Prison-based escapades in a dying-earth fantasy setting, with New Weird and steampunk touches. Tchaikovsky churns out novels speedily, and I imagine this is fairly typical of the end results - it feels like a solid first draft dashed out by a talented storyteller, and if he'd spent another few months tightening the language and plot it could have been great. Not as good as Children of Time then, but I was still entertained. High 3*/low 4*