Pretenders to the Throne of God

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.