House of Open Wounds

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Narrated by: David Thorpe

Length: 23 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

From the BSFA Award-Winning Author of City Of Last Chances

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.

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 Yansic'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.

©2023 Adrian Tchaikovsky (P)2023 Head of Zeus

Fun small-world character study!

I enjoyed this book more than City of Ruin.
Whereas that book seemed more focused on political events and their primary actors, this book focuses more on the lives of colorful individual characters who have formed a found family of misfits as they try to survive, surrounded & compelled by a maelstrom of forces out of their control.

The narration is excellent.

Excellent story

Fantastic storyline, hilarious characters and such a sad ending. I hope there is more coming!

This one is fun

What will Yasnic do after being sentenced to be in the Pal army?

he'll get into trouble, with the army and with God. But with some help and the right circumstances it might all just work out.

Crazed battle continues as two armies maintain a stalemate over a territory both have claims to. New means and methods are being thought up in how to break the stalemate. A quirky field hospital with a few priests, a mighty alchemist and some fun orderlys do their best to wade through the misery and patch up who they can. Their collective superior officer happens to be a necromancer with a chance at advancement if they are willing to do the dirty work, and not get caught up in the mess of the hospital.

A truly fun time. A lot of fun getting to know the different orphaned gods and watch them flex what little ability they had left. There seems to be the possiblity for more which I greatly would enjoy.

The nailing down of Gods exact philosophy was a fun time to listen to. Once again David Thorpe does a wonderful job bringing the varied cast to life. His portrayal or God and Yasnics bickering were continual spots of comedy timed perfectly. He also was able to inject some awesome brutality into the Butcher and put Banders at ease and aloof through her backroom deals.

Super fun and entertaining

Loved seeing how he was going to manipulate the rules of this universe to a fun story. Always makes you root for the small guy. I enjoyed it this story more than the first because it explained more of how magic works on the world.

Another Humorous Journey

A great sequel from Tchaikovsky with a full dose of his signature wit and unique, masterful world building.

Another masterpiece of world building and character development from Adrian Tchikofski.

Total 180 in the amaizing world of City of Last Chances. Each of these books are so fleshed out I feel I could run a TTRPG from them as source books. Great twists and characters too.

once again adrian doesn't disappoint

I don't know what inspired him with this one, but the conversations between jack and God made me laugh out loud almost every time. Dark, gritty, with sly humor woven throughout

My Absolute Favorite Steampunk in the Style of FF6

Tchaikovsky really has something with this series. I say this book is the adult version of Final Fantasy 6 that I have searched for going on 20 years.

If you, like me love the idea of a magical world going through the throws of an industrial, political, and religious revolution, then House of Open Wounds and the accompanying City of Last Chances is for you. Tchaikovsky weaves deeply written characters with divided motivations through a world where magic has been harnessed to a science by dissolving gods and arcana into batteries to charge war machines for the purpose of civilizing the societies which they were stolen from. On top of that there's a subtle sense of humor I think Terry Pratchett would giggle at.

Read (or listen to) this book.