Pretenders to the Throne of God

The Tyrant Philosophers #4

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller returns to a world steeped in magic – and the Tyrant Philosophers' campaign to bring reason, logic and 'perfection' to it.

As the Palleseen's campaign to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world rages on, Eres Ffenegh – “the City on the Back of a Crab” – is the next state slated for conquest. But its citizens won't give up sovereignty easily.

The siege has dragged into winter and the defenders – both locals and Pal renegades – hold an uneasy alliance against the enemy at the gates, while the Pal army is looking over its shoulder for the next self-destructive dictate of their government back home.

Within the city, Devil Jack, a good man apprenticed to the notorious conjurer known as the Widow, is driven to bargaining with hell to get back what he's lost. Meanwhile Kiffel ea Leachan is the city's champion, a child of privilege who's just lost everything to the invaders. Both must try to survive the siege and make their own destinies in a world that's cut them loose.

Outside the city, Pal reinforcements have arrived to take the city, but it's the sort of help that might just damn them all...

THE TYRANT PHILOSOPHERS
1. City of Last Chances: portrait of Ilmar, a city under Palleseen occupation
2. House of Open Wounds: portrait of the Palleseen war machine at work.
3. Days of Shattered Faith: portrait of a kingdom consumed, piece-by-piece, by Palleseen diplomatic subterfuge.
3.1 Lives of Bitter Rain: a prequel novella to Days of Shattered Faith, portrait of a life in the Palleseen diplomatic corps.
4. Pretenders to the Throne of God: portrait of a city under siege.
5. The Grave of Perfection: will take us back to Ilmar, the 'City of Last Chances' where our story began.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Epic Fantasy, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, British Literature, Speculative Fiction

558 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication February 12, 2026

About the author

ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY was born in Lincolnshire and studied zoology and psychology at Reading, before practising law in Leeds. He is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor and is trained in stage-fighting. His literary influences include Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, China Miéville, Mary Gently, Steven Erikson, Naomi Novak, Scott Lynch and Alan Campbell.

Reviews

[Patrycja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack at his finest 👌🏻

"Pretenders to the Throne of Gods" is a story of a siege. Eres Ffenegh is about to be occupied by the Palleseen army. In the city walls locals and Palleseen renegades are trying to do what they can to achieve some compromise and save their homes.

It's not a story only about politics and tactics. Tchaikovsky once again shows a complete picture of a town through the eyes of its inhabitants. Each of them gets its own narrative that connects and intertwine with the others. I'm still greatly impressed how the author creates such stories, and from small pieces shows a full panorama of Eres Ffeneghm, as if it was its own character.

My favourite part was the story of Jack, who every time just happens to be in the worst place possible. His decisions, even though arising from his own wishes and needs, are impacting everyone immensely. After the ending, I really wonder where the story will take us in the next volume..

Overall, "Pretenders to the Throne of God" is another great work written by Tchaikovsky in which you can feel the ongoing pressure. This time it's the siege that impacts the city's resources and makes people act defensively, emotionally and brutally. There's the constant sense of time running out and and for sure there's no time to carefully think through every single decision...

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Autumn Kotsiuba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can I give this ten stars?

Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of my favourite authors. The Tyrant Philosophers is my favourite of his series. Yasnic is my favourite of his characters. So give me a book that centres around him, and what can I do but love it?

I'm always amazed at how this world can balance so many stories but still feel cohesive. I'm amazed at how I care about every character, not just including but especially the most flawed. I thought the previous books in the series were faultless, but this might be my new favourite.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for sharing, but mostly thanks to AT for creating such a masterpiece. (I swear I'd read a book of Yasnic and God watching paint dry.) More, please!

[Nenope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grateful to NetGalley and the author for the ARC of this book.

I have always preferred to wait for published books so the masses could pass the judgement, based on which I can pre-decide if a book was good or not and I just recently started discovering the wonders of ARCs - I realised that it is way better to read ARCs because I am not pre-biased about a book.

This book caught me off guard and I now want to be friends with the author. This kind of sardonic sense of humour is exactly my world. "Nobody ever got stabbed in the Lower City without someone calling them Friend right beforehand". *chef's kiss 🤌🏻*
I had some trouble with the unusual names at first, but the writing is so well-explained that I was still able to easily follow the story line.
I also really enjoyed the cuts between the seemingly unrelated or just losely-related scenes so far, waiting for everything to come together nicely. The writing style is somwehere between Joe Abercrombie and Terry Pratchett - what more one can wish for?

I also just realised when writing my GR review that this book is the 4th in a series, so I am now debating if I should abandon it half-way through and get the whole series to start over, or finish this book and then read the first 3 - because I am absolutely certain that I want to read everything from this author now.

[Ruby]

THERES ANOTHER ONE????????????

🎉 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[Mar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Full review in progress; I will update here when finished with it.

Pre-order this nooooow.

[Aidan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's another story about totalitarian Pals at the gates of a doomed, defiant city (sorta-Dublin?), but Mr T gets super-metal about it this time. I mean, even if you somehow ignore the title, Pretenders boasts The Lich Queen, God, The Kings Below, a Lycanthropist, and Devil Jack, and that's just the Dramatis Personae. Not everything hits that intensity, but Pretenders takes some big swings and mostly lands them, horns held high. 4.5 rounded up for attitude.

———————

Rest of review to follow.

[Petra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be it sci-fi or fantasy, Adrian Tchaikovsky can do both flawlessly, as I enjoyed Pretenders to the Throne of God immensely.
With his distinctive flavour of cynicism and irony interwoven into his writing style, I just love picking up his books.
Slow-paced in the best way possible, the whole series has incredible worldbuilding, and, combined with multiple POVs in that book, it creates a great spacious vibe.
We have a lot of familiar faces returning to the stage, and I absolutely loved that, but there are also new characters and perspectives that make the story all the more compelling.
In my opinion, the absolute gem in this book is that the slow pacing made room for character development to shine to its fullest. No character remained untouched by change and growth, and it was such an interesting thing to witness. For me, Jack was the most interesting and went the longest distance as a character, and I was invested in Yasnic too.
I have no idea how he does that magic, combining so many stories into such a wonderful, flawlessly cohesive story.

[Quill (thecriticalreader) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Adrian Tchaikvosky gifts us with another delightful installment of The Tyrant Philosophers series.

I have such trust in Tchaikovsky. I don’t know what sort of demonic contract he has made to be able to write such spectacular fantasy books in such a short span of time, but everything he touches turns to gold.

The dramatically titled Pretenders to the Throne of God takes place in the winter of a city called Eres Ffenegh, which is built on the back of a giant, dead, crab god. The colonial Pal forces see the city as yet another minor addition in their quest to “Perfect” the world. The city should be a relatively straightforward conquest, but a confluence of influences—alternately magical, mundane, noble, spurious, evil, and chaotic—change the course of events. It’s everything you would expect from this series, but it never feels stale. The characters (new and old) are exquisitely written, the worldbuilding is exciting and coherent, the plot is masterfully woven, and the themes are poignant.

I noted in my review of Days of Shattered Faith that the only way in which the series has suffered as it continues is the writing. Tchaikovsky proved himself a wordsmith in the first two books. His prose is straightforward and efficient when it needs to be, but he balances the economy with sly wordplay and profound beauty. He appears to be in a rush to get the story out onto the page in the past few books (understandable—I and many others are hungry to consume it), but this has come at the expense of his prose. It’s still effective but lacks the special quality of earlier books and suffers from permissive editing that refuses to reign in his constant use of superfluous adverbs such as “honestly” and “truly” and “probably.” The word “honestly” appears eighty-five times, and eighty of those times it serves no purpose whatsoever in the except to distract. It drove me up-the-wall. I was able to overlook it only because everything else about this book is in a league of its own. And there are still glimmers of the wit and beauty in his prose, so I know that if he slowed down a bit and hired a better editor the writing improve markedly.

Don’t let my pedantic griping keep you from enjoying this book. I complain out of love, because I know he is capable of producing superb prose. I loved every minute of it and I cannot wait for the final installment.

Thank you, THANK YOU to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Laura Clipson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. Another brilliant book following the Palleseen trying to perfect the world. Love the world building and the characters are brilliant. Not all likeable but definitely brilliantly written.

[keegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

** a copy of this book was provided by the publisher **

this is maybe my favorite in the series since House of Open Wounds but it feels hard for me to even think of these as separate books almost. the storylines weave together in such a interesting way, ideas interweaving between books, but each volume still manages to feel cohesive (evidenced by people in other reviews who started the series here and still had a great time). I think the books themselves put it the best way, the series is a mosaic.
I'm very excited for whatever comes next, and I'll be there day one for the audiobook of this one because I love the way the narrator reads them.
Misery and Wickedness!

[Alex Sarll]

Eres Fgenegh, the City on the Back of a Crab – which is not a figurative or poetic description. The crab was already dead when the city was founded, but everything still tastes vaguely of fish, even the honey. Until recently, part of the Loruthi empire, before the locals enlisted Palleseen assistance to drive them out – and then shortly afterwards, having realised the 'liberators' didn't plan on leaving, defenestrated their leader. Now besieged by the remnant Pal forces, but winter is coming, so the stalemate is about ready to settle into ceasefire until spring, before a new factor that isn't really ideal for anyone enters the equation. Setting the scene for something that could be summarised as the Battle of Stalingrad if it had taken place on the Isle of Man, and also featured wizards, demons and zombies. Which would be epic enough in and of itself, but this is the fifth entry in Tchaikovsky's Tyrant Philosopher series, and draws on all that has already been established, a global canvas of the weird and wonderful – and the militant atheist Pals determined to render it all down to fuel for their machines. At times I was reminded of the way Terry Pratchett would often build a book around a given real-world phenomenon – trains, rock'n'roll, cinema – coming to a fantasy world. But where, at least until his darker later books, it would generally result in a lark, Tchaikovsky instead gives us a fantasy world discovering things like street-by-street modern urban warfare, ideological purges, concentration camps.

But of course, atrocities don't feel appropriately atrocious unless they're happening to people, and here, as throughout the series, Tchaikovsky gives us a wide-ranging cast, on both sides and of other, more complicated allegiances, ranging up and down the social scale and the military hierarchy, some much more likeable than others, but – at least until the endgame, and we'll come to that – none of them a convenient cardboard cut-out. Yes, some of their stories proceed along more expected lines than others; one of the first we meet is the descendant of the city's founding hero, whose spirit has ever since inhabited a magical sword and empowered his lineage in defence of the city – at least until now, when the Pals have caught her, decanted him, and left a very confused girl with an empty, impractical weapon and no idea who she's supposed to be anymore. That she will have some kind of educational and redemptive arc is blazingly obvious, even if some of the details still surprise. Others, though, find their lives twisted in directions I could never have predicted, despite the fact that the reasons have often been hiding in plain sight, sometimes for more than one book. And this goes double for the one person who's been there since the beginning, albeit in a new guise every time – poor bloody Jack. Whom we find here in a bit of a bind, given his lover is literally in Hell. Though, remarkably, that's not even the book's most awkward backdrop to a romance.

What unites them all, though, is unintended consequences: nobody here has ended up anywhere like where they thought they would in life. Indeed, one of my favourite chapters sees two particularly extreme examples sitting down to talk about exactly that. You could even say it goes for the nations as well as the people; just as some of the Pal officers learned hitherto forbidden occult specialties at a time of national emergency, often at great personal cost, only to find themselves ideologically inconvenient come the 'peace' and the post-mortem, so the nation itself realises quite how far it's strayed from its own precepts of perfection. The difference, of course, being that a state has greater power with which to smooth out such inconsistencies, and far less compunction about doing so.

This is where I did start to feel doubts creeping in, towards the end of the book, as the tightening ideological ratchet of the Pals stops being communiqués from home, and gets a human face. Because it's not a human face, not really; after a book in which every character of any significance whatsoever, even the literal demons, has had foibles, nuances and complications, it's just a nightmarish true believer with squads of faceless bullies at his back, and that feels like a disappointment. But, maybe it's the phenomenon which I find disappointing, not Tchaikovsky for depicting it; back through The Wire, at least as far as The Napoleon Of Notting Hill, great art has noticed this, how while the first generations in a bad cause might retain some humanity despite the things they're forced to do, coming up behind them is a more adapted, more monstrous, much less interesting and absolutely terrifying new breed. And looking around our own world, the worst fuckers in this book, one-dimensional as they may be, are certainly no less rounded than Putin, his orcs, and his overseas franchises. All of which said, I did still find the line "We can make you great again" perhaps a little too on the nose, for all that it perfectly captures the recurring motif of characters wanting back what was lost, and how often that only gets them a hollow or outright poisonous simulacrum. A theme which, again, is not short of real world illustrations, but from which, at the last, there's a curious pulling back, or at least twisting around, within the world of the novel. About which I'm not wholly sure yet how I feel, and maybe I'll have to wait for the next volume, which I believe is the conclusion. But assuming Tchaikovsky sticks the landing, I think Tyrant Philosophers might yet edge out Final Architecture as my favourite series of his.

Oh, also – there's one plotline here where I'll be interested to see whether complaints ensue, given it falls somewhere between deus ex machina and Chekhov's wizard. Personally, the resolution to that was my other favourite chapter.

(Netgalley ARC)

[Allen Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tchaikovsky has done it again.

PRETENDERS is another triumphant entry in the Tyrant Philosophers series, this time in the middle of a siege of Eres Ffenegh, 'the City on the Back of a Crab'. This one, to me, feels much more similar to HOUSE OF OPEN WOUNDS than did its predecessor, as we have a bunch of returning characters and most of the action depends upon what came before in that book.

PRETENDERS is, despite taking place during a military action, almost a book about the aftermath of war, the prices that are levied against those who took part in the conflict, and the paying of the piper for those who are wrestling with the horrors they've had to commit in the name of victory. It's about what happens when you step over the line--again in the name of victory--and, now that victory's achieved, being scapegoated when the country for whom you cast aside your reservations needs to save face. It's about what's left for a soldier when they strip away that identity because they don't need you anymore.

Struggles with identity are all over this book, as the tides of battle ebb and flow, and people realize that they can be more than one thing and have loyalties in more than one camp. It's a story about stories, about who we are as people, and looking back on our history to see what we've become and how far we've strayed from an original vision.

PRETENDERS also has the most overt romance plot and it's handled so well that it actually ended up changing my mind about a character I had previously disliked.

This book feels like the culmination of everything that came before and I can't wait for where I think book 5 is headed. This is one of my favorite series, so go read it.

Thank you to HEAD OF ZEUS and NETGALLEY and the author for the ARC!

[Madalena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretenders to the Throne of God doesn’t have as strong of a world-building as the previous books. Even though Eres Ffenegh is an interesting place, I just thought we’ve seen better and more complex places and cultures before, like Ilmar in the first book and Usmai in the third (this one being the best of Tchaikovsky’s world-building in this series).

However, this wasn’t really an issue. Because, more than the previous sequels, Pretenders to the Throne of God builds on what the other books have already established. Here we get to see a lot of old faces, most of them from House of Open Wounds. I never expected I would have the pleasure of finding out how some of these characters stories would continue. And I was not disappointed. I think this book has the strongest character work of the series or maybe it is tied to the second book’s which had been the best.

We also continue with many of the themes of the previous books. War, tradition, religion, morality, rationality: all these ideas mix and are explored through the messy conquest of the Pals. It is fascinating how Tchaikovsky built this culture, how their “Perfection” keeps getting leaks of “imperfections” that every time they try to fix, creates new problems impossible to correct.
The prose is excellent as always. Tchaikovsky delivers some of his best writing in the Tyrant Philosophers books. It is difficult not to underline so many of the beautiful or clever passages we constantly get with these books.

I am really excited to see how this story will continue. The ending is quite explosive and it will have consequences that will for sure impact the world in the next sequel.

[LongSunMalrubius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for the e-Arc!

“Pretenders” keeps things moving a quick pace, almost too quick. This book is under 600 pages and has well over 7 PoV characters. It is book 4, even though it can be read as a standalone (this series was sort of pitched as a series of standalones), it probably shouldn’t be. We have a couple of different plot lines and while I found them all enjoyable, they don’t really mesh together until the end of the book, leaving you wondering “where is this going?” for a good many pages.

One of the main themes running through the series is “good people can be present even in bad systems” and “everyone deserves a second chance.” Both of these are fully on display here, and Tchaikovsky will make you feel sympathy for even the worst type of person.

I really want to call out the battles here- they are excellent. Large scale, full of artillery (something I always try to call out and praise in fantasy) and magic even though it’s a very soft magic in these books, they could have easily dissolved into a complete mess, yet Tchaikovsky keeps everything easy to understand.

Tyrant Philosophers is a very good series. This is a good penultimate book, that sets up the next book in the final few pages and completes a story of its own. My understanding is the next book will be the last in the series, and I’m definitely curious to see how Tchaikovsky closes things out after the world changing ending of this book.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm utterly gobsmacked. It feels like it's been a long time since I've read a book I was so ambivalent about for the first half, only to be riveted harder than so many others... and then to break down into tears by the end.

I mean, sweet...

Let me explain. This series, for me, is one of the more difficult series I've read. Not because it's THAT hard in comparison to some of the most sprawling of Epic Fantasies out there, with a huge cast of strange-sounding characters, factions, cities, terms, etc., but because practically EVERY character is hugely flawed, has massive turning points, over and over again, and the whole thing is just so damn AMBITIOUS. And glorious. But before it gets to the glorious bits, it's also depressing and disturbing as all hell because these wonderful characters are ALL pretty much on the wrong side of things. They're all working for the baddies. They're ALL baddies. There's no good ones.

It's exhausting. Painful. And even when they wake up and do something RIGHT, it's almost never even remotely enough. And yet, huge things DO happen and change everything and doing the right thing never pays off IMMEDIATELY. It's heartbreaking and REAL at the same time.

And now, as painful as this book is, I've got this horrible little desire to own all the books in hardcover and start reading it again from the start. For sheer wickedness and misery of it.

For the wickedness and misery.

*chokes a sob*

Damn.

What a damned book. Just wow.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 🌟
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the ARC!

This is book 4 in the Tyrant Philosophers series, and if you’re here you’ve hopefully read and enjoyed the previous 3 books and novella. And if you’ve enjoyed those, I think you will certainly have a good time with Pretenders to the Throne of God. Technically I think these are meant to be able to be read as standalones, but I think you’ll be missing out especially with this one.

As with the other books in this series, the world building in this book is next level. Sometimes it feels like reading a foreign language, both in that it’s challenging but also that it feels real and cohesive. It has a slower plot, but in a way that is very purposeful. It’s a story very much grounded in minutiae against the backdrop of war and occupation. But the pacing does pick up the further in you get. The cast of characters and points of view are diverse, they are interesting and flawed, various degrees of likeable and relatable, and I think another highlight of this series. We also get to revisit a lot of characters from the past books, which I loved.

I think the things about these books that are the best (the world building, the sheer scope, the characters) are also the most challenging, but they continue to be great reads. I am very excited for the next book! (The Grave of Perfection… final book? The title is giving final book)

[Annika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh. My. Goodness. Fans of The Tyrant Philosopher's series are in for a TREAT with this one. There's so much here I enjoyed, the rest I LOVED. Some fantastic new characters are introduced as well as some faces from previous novels, I won't spoil which but I positively squealed when some of them appeared on the page.

The worldbuilding is one of the highlights of this series and it's very well done here again. The city of Eres Ffenegh is almost like another character in the book, so well developed. The plot is slower paced, building towards the end, which works in the context of a city under siege and allows for the focus on the characters.

Jack is SO good in this book, he is on such an interesting journey. Seeing him described as Devil Jack in the summary was a surprise to me, how could Jack, who could not harm anyone, have the moniker Devil Jack? But it makes sense once you start reading and the character development here is second to none. In fact, all the characters here have great development and this leads to a very satisfying ending that is possibly my favourite out of all the novels so far.

The only downside of finishing this book is that we don't currently have a date for the next one, The Grave of Perfection, which is going back to Ilmar. I CAN'T WAIT. The ending of this book definitely hints at something very interesting to come!

Thank you NetGalley and Head of Zeus for providing a copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.

[Lynnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the fourth book in the series, but also my first to read so I was thrown in at the deep end, not being familiar with characters and terminology and the different nations.

It's the story of a city - Eris Ffenegh ( the city on the Back of a Crab) under siege. Such is the superb story telling and writing I easily picked it all up and found it very involving and even poignant in parts. It was a rewarding read and now I need to go back to the beginning and read this series in order to understand the world building better plus read this one again. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks so much to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for the ARC.

[Justin Sarginson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It overstayed its welcome by being a few hundred pages too long, but entertaining throughout.
A welcome return to this wonderfully unique world, full of fascinating characters and scenarios,
The story is fun and engaging, dark and yet often funny, the author’s sense of humour and drama prevails throughout.
I’m grateful to the publisher for allowing me to read another book by this unique and treasured author.

[Venneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Getting to watch Tchaikovsky further build out his absolutely terrifying and insane takedown of Empire against individual arcs both contained to this novel and over the last few novels in general (yay recurring characters!), and to see him turn his eye to the moment the Empire starts to lose, and to have it be what seems to be his fantasy rendering of Ireland's internal politics, and gives them a world where they fucking won, along with the literal Hells coming into the world state, and you have an absolutely amazing fantasy series that's one of the heaviest batters I've seen in a while. This comes out in March, pre order now!

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far my favourite series by the author. Throughout the series each book has felt like a collection of stories and experiences by characters that are more like NPCs in video games than your typical novel protagonists. Each book has been suitably bleak and while more often than not the Palaseen Sway seems to suffer a defeat by the end the next entry seems to begin with their idea of perfection having extended even further. This adds to the bleakness of the world with perfection seeming to be an inevitability for all its inhabitants.

This book continues the trend of introducing new characters and perspectives but it also has the most returning characters of any book to date and all of this builds towards making it feel more like your tradition novel. It’s a very interesting approach almost like we have read 4.5 books worth of world building in preparation for the final novel. It’s certainly an interesting approach and one that I have thoroughly enjoyed as I am incredibly invested in some of the characters, especially Yasnic, as well as the world as a whole.

The characters themselves are all a masterclass in character building with all of them existing in the morally grey realm that most of humanity operates in before being exposed to the pressure cooker of the world they operate in. There are seldom clear goodies and baddies as even the characters on the “bad” side are mostly just normal people trying to survive.

I honestly love this series and can’t wait for the final entry.

[Audet Maxime · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are not many books that can juggle having so many characters and plotlines but successfully make me care about every one of them. This is one of them; every new book acts like a new piece in a giant mosaic that slowly unveils more and more of its secrets. Fantasy at its best

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The next instalment of the Tyrant Philosophers. Again intricate politics, magic and fantastic characters. Thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. Every single book in this series gets better and better!!!