City of Last Chances

Ilmar used to be a free city-state, notorious for its corrupt officials, its criminals and its restless workers. It also has the Anchorwood, a grove said to be haunted, where paths appear to lead into other times and places. Now the Palleseen have taken it.

The Palleseen are a rationalising empire that means to impose Perfection and Correctness on everything under its rule. Absorbing Ilmar means rewriting how its people work, speak and teach, and the city does not fit easily into that plan.

The novel moves through the city's levels with a wide cast. A priest of a minor healing god is the last of his order. A university teacher resents the limits the occupiers set on his lessons. Gangsters, factory owners and refugees share the streets with the occupiers themselves.

Two separate incidents, the death of a scholar and a game of chance, feed the simmering resentment until it turns into open defiance. This is the first book of the Tyrant Philosophers series, a grimdark fantasy that turns on empire, language, labour and what it costs to do nothing. It won the BSFA Award for Best Novel for 2022.