Book Review – Lives of Bitter Rain by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Tyrant Philosophers series has been one of my favorite new fantasy series over the last few years. These novels are wonderfully written, with an intriguing and extremely well crafted magepunk world. Lives of Bitter Rain follows Sage-Invigilator Angilly, one of the focus characters of Days of Shattered Faith, through her career and the path that takes her to Usmai.

Angilly is a compelling character, caught between her own wants and desires and her duty as an agent of the imperial ambitions of the Paleseen Sway, so I was excited to get a deeper look at her life. Lives of Bitter Rain accomplishes that admirably, with each chapter detailing a significant event in Angilly’s life winding across the world, both in and out of the sway. The afterward notes that the genesis of Lives of Bitter Rain was an effort by Tchaikovsky to fully flesh out and explore Angilly, since more time was spent with her in Days of Shattered Faith compared to previous focal characters, and as a character study I feel this is really successful. Angilly’s voice is consistent with her previous appearance and it’s interesting to see her develop to the person we meet in Days. I was also really impressed with how well other characters introduced here are characterized, given the limited amount of time we spend with them. The world building is equally impressive, fleshing out the way that the Paleseen Sway works, and the many ways that cultural chauvinism, family and personal ambition, and corruption (both mundane and occult) shape it, despite it’s claims of Perfection. This theme, the ways that imperialism is both systemic and shaped by the individuals within that system, is present int he entire Tyrant Philosophers series, but was especially prominent in Days of Shattered Faith so I’m glad to see it continued here.

While there is a lot to like in characterization and worldbuilding, the novellas origin as a series of vignettes is pretty apparent. The narrative is fairly loose, with the plot taking a back seat to the way its events shape Angilly. Because of that loose narrative structure I’d recommend this more for folks who have read Days of Shattered Faith who want to see some of Angilly’s backstory, rather than as the prequel it’s pitched as. With that said I still enjoyed this a lot, and would recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed the Tyrant Philosophers series so far, it’s the perfect thing to tide you over until Pretenders to the Throne of God releases next year.