A walk to Aldebaran gets complicated!

Enjoyable story that lends itself well to a series with good characters and some interesting ideas.
All well written with some typical Tchaikovsky descriptions.

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A fantasticly novel take on fantasy

This books seems to run on the saying "Everyone is the hero of their own story" and this book has so many interesting characters.
The world is also just a mad of ideas that could be individual stories just as well. A fantasy city under occupation from a strange Nation that aims to perfect the world by rendering magic down to pure power for their own use, a university of ideal driven students, demon powered factories, gangs of organised crime and underground magic users. And that's just the stuff on the surface, this world has a depth that just unfurls so naturally in your mind, it's a treat to read.

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1 person found this helpful

Hard to follow

Fan of Adrian as I am, I just could not get past the first few chapters of this book, I've tried thrice now.
Maybe it's because I listen to audiobooks while doing other things so they don't get the full 100% of my attention, but I found it impossible to keep up with all of the characters and locations that were being introduced. I was never really given anything to get invested in and after three attempts, I still don't know what the book was going to be about.

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Excellent worldbuilding

The book started out a little confusing as I struggled to keep track of the characters or to become invested in their stories. The narration was a bit over enthusiastic at times too. However, I stuck with it and this turned out to be a fantastic book - the world building was fantastic with a fantasy world fully fleshed out with different races, languages, lifestyles and histories. Reminiscent of the Discworld series.

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Perfect hit for me

I enjoyed this story far, far more that typical fantasy. Compelling characters, interesting social observations and lack of simplistic moralisms plaguing fantasy (and SciFi) recently. I want more!

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5 people found this helpful

Not sure the narrator got the text

Complex set up at the beginning- Lots of characters. Names hard to remember and so blurred them sometimes and found it a bit hard to follow. Thought the narrator struggled with the author’s text rather than bringing it to life much of the time. But despite all of that, overall a really interesting story and if there are more books in this series (is it a series?) then more if the complex world building should make sense / have more time to evolve. So hugely imaginative but a bit hard to follow at least in the beginning.

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Great Story and Fantastic Narration

Imaginative world and intricate plot with a fleshed out cast of flawed and endearing characters. Brilliant narration that elevates the whole story.

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fantastic set pieces within a coherent narrative

rambling tall tale that draws on great 19th century novels, Les miserables, and crime and punishment sporing to mind, but with fantastical twists and turns and a somewhat large fistful of pratchett. I have found this author over long, but the excellent narration makes the whole thing superbly entertaining.

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Another great Adrian Tchaikovsky book!

Thoroughly enjoyable story and characters and I'm looking forward to reading the next installment in the Tyrant Philosopher series

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A very good fairytale

Adrian Tchaikovsky does it again. Defies expectations, that is! A strange story with some wonderful ideas and characters, flawed (though not all readers will concur) by being slightly too self-consciously ironic for its own good - it's certainly not a parody, but the author is very aware of playing up tropes, and with such a long book it was treading very close to the line. Performance-wise, Thorpe is very good at characterisation but somehow a little heavy on the narration; shades of public information film or something. A star knocked off both story and performance as a result. There's also a lot to love here, though.

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9 people found this helpful