Appreciation for Tchaikovsky's Tyrant Philosophers Series (NO SPOILERS pls)
IMO, it is the greatest ongoing fantasy series. That is basically my post in a nutshell so you could probably save yourself some time in reading.
Today I started on the final (or is it?) volume "Pretenders to The Throne of God" and already from the 1st paragraphs of 1st chapter called "The Great Sorcerer", I am seeing why this series is like no other.
I have read many fantasy books in the last decade. Some I loved, some hated, some reread multiple times and some never finished. I am not going to drop any other names here. BUT man oh man ... but Adrian Tchaikovsky's fantasy opus still stands out to me unlike any other. In terms of levels of visceral enjoyment and intellectual fulfilment, for me at least, its starting to get into the same league as some of Terry Pratchett's and, dare I say, Gene Wolfe's works. Adrian Tchaikovsky just has a special way with words and sentences that not only evokes powerful imagery, that stays with reader for many pages after. He also tends to paint complete pictures of his characters and settings in only a few sentences where other lesser writers take whole chapters. I also love his little italicized introductions to each chapter.
For instance in "Pretenders to The Throne of God", without spoiling anything, one of my favorite quotes in the first chapter is:
- "The wizard turned the knife into a thought and the man into an exploded anatomical diagram. That was how they knew they'd failed" .
Powerful imagery and just makes you as a reader stop in your tracks and appreciate the writing, despite its seemingly sparse presentation. And it's not just the words that Tchaikovsky uses, it's also his imagination and world-building that bursts out of each page. No other fantasy world of the past decade has drawn me in as much as Adrian's world of Pallaseen Sway. Some fantasy series get bogged down in the political complexity and court intrigue, ect but forget about the essence of all fantasy fiction - that in the end of the day, readers just want to be transported to another world and escape their daily troubles for a few minutes it takes to read the chapter. To be fully immersed. And oh boy, do you get immersed in Tyrant Philosophers. Escapist fiction at its best. Thank you Mr.Tchaikovsky and hope this series never ends!