Fantasy’s Accumulating Remains: Review of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Pretenders to the Throne of God

Christian P. Haines Under Review:Pretenders to the Throne of God. Adrian Tchaikovsky. Head of Zeus, March 2026. War is hell, except in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Pretenders to the Throne of God, where war is horrible, but hell is its own thing: hell is revolution. Pretenders is the fourth novel in The Tyrant Philosophers, a fantasy series in which the bitter realities of war and colonialism eclipse genre staples like quests, heroes, and dark lords. The evil in these novels is more the banal variety described by Hannah Arendt than the metaphysical grandeur of a Sauron or Dark One. Even the magic in the series is bureaucratic, at least if the Palleseen Sway has its way. The “Sway” is an empire spreading its reach according to reason’s dictates. This rationalist empire treats magic as the savage remnant of backwards cultures; it melts magic down, from ritual artifacts to local gods, turning it into fuel for weapons. It’s a brilliant reminder that empire wages its wars in the realm of culture,…