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4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Pros:
- so I’m frothing at the mouth about this
- I am still in awe of Tchaikovsky’s ability to have such a sprawling cast of characters and yet make you intimately aware of all of them and their motivations
- the ending is so delightfully clever I *screamed*
- weirdly I would almost say this is literary fiction? The way we’re just watching this small portion of a war camp, this impossible hospital and what they’re doing, how they’re chafing against both the horrors they’ll inflict if they *do* heal and the ones they’ll earn if they don’t and I just- AHHHHH
- Maric Jack you dumb, dumb man
- god <3 cranky bastard
- okay I’m gonna be so real I started out expecting Banders to be my favorite character and came out of it obsessed with Lochiver??? Who am I
- I cried twice. I don’t think anyone else will, but I did
- I’m also obsessed with Mazdek. Can I pledge? Tally come here I just have some questions—
- WHY IS THE MAGIC SO COOL GODDAMN
- there is a floating wizard tower what else do I need to say
- I too would want to fuck the demon, I get it
- let’s get into ✨demon world politiiiiiics✨
- will I wait for book club to read book 3? Signs point to no
Cons:
- I will slap you across the face
- wait I lied I miss Ruslav
Overall:
GOOD
- so I’m frothing at the mouth about this
- I am still in awe of Tchaikovsky’s ability to have such a sprawling cast of characters and yet make you intimately aware of all of them and their motivations
- the ending is so delightfully clever I *screamed*
- weirdly I would almost say this is literary fiction? The way we’re just watching this small portion of a war camp, this impossible hospital and what they’re doing, how they’re chafing against both the horrors they’ll inflict if they *do* heal and the ones they’ll earn if they don’t and I just- AHHHHH
- Maric Jack you dumb, dumb man
- god <3 cranky bastard
- okay I’m gonna be so real I started out expecting Banders to be my favorite character and came out of it obsessed with Lochiver??? Who am I
- I cried twice. I don’t think anyone else will, but I did
- I’m also obsessed with Mazdek. Can I pledge? Tally come here I just have some questions—
- WHY IS THE MAGIC SO COOL GODDAMN
- there is a floating wizard tower what else do I need to say
- I too would want to fuck the demon, I get it
- let’s get into ✨demon world politiiiiiics✨
- will I wait for book club to read book 3? Signs point to no
Cons:
- I will slap you across the face
- wait I lied I miss Ruslav
Overall:
GOOD
House of Open Wounds follows the first book with a skip of a couple of years, and the presence of only one character. Yasnic has been arrested for god-smuggling, and since his prior record says 'miraculous healer', he's given the option of working in an experimental Pallaseen military hospital rather than a short drop.
The hospital is Hell, overseen by a large disgraced Pal called The Butcher. Torturers have the option of showing mercy, the hospital does not. There's no kindness, just unusually good odds of survival thanks to The Butcher's skills with a saw and alchemy, a fire priestess turned surgeon, a plague priest who draws away infection, and a Divinati healer who can take wounds onto herself. Yasnic, now Maric Jack, is entirely superfluous in a magical sense. God is an ornery bastard who won't heal, and the price of God's intervention is impossibly high for soldiers. But Yasnic can carry and bandage and stitch, so he does.
There's a fair bit of amusement with intra-Pal problems between the "specials", the necromancer in charge of the hospital (raw material, you know), her archrival the demonologist, and the golem mechanic, but compared to City of Last Chances most of the other characters don't leave much of an impact. Only Banders, former-Cohort-Broker and a Milo Minderbinder-esque war profiteer, had much interest for me. The battle/casualty scenes go a beat too long; there's a lot of screaming in hell.
The main plot concerns God's private war against Pallaseen discipline. At first uninterested in healing soldiers, when Yasnic is explicitly forbidden from using magic to heal anyone, God decides that he's the one who does the commanding around here. The ordered and devious Pallaseen military mind codifies what kind of violence God prohibits into the "97 Loopholes of God", a fantastic scripture if I say so myself.
However, this is maybe a C plot, against Yasnic's further loss of faith and pursuit of a succubus, which I didn't care for at all, and the military situation between the Pals and an opponent organized and powerful enough to slow their war machine.
The hospital is Hell, overseen by a large disgraced Pal called The Butcher. Torturers have the option of showing mercy, the hospital does not. There's no kindness, just unusually good odds of survival thanks to The Butcher's skills with a saw and alchemy, a fire priestess turned surgeon, a plague priest who draws away infection, and a Divinati healer who can take wounds onto herself. Yasnic, now Maric Jack, is entirely superfluous in a magical sense. God is an ornery bastard who won't heal, and the price of God's intervention is impossibly high for soldiers. But Yasnic can carry and bandage and stitch, so he does.
There's a fair bit of amusement with intra-Pal problems between the "specials", the necromancer in charge of the hospital (raw material, you know), her archrival the demonologist, and the golem mechanic, but compared to City of Last Chances most of the other characters don't leave much of an impact. Only Banders, former-Cohort-Broker and a Milo Minderbinder-esque war profiteer, had much interest for me. The battle/casualty scenes go a beat too long; there's a lot of screaming in hell.
The main plot concerns God's private war against Pallaseen discipline. At first uninterested in healing soldiers, when Yasnic is explicitly forbidden from using magic to heal anyone, God decides that he's the one who does the commanding around here. The ordered and devious Pallaseen military mind codifies what kind of violence God prohibits into the "97 Loopholes of God", a fantastic scripture if I say so myself.
However, this is maybe a C plot, against Yasnic's further loss of faith and pursuit of a succubus, which I didn't care for at all, and the military situation between the Pals and an opponent organized and powerful enough to slow their war machine.
Loveable characters:
Yes
I normally don't like books about war, but really this book is about people. I love Maric Jack and his gods, and the whole motley crew of the hospital department. The world building of this series is so interesting, it's dark but hopeful, and kind of what I needed right now.
This book was so vastly different from the first in the series and went against my expectations that it’s hard to rate it properly
The author really does a fantastic job of making all of the characters feel so complex and real that it’s hard to remember these aren’t real people. The world has such a depth to it that truly makes it feel lived in. Tchaikovsky is one of the best writers out there when it comes to world building.
At first I was very disappointed to abandon the city of Ilmar and all of its mysteries that the first book introduced but this book was nearly just as amazing and more than made up for expectations not quite being met.
5/5
The author really does a fantastic job of making all of the characters feel so complex and real that it’s hard to remember these aren’t real people. The world has such a depth to it that truly makes it feel lived in. Tchaikovsky is one of the best writers out there when it comes to world building.
At first I was very disappointed to abandon the city of Ilmar and all of its mysteries that the first book introduced but this book was nearly just as amazing and more than made up for expectations not quite being met.
5/5
Think M*A*S*H but with God's and if it were written by a Brit
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An excellent, funny and clever sequel to the first. But you don't need to read the first to follow along. The ending is one of the most satisfying things I've read!
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I've been meaning to give this author a try and was lucky enough to recieve an e-ARC. I rated this 3.5 stars rounding up because it was nearly a 4.
This book grabbed me right at the start. I found the world and the magic system intriguing. I didn't realise until about halfway that it was a sequel but you don't really need to read book 1 to understand the story.
The book follows a cast of loveable characters who work in a magical field hospital in a war camp. The tone is witty and light-hearted even whilst dealing with the serious issues of war and empires.
I loved the start and the end but I found the middle a bit of a slog. Theres not a huge amount of plot, you are following the characters as the war camp moves from place to place. The characters and their backgrounds make it worthwhile though.
Ultimately this was a reasonably good book which has made me intrigued to read more from this author, starting with book 1 of this series
This book grabbed me right at the start. I found the world and the magic system intriguing. I didn't realise until about halfway that it was a sequel but you don't really need to read book 1 to understand the story.
The book follows a cast of loveable characters who work in a magical field hospital in a war camp. The tone is witty and light-hearted even whilst dealing with the serious issues of war and empires.
I loved the start and the end but I found the middle a bit of a slog. Theres not a huge amount of plot, you are following the characters as the war camp moves from place to place. The characters and their backgrounds make it worthwhile though.
Ultimately this was a reasonably good book which has made me intrigued to read more from this author, starting with book 1 of this series