House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I would like to thank Ad Astra for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Ad Astra

Published – Out Now

Price – £22 hardback £8.96 kindle ebook

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 front line.

Which is where Yasnic, one-time priest, healer and rebel, finds himself. Reprieved from the gallows and sent to war clutching a box of orphan Gods, he has been sequestered to a particularity unorthodox medical unit.

Led by 'the Butcher', an ogre of a man who's a dab hand with a bone-saw and an alchemical tincture, the unit's motley crew of conscripts, healers and orderlies are no strangers to the horrors of war. Theirs is an unspeakable trade: elbow-deep in gore they have a first-hand view of the suffering caused by flesh-rending monsters, arcane magical weaponry and embittered enemy soldiers.

Entrusted - for now - with saving lives deemed otherwise un-saveable, the field hospital's crew face a precarious existence. Their work with unapproved magic, necromancy, demonology and Yasnic's thoroughly illicit Gods could lead to the unit being disbanded, arrested or worse.

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

NB – this novel while standalone is set in the same world as City of Last Chances which I reviewed here https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2022/12/1/city-of-last-chances-by-adrian-tchaikovsky?format=amp

War? Huh what is it good for?

A question that has made many a philosopher puzzle over the centuries and yet ironically war has hastened for the very worst of reasons the advance of medicine. You want your soldiers fit and ready for fighting and killing all over again. A circular logic that has led to the work of Florence Nightingale and the further development of ideas such as antibiotics and artificial limbs. Fantasy has often focused on war but who is dealing with the aftermath of a battle? This question is explored brilliantly in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s House of Open Wounds where the setting is a field hospital in an army albeit one filled with magic, gods and the unwanted; but a story also taking an honest look at war itself.

Short review – read the brilliant first chapter. One of the best openings to a book I’ve read it pulls you in. Nuff said this was great.

Ahem!

Ok for those needing a bit more. We meet the Palleseen Sway army. They seek to make perfection of their world and destroy and conquer anyone and anything that perverts that idea. Especially religion, magic and superstition. But if they find something magical that works they’ll use it  - be it to power their weapons, fight their enemies and in a new experiment try to  save soldier’s lives when all else fails. Led by a Necromancer, supervised by a man known as The Butcher we have two former rebel priests, a woman who can absorb any wound for herself, a man skilled in magical machinery and one of the most constantly promoted and demoted officers in the entire army. Every day they do their best because they know if they fail they may be no longer be required and that won’t mean a cosy retirement. Enter a man who is a former priest misnamed Jack and he happens to be carrying some Gods on his person who may have a few miracles up their sleeve but in an army that is against religion that poses some challenges.

We are so used to fantasy focusing on battles and treachery that when we get to that first scene and we hear we are with a Man they call the Butcher we immediately imagine torture as we hear about bodies lined up for his work…which perhaps says a lot about us fantasy readers. But very quickly Tchaikovsky shows us we are in an army field hospital full of people close to death and to be honest the comparison with a torture chamber is still applicable. Tonally this is an amazingly delivered tale rather than military warfare being described as ancient legend the tone here is more black comedy. A reminder that in the TV show MASH a hospital was also a useful place to make you laugh and also ponder war’s lack of sense and morality. The team must save the soldiers for them to fight again. A deadly circle repeated every day. That is a strange place before we get into a world of demons, magics and gods.

Tchaikovsky brings their trademark inventiveness to imaging how a fantasy world could handle medicine and war. Mysterious potions that are used by patients and medical staff alike to keep them functioning, magical limbs to allow soldiers to fight and pay for the pleasure of them, gods being made to cure those on the edge of death. It all feels very fresh as a place to explore with lots of ramifications and above all of this is the Pel belief that all of this is unclean and should be removed. Like war and medicine this is another contradiction the field hospital is battling to justify each day. Hence when Jack arrives and accidentally heals people but with the one caveat that they cannot fight again on pain of death then there is going to be a problem.

In many ways the war itself and the reason for it are more background to the story. What we have is an almost episodic structure of the team meeting Jack and many different types of trouble erupt from that. You learn to love a man named the Butcher, amuse yourself with these grumpy gods hiding and in the form of Banders the afore mentioned ever-demoted rogue she is a delight of cunning and an ability to laze or steal as she pleases. in each mini-episode also we learn more about the world and the culture. As with many an empire the Pel collect from those they conquer and that applies to the army hence Jack and the team are actually from cultures that are contrary to the pel and yet they all speak the language, are part of the army and saving lives. Another interesting set of contradictions the novel explores. As with any science we also see those looking to make less medicine and instead the best terrifying weapons.

Slowly each of the plotlines starts to link together and all focus around Jack, His God and the price of a cure of deadly injury but you can’t hurt anyone else again…ever or you will die. It is gorgeous plotting when we see how necromancers, magical automatons and contracted demons all link together and the wider storyline neatly complements this premise to a cunningly delivered finale. There are also by the way dinosaur war beasts and an amoral wizard but that’s just pure fun but also a reminder war takes great ideas but uses them for one purpose – fighting.

One thing I appreciated was the reader like the team find the steady streams of battle, death and injuries to heal and send out to fight again slowly drain our team of joy. It’s a hamster wheel of duty, death and what is the point of it? Can anyone ever get off it without being executed? Is there a point where you instead have to stand and say no more? While Tchaikovsky’s narration is wry yet almost Pratchett-like in its subtle elbows to say you know the wars we love to read about this?  This what it is like at the very sharp and bloody end. I loved reading this, but it does remind us actual war is not a place anyone ever wants to be in.

I do hope we get more tales of this world because it is absolutely fascinating and while there is no big easily visible master-story all the consequences of this story may lead to other little avalanches in this world of Empires and Magic. Highly inventive, very fresh in approach and a perfect mix of satire and anger that suits the subject matter very appropriately. Highly recommended and amongst the best of Tchaikovsky’s novels I’ve read.