Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Disclaimer: Thanks to NetGalley and TorUK for the gift of an eARC.
This is a book about humanity. What it is, what it means, how it’s expressed, and how it affects us. It’s also a damned fine sci-fi adventure yarn.
Told through two mostly alternating points of view, one human, one alien, the narrative follows a human resource-stripping mission sent out ahead of the greater human diaspora to find and grab all the resources they can, and where applicable establish waystations for future humans to use and colonise. Along the way they discover Shroud, a tidally-locked moon of a gas giant, where the atmosphere is so thick that at the surface there is nothing but darkness. Well, darkness, and life. And when disaster strikes and two of the humans, Juna and Mai, get caught on the surface with nothing but their tiny pod to keep them alive, that life begins to take an interest in them.
As I mentioned at the top of this review, this book is about what it means to be human, and while the humans in this book are recognisably us, they’re a version of us that’s become consumed by corporate excess, absorbed into the gestalt that is the corporation machine, commodified, and ultimately dehumanised by the world they live in and the society they belong to. Spending most of their time in sleep pods, ‘shelved’, as it’s referred to, the main human characters are consigned to an existence in which they’re nothing more than interchangeable parts in the greater organism that is the corporation, which in turn is the ship and its mission.
The alien life of Shroud, on the other hand, is a gestalt that has fractured, a hive mind that can only maintain its memories and reason by staying close to its constituent parts. And should one or more of those parts get separated from the whole, a new colony is formed, a new mind begins.
Just like the uplifted species Tchaikovsky gives us in his Children of Time series, the aliens here are ridiculously well written, and genuinely feel alien. But then again, so do the humans to some degree. At one point Juna, the human narrator of the story, compares the Shrouders to ants, but clearly doesn’t see that the same comparison could be made of the humans themselves.
As with pretty much all of Tchaikovsky’s high-concept sci-fi, the writing here is a seamless blend of technical exposition and character-driven exploration. The growing sense of despair and defeat felt by the human narrator is perfectly captured throughout the developing story, and the sense of wonder and enlightenment that fills the Shrouders as they learn more about the strange creatures that have invaded their world is just as palpable.
There are a lot of moments throughout this book where I wanted to slap one or more of the human characters, but it’s the ending that ultimately got to me. The final wrap-up, and the way in which everything is brought full circle, almost had me throwing my kindle across the room in frustration. But in a good way. Even now, a week and a half after finishing it, that ending still sticks with me, and that, above all else, is why I love this book.
Definitely a strong and well-earned five-stars, and definitely one I’d recommend you read.
