Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.  For my latest Waiting on Wednesday I highlight a particularly awesome upcoming fantasy novel that is one of my most anticipated reads for the second half of 2023, House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

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After years of accidently avoiding the works of legendary fantasy and science fiction author Adrian Tchaikovsky I have recently started getting into his novels and boy am I having fun with them.  Tchaikovsky is an author who can create elaborate and vast new worlds and fill them with complex and conflicted characters who you can’t help but become attached to.  His short novel Ogres was an excellent example of this, while his first foray in Warhammer 40,000 fiction, Day of Ascension, was one of the best Warhammer 40,000 books I have so far read.  However, my favourite novel of Tchaikovsky has to be his outstanding book City of Last Chances.

City of Last Chances is an epic and captivating read that was one of the best books (and audiobooks) I enjoyed in the first half of 2023.  Set in a complex and unique fantasy city occupied by a military force of perfection-seeking zealots, City of Last Chances was an entertaining and addictive read about revolution, religion, magic and bad choices that I could not get enough of.  Following multiple loosely connected characters on the worst day of their lives, City of Last Chances was one of the cleverest and most distinctive fantasy novels I have ever had the pleasure of reading.  This amazing novel got an easy five-star rating from me and it will probably end up topping my favourite novels and audiobooks lists of 2023 in a few months’ time.  I cannot emphasise how much I loved City of Last Chances and it has made me a pretty massive fan of Tchaikovsky as a result.

As such, you can imagine how happy I was to discover that Tchaikovsky has a sequel to City of Last Chances coming out later this year.  I have been hoping to highlight this sequel, House of Open Wounds, in a post for a while now and they just released the cover for it.  House of Open Wounds, which is set for release in December 2023, will continue at least one of the stories featured in City of Last Chances as it follows a key protagonist on a new gruesome adventure.

Plot Synopsis:

City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world. As their legions scour the world of superstition with the bright flame of reason, so they deliver a mountain of ragged, holed and scorched flesh to the field hospital tents just behind the frontline.

Beset by enemies within and without, the last thing anyone needs is a miracle…

Ok, I am so damn excited for this outstanding book for quite a number of reasons.  Not only does House of Open Wounds serve as a sequel to City of Last Chances and will further dive into the conquests of the Palleseen, a very unlikeable antagonistic group, but it will also continue the story of Yasnic, one of the best characters for City of Last Chances.  Yasnic is a fantastic and entertaining figure who had such a brilliant character arc in his first appearance.  The last priest and believer of a forgotten god, Yasnic was initially a bit of a pathetic figure, scraping through life while trying to follow the rules of a god only he can see.  However, as City of Last Chances’ story unfolded, Yasnic manages to find a purpose in healing and soon recovers several other forgotten or deposed gods, giving them a new home and using them to help sick and injured people.  Yasnic’s arc was really well done in the first book and I honestly thought Tchaikovsky had done all he could with him.  However, I am also very happy that we get more of Yasnic in the future, and it will be interesting to see how Tchaikovsky expands on his character development and growth.

While Yasnic and the continuation of City of Last Chances is a major reason why I will be picking up House of Open Wounds, I am also very intrigued by the new storylines that Tchaikovsky is featuring in this sequel, especially around the unconventional medical unit.  I absolutely love the idea of a crazed and unusual team of medical practitioners using all manner of illegal magic, gods and necromancy to heal people, and this kind of sounds like a fantasy version of M*A*S*H.  I imagine Tchaikovsky will utilise a similar writing style as what he featured in City of Last Chances, which will allow the reader to follow all the unique figures in this camp as they go about their job and their own complex lives.  This sounds like a really cool idea and I cannot wait to see what sort of compelling and fun storylines develop there, as well as the fantastic characters that emerge.  Tchaikovsky has the great ability to combine humour and crazy situation with raw power and tragedy, so this should be an outstanding read that hits all the different emotional buttons.

I honestly am so damn excited for House of Open Wounds and I cannot wait to get more Adrian Tchaikovsky in my life.  Tchaikovsky is such a talented author, and any continuation of the perfection that was City of Last Chances, is going to be good, especially when it focuses on crazy medical practitioners doing weird magic to save their patients.  I have no doubt whatsoever that House of Open Wounds is going to be an exceptional read and it will probably top all my end of year best-of lists.  This is going to be so damn awesome and I cannot wait to get my hands on this book in a few short months.