"The siege of a city sits as a catalyst to unprecedented change in this fabulously epic, beautifully built and provocative yet thoroughly entertaining novel."
This absolutely stupendous series marches triumphantly forward in the war against imperfection into a city under siege. The Tyrant Philosophers series of books by award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of my favourites. Each new novel slots into place, beautifully readable in its own right, yet forming part of this immense world where the Palleseen battle to bring perfection and correctness to a world of gods, magic, and people who will fight to their last breath against them.
This new novel focuses on the City on the Back of a Crab, its mechanics are already complicated, and the army camped on its shores are in desperate need of reinforcements. As before, some previously known characters slide unexpectedly into place. I love the journey each takes, this isn’t just a surface glimpse, the story burrows under their skin into their innermost being. I could feel each thought and action taken, as a level of understanding grew into place. These characters, each thoroughly imperfect inch of them, became known to me and I cared, oh how I cared.
The world building and scene setting here is something else, like a Russian doll, the intricate, beautifully welded layers reveal a fully formed yet ever growing beast. I enter each book feeling absolutely safe in the hands of this author, able to let go and fling myself out into the abyss in order to give myself up to the writing. You can probably tell just how much I love this novel and so it has to join our LoveReading Star Books, and sit as a Liz Pick of the Month. Hugely compelling, entertaining, and rewarding, Pretenders to the Throne of God is a monster of a fabulous read. Highly recommended.
| Primary Genre | Fantasy |
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Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller returns to a world steeped in magic - and the Tyrant Philosophers' campaign to bring reason, logic and 'perfection' to it.
As the Palleseen's campaign to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world rages on, Eres Ffenegh - "the City on the Back of a Crab" - is the next state slated for conquest. But its citizens won't give up sovereignty easily.
The siege has dragged into winter and the defenders - both locals and Pal renegades - hold an uneasy alliance against the enemy at the gates, while the Pal army is looking over its shoulder for the next self-destructive dictate of their government back home.
Within the city, Devil Jack, a good man apprenticed to the notorious conjurer known as the Widow, is driven to bargaining with hell to get back what he's lost. Meanwhile Kiffel ea Leachan is the city's champion, a child of privilege who's just lost everything to the invaders. Both must try to survive the siege and make their own destinies in a world that's cut them loose.
Outside the city, Pal reinforcements have arrived to take the city, but it's the sort of help that might just damn them all...
THE TYRANT PHILOSOPHERS
1. City of Last Chances: portrait of Ilmar, a city under Palleseen occupation
2. House of Open Wounds: portrait of the Palleseen war machine at work.
3. Days of Shattered Faith: portrait of a kingdom consumed, piece-by-piece, by Palleseen diplomatic subterfuge.
3.1 Lives of Bitter Rain: a prequel novella to Days of Shattered Faith, portrait of a life in the Palleseen diplomatic corps.
4. Pretenders to the Throne of God: portrait of a city under siege.
5. The Grave of Perfection: will take us back to Ilmar, the 'City of Last Chances' where our story began.
Pretenders to the Throne of God features in the following genres: Books of the Month, Liz Robinson's Picks of the Month, Star Books, Fantasy, Epic fantasy / heroic fantasy, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Fiction
Pretenders to the Throne of God is available in Paperback, Hardback
Pretenders to the Throne of God was written by Adrian Tchaikovsky and published by Head of Zeus -- an AdAstra Book
Pretenders to the Throne of God has 512 pages
Yes it is part of The Tyrant Philosophers series
£19.80
