House of Open Wounds
Shortlisted for the Hugo Award for Best Series 2025
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
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
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in the world of City of Last Chances, this grim and exceptional look at fantasy warfare from Tchaikovsky feels like M*A*S*H written by an uncharacteristically somber Terry Pratchett. Maric Jack, the latest unwilling inductee into the Palleseen war machine, is assigned to the experimental hospital of the Forthright Battalion. Ordinarily the Palleseen would kill a foreign magic-user like Jack out of hand, but the Higher Orders believe his powers can be used to help the war effort against their adversaries, the mercantile power Lor. What they don't understand is that, unlike the other miracle workers in the hospital, Jack isn't in control of the marvelous healing that happens in his presence. The miracles are bestowed by the cantankerous pacifist God whom Jack was once a priest of—and that God will revoke his blessing from anyone he heals who then goes on to attempt to harm another. While Tchaikovsky centers the story on Jack, he takes the time to develop the other hospital staff as well, painting a broader picture of the corroding conflict between medicine and war. He also spices things up with a potential love interest for Jack and myriad details of both the Palleseen and the cultures it has swallowed in its quest to "perfect" the world. This is not to be missed.
