outreach effort that had conquered Allor and Telmark and other lands besides - was always expressed as a great service to the world.

A city that has been conquered by fascists who aim to eliminate everyone else’s culture, language, and religions has been chafing under that rule, especially since it was already full of refugees from places they’d previously conquered. The book explores the city and factions of the city of Ilmar, occupied three years ago by the Palleseen Sway, an all-conquering empire that seeks to “perfect” the world-and, with its control over Ilmar, potentially many worlds. 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. New fantasy of politics, with magic but relatively few bugs (an insect god plays the largest bug role). It is interesting, it is clearly beautifully thought out, but it is not always engaging in the way a driving narrative might be.I think you won’t forget Ilmar in a hurry and it does have a message as we see regularly on our screens every day that no city ever stays the same for long espeially if freedom is being sought. Having completed the novel, I'm content as the highs outweigh the lows, the ending is satisfying and this standalone epic fantasy all wraps up in a rewarding manner. This book was one I had ridiculously high hopes for and may have had my expectations too highly placed. We witness happenings that relate to the criminal underworld, academia, workers and demons, refugees and outsiders, forgotten gods, and magical artefacts from a wide range of perspectives. The theft of a rare magical amulet becomes the catalyst for revolution in the shady city of Ilmar in this well wrought fantasy from Arthur C.

Both are there, he's hardly devoid of character, but it feels like what gain most from him is another piece on the game board, another context, and his characterisation is just spicing on that dish. We are told the story of Ilmar, not from the perspective of the individual, but the city as a whole.Yet the real reason the Pallseen want Ilmar is because it sits on the edge of the Reproach, a long abandoned ruinous city, filled with countless decadent and magical treasures that unfortunately are guarded by a population of cursed, lost souls and undead demons. Yasnic’s life is constrained not only by poverty but by a detailed and inflexible set of divine commandments and his innate meek­ness. As an aside, readers who enjoyed Head of Zeus’ brilliant The Hood by Lavie Tidhar in 2021 will feel very much at home in Ilmar.