Lives of Bitter Rain by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Tyrant Philosophers is an amazing fantasy series that over three volumes (starting with City of Last Chances) has dealt with issues of colonisation, power, the futility of war, bureaucracy and rebellion. His latest book, Lives of Bitter Rain is official listed as Volume 2.5 in the series as it sits between the second book, House of Open Wounds, and the third book Days of Shattered Faith.

Lives of Bitter Rain focusses on the career of Angilly, who is a main character of that third book by which time she is known as Gil.This novel charts her education and rise through the ranks of the Pallaseen Sway through a series of shorter stories. The book takes Angilly from her traumatic childhood into the ranks of “Outreach” and through to the days leading up to the opening of Days of Shattered Faith. In this respect, it is an open ended character study that, while interesting, only in the end provides the ground work for even more complexity in the novel that follows.

The Pallaseen is an empire intent on conquering the world not only physically but philosophically. While on the outside the Pallaseen is strict and rulebound, Outreach is a much looser part of the Pallaseen machine. Agents of Outreach go into unconquered countries and try to lay the groundwork for Pallaseen takeover. While, as noted, Lives of Bitter Rain may feel unfulfilling on a character level, there is plenty of new information and background on how the Pallaseen operate. And it is in this respect that the book operates fairly well as a stand alone novel in the series.

Tchaikovsky himself says in a endnote that he originally wrote the vignettes that make up this book as a way of trying to understand Gil and her motivations. And Gil is, like many of his characters in this and other series, incredibly complex. Tchaikovsky found that when he put these vignettes together he had enough for a novella that while serving as a prelude to Days of Shattered Faith also provides more insight into the Pallaseen. While not quite as satisfying as the main novels in this series, Lives of Bitter Rain has enough meat to stand on its own and continues to build out Tchaikovsky’s amazing world in interesting ways.

Lives of Bitter Rain by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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8.0/10