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City of Lost Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky • Sam Hawksmoor review A cast of hundreds all doomed to fail

It’s not often you get to read a fantasy novel about a bunch of total losers, extremely reluctant heroes and a priest who can see God, who is only six inches high.

It was an instinctive purchase for me at Kelly’s Bookshop in Beckenham. The feel and tone of the story is heavily influenced by Patrick Rothfuss ‘The Name of the Wind’, which is no bad thing at all. There is a huge cast of characters.  It’s an allegory of sorts about Putin seeking to bring ‘perfection’ to the Ukrainians and force them to ‘love’ Russia again.  The invaders in City of Lost Chances known locally as the Pal have a multitude of offices to enforce the rules, change the language, and anyone who cares to disagree is hanged.  The city sits beside a small wood at the edge where it is alleged it is a portal to another world. A place the Pal would love to bring perfection too one day. The Rich have survived the Occupation and accommodated with the invaders. There are Turncoats who help them run the city and the city is thick with thieves and opportunists. Somehow the University has survived too and it is here that passions wax and wane for revolution, inflamed by one or two characters who glorify the previous (somewhat imperfect regime).

The story follows some key characters and all are doomed one way or another. So don’t get too attached. You are bound to root for the one who will lose his or her head.

Best read in small pieces so you can digest all the goings on. The writing is florid, pacy, poetic in a way and you will never in a month of Sundays want to go there for your next vacation.
© Sam Hawksmoor  Feb 2024

author of 'Girl with Cat (Blue)'

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