Inicio de trilogía por parte del prolífico autor británico. Una historia con una escala temporal enorme que abarca numerosos planetas, razas y amenazas. Cuenta con un inicio que requiere algo de esfuerzo para situarse dada la gran cantidad de nombres, lugares y seres humanos y no humanos que hacen aparición. Una vez asentados, la historia nos sitúa frente a una amenaza global: los Arquitectos. Unos seres alienígenas que arrasan toda vida en otros planetas del universo. Entender sus mecanismos y cómo su amenaza afecta a los seres de este mundo es una de las claves del libro. Una novela con acción, política, conspiraciones, y otros muchos aspectos que hacen de ella otra gran obra de Tchaikovsky.

✅ Los Arquitectos son unos enemigos que van a dar mucha guerra. Una especie de Galactus cuya amenaza promete grandes dosis de emoción.

✅ La novela tiene un gran ritmo. Tchaikovsky sigue mejorando si cabe y esta novela apenas tiene páginas sobrantes. Todo se aprovecha.

✅ Los temas que trata durante la novela, con referencias claras a nuestro presente y gran especulación sobre nuestro futuro.

❌ El primer tercio de novela no es fácil. Muchos personajes, años y razas que ya forman parte de un universo al que acabamos de llegar y con los que familiarizarse. Es frecuente tener que revisar glosario para entender diferentes relaciones.

Before i begin with this review i just want to let you all know that i utterly adored this book, one of my favourite reads from 2021 so far, possibly even ever! So this will be very gushy, prepare yourself! Adrain is also a super cool guy, ive had a few brief discussions with him on Twitter and i think its awesome how he interacts with his readers! Im mortified that this is the first book ive read of his even though i have Children of Time and Children of Ruin on my shelf and i recently bought my partner Doors of Eden in paperback for his birthday, so lots to binge through!

Right on to the book, Shards of Earth is the first installment in The Final Architects Trilogy. The story starts off after a great war has destroyed Earth and mankind. Mankind were forced to create an elite fighting army which are basically advanced human beings known as intermediaries. One of those intermediaries is our protagonist Idris, a navigator on the ship the 'Vulture God'. I really loved the cast of characters that formed the crew (Solace was my fav!), it gave me 'A long way to a small angry planet' vibes. Although having said that this book had many unique aspects that ive never seen explored in the sci-fi genre before, it made for a really cool read.

Idris is a super interesting character as he doesnt age, sleep or eat. He's as far from human as it gets whilst at the same time weirdly human. Our baddie's in this story are known as the Architects who roam the universe destroying everything and anything they come into contact with. When Idris learns that the Architects are making a resurgence he believes that all may be not as peaceful as it once was.

Overall i found this book to be massively accessible, the world building was rich and detailed leaving the reader wanting more and also great for readers getting into the sci-fi genre, the cover is a little misleading as it makes the book look like hardcore sci-fi and i like my sci-fi but i do find it intimidating but i must say this book is great and i think the majority of readers would take to it really easily! My only ever so slight critisism is that i would have liked a bit more descriptive detail, this world was so vast and it was hard work trying to picture everything especially the different alien races etc, more description may have made that a little easier. All in all the writing is great, some of the best sci-fi ive ever read. Just call me a life long Tchaikovsky fan!

I’m still reeling after finishing Shards of Earth – what a story… For those who have experienced Mass Effect (re-released this week, by the way! My husband is playing it as I’m writing this post), I can only say that it’s a very similar story, both in terms of how grand, amazingly written and dark it is. If you’re a fan of stories like that, you will not be disappointed.

It was just an amazing book, and now I have no idea how I’ll wait for the next installments. This is a book of some 560+ pages – and I gobbled it up IN TWO DAYS. I wasn’t able to move away from it. Now that I’m finished, I am still not sure I’ll be able to move away from the grandness of it for a long time. I’m still just thinking about all that happened.

TL; DR: if you loved Mass Effect, you MUST read Shards of Earth.

This was my first book by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I quickly learned that he’s amazing at writing battle! I’m a reader that’s hard to keep interested in battle scenes, but this book? It drops you straight into the action, onto a spaceship, and things are HAPPENING. I could immediately feel my heart hammer faster. The pages melted – and that helps when the book is like 560 pages long!

I also loved the quite diverse cast. This book features a mostly-cloned (genetically grown?) warrior women race, like a clan of Valkiries with impeccable discipline – they represented a very strong fighter woman element. Yet, being born very able-bodied (stronger than normal humans), they weren’t the only strong fighting woman type in the story.

The ship crew that we follow also contained a woman who in all respects would be considered born disabled in our society, but she was incredibly strong and capable in the story, and valued for her skills, which were simply placed elsewhere than able-bodied people’s (she was able to control artificial systems and fight with the help of technology, which she was also very good at repairing and creating.)

Both women were very tough! Aside from that, the book also normalizes nonbinaries in society, and that aside, of course there are a couple non-humans on board who make it all the more interesting to be around them and learn their differences and how they function and communicate with the humans.

There was one notable thread of character clash – between the genetically engineered woman and the disabled woman. Olli, born disabled, hates the Partheni’s guts – because she believes that if they were to take over, people like her would cease to exist (or rather, would be “corrected” out of humanity’s genetics). And she is right to be angry on that part. But on the other hand, this particular Partheni woman didn’t create her race – she doesn’t want to change anyone else into a genetically modified human. It’s just that she was made and born that way, and of course she loves her sisters and the rest of her kind. They’re her home – and you can’t blame her for it either. I’m not summing up the whole thing here, but I thought that clash between these characters was very well written, and challenging, and both points of view were presented as very valid.

In this conflict, I don’t know who’s right. It made me think a lot. It made me feel a lot. And that’s a good plot and good writing. Moreover, that’s a good way to stress society issues we are beginning to have now ourselves – what with the way to check DNA and “eliminate” issues in the womb, which is rightfully incenscing a lot of society groups at the moment. It’s an ongoing issue that will only escalate as the 21st century progresses, so it’s only right to talk about it in fiction.

I can’t help feeling like Shards of Earth reminded me a little of A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. They are very different books and the stories and plots themselves are very different – Shards of Earth is a much grander, darker plot that involves not just just the crew, but entire worlds and civilizations at large. Meanwhile, Small Angry Planet was more about specific persons and their histories.

However, the ragtag crew and the way they interacted reminded me a lot of that story. And that’s how I knew I’d definitely love the book – if you love the crew, you end up loving the story. There is something incredible about an odd mixture of very different people, all written in a way where they just come off the page. Scifi lets authors accentuate character traits through outward appearances, even races different to humans can lend an intensification of some character traits. It’s part of why I have a long running love story with scifi.

And the best part is that seemingly all the characters have some sort of secret – at least, the central ones. And it’s a slow reveal – you get to guess at all the reasons they might be doing this and that. And then you find out. And it’s not quite what you thought.

It’s also one of those books where the author actively engages in torturing the reader – by making the characters irresistible, and then plucking them away from you. Wherever they go, there’s trouble and they’ve got to devise yet another way to get out of it, it’s just so active! The next thing you know, you are suddenly able to read into the subtle cues that a non-human gives to transmit secret intent that even the crew isn’t quite reading into. It’s an experience, this book, and it’s great. I haven’t read such a good scifi for a long time, and I truly can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

Overall...

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky was AMAZING. I absolutely can’t wait to read the rest of the books in the series – and I can’t wait to pick up other books by this author that have been recommended to me by friends before. The Final Architects is shaping up to be an amazing scifi story, grand and looming, one you couldn’t possibly forget. The first book felt comparable to the Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin for me, or Mass Effect, if you’re a gamer – and that’s a measure of AMAZING scifi. I can’t wait to read more!
I thank the publisher and The Write Reads tours for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

If you want aliens, action, and humanity on the brink, then "Shards of Earth" will definitely float your boat (or spaceship!). As expected, this book is superbly written, is well thought out, is full of brilliant characters, and has a truly great and immersive plot. Very much looking forward to the next book in this series (and the 3rd!). Can Adrian Tchaikovsky write a bad book? I don't think so!

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

I was a little intimidated by the size of the book, and being the first installment of a new series, the prologue definitely took a lot of concentration and jarred me slightly with the sheer amount of information I was met with. I was left juggling different names and places in the midst of a battle. However, as I got further in, I fell into a flow and it was like I had been in this world before.

Idris is a firm favourite for me when it comes to characters and I enjoyed the way we learnt about him piece by piece as though needing to earn his trust.

In sci-fi, I am always drawn to the set up of the crew. If you are a fan of the "found family" trope, you will love Kris and Rollo. I found it heartwarming to read how each crew member protected each other, not just because it was their job, but because they care!

If you are a fan of epic sci-fi with great character development, I fully recommend this!

This is hands-down one of the best SF space operas I have read in a long, long time. I recently finished ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’ by Christopher Paolini, which makes for an interesting comparison, as both recycle a lot of the well-known tropes of this particular sub-genre.

The one in the Tchaikovsky book I really do not have any fondness for is the concept of ‘unspace’, a kind of Lovecraftian hyperspeed realm inhabited by weird looming entities barely aware of our existence, but that are likely to induce instant madness if they ever turn their cosmic gaze on us poor human spacefarers.

The difference between Paolini and Tchaikovsky as writers is how the latter tackles this particular trope: It becomes an integral part of the nature and reality of the alien Architects, described in the Glossary as “moon-sized entities that can reshape populated planets and ships”. Yes, I am sure the Death Star reference is deliberate, while the Psychic Intermediaries (Ints) is an equally deliberate nod to the Guild Navigators of Dune.

Paolini simply has a tick-list of genre tropes that he dutifully runs through in ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’, which really does not justify its length and rambles on for just one space battle too many. Yes, ‘Shards of Earth’ is also a monster of a book (in various meanings of that phrase), but I was never bored once or even found my attention wandering.

And despite this being the opener in a series, the ending is truly delightful and quite self-contained (as opposed to wanting to hurl your reading device at a wall in frustration, as is so often the case with SF series that end inconclusively as a kind of hook to get you to read the next, and the next…)

Tchaikovsky is one of the best writers of alien species and cultures out there, and ‘Shards of Earth’ is chockablock with some of the weirdest creatures I have ever encountered in SF. These are not the cutesy ugly-but-lovable ones that tend to crowd the Star Wars universe, or the endlessly humanoid variants of Star Trek, bar a few extra bumps on the forehead, nose or a different skin colour … Tchaikovsky’s aliens have a kind of baroque weirdness and gothic grandeur that renders them both inscrutable and utterly fascinating.

What I also respect about Tchaikovsky is that he does not spoon feed the reader. You really have to work at the beginning of this book to ‘get it’. But once you have a basic grasp of the intricacies of the narrative set-up, the reader is in for a truly wild ride that consistently surprises and amazes.

Synopsis:

Humanity has reached out beyond Earth, settling on other planets and meeting other species. But then the Architects arrive and destruction comes along with them. Earth is suddenly destroyed, along with billions of its inhabitants. The Architects continue to appear all over space, their presence prompting mass evacuations and futile attempts to defend life, both human and other.

Following the discovery of a young girl’s ability to communicate with the Architects, hundreds of human volunteers are genetically enhanced to become “intermediaries” and their minds are moulded to duplicate this ability, though many die before the process is complete. One survivor of it, Idris Telemmier, makes contact with and then destroys an Architect during a desperate battle and they disappear, leaving the humans and their allies to rebuild in their wake.

Years later, alliances between races and factions are taut and power is sought by all sides as the memory of the Architect’s presence fades. Idris is now the navigator for a crew of Spacers on board the ship Vulture God. A wartime ally and friend, Solace of the Parthenon, a group of parthenogenetically grown women, makes contact with him in an attempt to try and recruit him. But bigger things are at play as Idris starts to discover that the Architects might not be gone forever.

Review:

I feel like I should set out my usual reading habits to give some insight as to my thoughts on this book. I’m pretty open to what genre I read in and tend not to favour any one genre, mostly listening out for buzz on books from fellow readers or going through stages of bingeing a particular genre for a few months or so. I’m certainly not a stranger to sci-fi fiction but I would say I’m more of a casual reader of it.

I picked up The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky last year and it was the first of the author’s work I’d read (I’m glossing over the fact that Children of Time has been on my TBR since the dawn of time). I enjoyed that book and so was very keen to take the opportunity to read Shards of Earth.
To cut to the chase….wow, this was great! It certainly takes you on an adventure and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The book throws us straight into the action. We’re on the front lines of a battle to stop the Architects from destroying Berlenhof, a planet at the heart of the colonies (the surviving human worlds following the destruction of Earth), with Solace and her sisters of the Parthenon and Idris, the fairly newly minted Intermediary. The scenes here are purely cinematic and I was gripped as we watched their desperate attempts to use Idris, this new “weapon” to beat back the Architect.

Once we then move to the present day, we really start to get into the world that Tchaikovsky has built. It took me a while to get to grips with all the different species, the planets and their governments but there is helpfully a glossary, list of key players and timeline included in the book which is a good reference point for when you get too confused.

We get to know Idris and Solace and are introduced to the crew of the Vulture God and I LOVED them. They’re a bit of a ragtag bunch, with members of different species making up the crew. I got some Firefly vibes at first, but they soon disappeared as I got to know these characters and they made their own impression on me. Idris is quite a sad character at first, somewhat despondent and always seemingly on the edge of utter exhaustion and ripe to tip into insanity at any moment. We get to know his history and not only what he has been through but what he continues to be exposed to as he navigates his crew around space and unspace, the menacing place lurking just behind real space that Idris can guide the ship through to travel around quicker.

Solace is also an interesting character, seemingly more layered than the initial descriptions of her might suggest which becomes more and more apparent as she gets closer to being a fully fledged member of the crew. The rest of the crew too are great, I’d hope to see more of Kris in the sequel as she had an intriguing background.

This was an adventure story for me, following the most unlikely people who you would expect to be the ones trying to save….well, the universe. There are some creepy parts, some terribly sad parts and some humorous parts along the way.

I have friends who don’t read sci-fi, its not for them they say. But underneath all of the alien species, the strange planets and the spaceships, this is a story about people fighting to save life as they know it and fighting to save their friends and family.

I cannot wait for the next book to come out and I can see myself re-reading this one. I noticed that Sophie Aldred has narrated the audiobook version. I listened to her doing the audio of The Doors of Eden and thought she did a great job so might pick up the audio to catch myself up ahead of sequel coming out…..which I hope will be in the not to distant future!

have been on a bit of a Tchaikovsky readathon over the past 6 months, discovering how much I enjoy his work. Cage of Souls has been a particular stand out book. So, a new book set in space eighty years after Earth was destroyed by a moon-sized enemy? Yeah, that sounds like a book I'd be in to.

The moon-sized enemy, the Architects, killed millions as humans escaped Earth. To combat the Architects, humanity created some new enhanced humans such as Idris, who can communicate mind-to-mind with the Architects, although with some difficulty given the size differences. The Architects then simply disappeared leaving these new enhanced humans obsolete and not much liked by regular, unaltered humans. Eighty years on, Idris and his crew find a ship that has only recently been destroyed, and it seems clear that it was destroyed by an Architect. From here, the crew are hunted by various factions for various reasons that all come down to this destroyed ship, what it contained and what it means.

The scale of the book is immense – but then, space is larger than we can really comprehend, but there are more than enough elements to the story to make it feel as large as it is. The Architects are massive, unspace that is used to travel large distances (think wormholes but more of a void that has a presence that haunts anyone that dares cross through it), ancient civilisations and artefacts that can scare off an Architect. The universe for Shards of Earth is as big as you would expect for a space story and yet there are also moments where despite the enormity of everything, there are also moments of how small some things really are. Spaceships that house a handful of people, over-crowded docking bays, overpopulated planets. It all works as a nice contrast between the enormity of their life and how little space you actually have to live in.
The story seems more plot-based than character-based, which for a first instalment isn't a bad thing. There is an awful lot to set up and unlike with books set on one world, there's a whole universe to set up here. There isn't just a future Earth, there's a new breed of humanity, aliens, colonies, worlds, space stations. It's a lot, but tied in with the main characters it doesn't feel overbearing. It also allows the next book in the series to focus on other things or be more character-based as we already know about this future universe.

The plot will get you hooked though. It was a bit slow at first, with part one leaving me wondering whether I'd actually be surprised and not like the book. Sticking with it to the end is definitely worth it though as once you start getting into it and understanding how things are and more of what's happening, it grips you and leaves you wanting more. You won't get everything you want out of the book, but there needs to be some intrigue for the second so it's fine. Having some questions when you've finished will only be disappointing if you never get answers in subsequent books.

Whilst the scale of the book is impressive, it's also a slight downfall to the book. I love the idea of the Architects as they would be terrifying. Their scale though bothers me. Imagining space can be hard enough as we are nothing compared to the enormity of it. Picturing a world-destroyer the size of a moon I can do. Picturing a 5-person spacecraft and other spaceships going against a moon-sized world-destroyer though? Was too much for my mind. I could never get the scales right in my head because it's all too big to imagine when you're also comparing it to what is fighting against it. It might not be a problem for some but I just couldn't wrap my head around it well enough.

SHARDS OF EARTH is beautifully written, finding a neat balance between plot and characters in a story that does lean on plot more than the characters. The main characters all get their moments in the book, and of course, it wouldn't be an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel without a character that is both weird and wonderful – there's actual crab people and I need more of them! Despite struggling with the enormity of parts, it is an enjoyable read and leaves me eagerly waiting for the next instalment so that I can find out just what the hell is going on with the Architects.

Rating 4/5

Anyone who reads Adrian Tchaikovsky knows to expect excellent world building, deep characterisation, well realised cultures and species and rollicking good plot. Shards of Earth was no exception. It’s a tome of serious space opera but not a word is wasted and I found myself earing through it. The ending was good and promises more to come from future books in the series. Highly recommend.

SHARDS OF EARTH feels both similar and different to the other more "space-y" books I've read by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It has the same epic scope of DOORS OF EDEN and CHILDREN OF TIME, but doesn't feel as intense on the science - and has no focus on evolutionary science.

There is still a very rigid set of science rules the world follows that makes the tech feel cohesive and not "anything goes", which I really like as "anything goes" often feels a bit cheap and get-out-of-jail-free to me. Instead, it's clear that a lot of time has been put into creating the world and ensuring the rules are followed. It makes escapes and victories feel so much more earnt and satisfying.

The other major difference is this book is a bit more space opera-y - big bad aliens, humanity at peril, multiple alien races across the galaxy with tensions between them. Everyone is fighting for control of Idris, and the ship his crewmates accidentally stumble upon. It's <em>Star Wars </em>(<em>A New Hope)</em> in that they're space-couriers-just-trying-to-eek-a-living-but-get-caught-up-in-bigger-matters, and partly a war epic, except they think the war is over.

The Architects are a really unnerving enemy. Partly it's because they're so unknowable (what are they? what do they want? why?) Partly it's because of how horrific their abilities are - reshaping whole planets into twisted, beautifully perverse shapes without obvious means to do so (aka, no hands.) It's the peeled-open earth on the cover, and it's a really effective way of making these moon-sized entities thanks to a prologue showing one of the historic battles and then new soldiers being shown the remains of Earth. Thanks to this, they're a massive threat looming over the book, despite them not being there for most of the book.

The information control around the Architects is brilliantly done - enough that you can follow what's going on and want to know more, but not enough that you stop reading because there are no more secrets to dole out. Some of it isn't secrets, but what happened in the war, another set of mysteries to keep you hooked.

It's a very good start of series, and it makes me want to read the next book now!

And the hits keep coming from Tchaikovsky... Another day another micro-genre. Here he is playing in the post contact, large alien conglomerate sandpit - with unknowable alien gods (The Architects) coming to destroy us wrinkle. Or at least they came to destroy us, and did indeed destroy Earth so we have a humanity without a home in a universe where they are relatively small fry. He is not of the opinion that humanity will fundamentally change: so those who were settled on planets already hate the refugees, there are broadly other factions who hate post-humanism, aliens, and all the usually internecine disputes that happen when you get more than ten people together. Particularly if some of those people aren't people, or are genetically engineered cloned warrior nun people you assumed were invented to destroy the rest of humanity.

Its clear he is having an immense amount of fun here, his central characters after all are slightly dodgy traders in the Firefly mode (but with more aliens). The big picture here isn't staggeringly original, its broadly a pick five overused space opera concepts and blend them together, but he does use his talent for colouring it all in work wonders. His aliens are well drawn and interesting, the episodic adventures all have narrative purpose all leading to a finale where it makes sense that the fate of humanity (the universe?) may be riding on what can only be described as a ragtag bunch of misfits. And if you can pull that hoary old cliche off, you can probably do anything.

Its interesting that he seems quite comfortable with the hand-waiving of so many of his big concepts here. He is certainly not the first writer to invent an unknowable hyperspace and then potentially stuff it full of eldritch horrors (frankly hyperspace without eldritch horrors would be a surprise these days). Equally his mechanistic and impossibly destructive elder gods popping up for an ethnic cleanse have the sense of the Expanse back story about them. And lets be fair, his cloned warrior nun super-soldiers are just Warhammer 40K space marines with a welcome gender change. And yet there is something else going on here, its not as if he can't be original when he wants to be, so to choose quite so many stock puzzle pieces ultimately feels like there is a purpose to it. Maybe his agent said can you write something more like this - and tossed him some Banks, Reynolds, The Expanse...(answer: of course I can and I can do it better). There is the sense of genre and sub-genre as a toybox and popping out the odd even more shameless "Entertainment" (as Graham Greene would have it), is nothing to be ashamed of. And of course he gets to play out a few relevant political arguments - disability rights get a thoughtful airing here - and his healthy cynicism at much human capitalist politics is a thread through pretty much all of his work. But also this is the start of a trilogy, and even here each chapter reveals a slightly more alien concept or idea. His ultimate antagonists - The Architects - at this stage do remain largely unknown, and seemingly unknowable. But I am certain that will not remain the case, and it may well be that this hugely enjoyable genre fix is a preamble to something considerably more out-there than what is here.

Con esta novela Adrian Tchaikovsky da comienzo a una saga de ciencia ficción que se aleja del camino marcada por Children of Time y su secuela Children of Ruin. En esta ocasión nos encontramos con una space opera algo más convencional, con su adecuada ración de razas alienígenas, su consabida intriga política y algún toque de horror cósmico que recuerda a The Outside.


La humanidad tiene algunas colonias repartidas por el espacio que sobreviven con dificultad tras la pérdida de la Tierra y otros planetas a manos de los Arquitectos, unas entidades alienígenas casi incomprensibles que transforman en esculturas planetas habitados, acabando de paso con su población. La guerra se acabó en su momento con la intervención de los Int, humanos desarrollados exprofeso en un duro procedimiento con muy pocas posibilidades de éxito que son capaces de entablar una conversación con los Arquitectos.

En la novela se comparten dos puntos de vista: el de uno de estos Int, llamado Idris, que asqueado tras la guerra pertenece a una variopinta tripulación que va haciendo encargos por la galaxia y Solace, miembro de una sociedad matriarcal exclusivamente femenina, el Parthenon, creada por una investigadora en el pasado para mejorar la humanidad y que se convirtió en el principal ejército humano en la lucha contra los Arquitectos.

Como es natural, existe un elemento desencadenante que romperá con la situación de status quo que se había conseguido hasta el momento. Resulta muy interesante cómo el autor utiliza a los compañeros de tripulación de Idris (humanos y alienígenas) para darnos ejemplos de las distintas posibilidades que pueden dar lugar a un ser «sentiente» ya sea de origen natural o artificial. La tripulación es maravillosa, con una sentimiento de camaradería que infunde esperanza sobre la capacidad de colaboración entre especies. Están caracterizados de una forma estupenda y consiguen despertar nuestra empatía desde el primer momento, así que sufriremos mucho con lo que el destino les depara.

La entrada en la novela no es fácil, con muchos términos y cierta historia previa que no se desvela desde un principio, pero una vez superado este obstáculo, la lectura fluye mucho mejor. También es innegable que es el comienzo de una historia más larga, por lo que hay mucha exposición y en ocasiones acontecen pocas cosas, pero para compensar Tchaikovsky se saca de la manga un híbrido alienígena que reparte cera como Michael «ídem» en Scott Pilgrim y que tiene una resistencia al dolor, la desmembración y en general a cualquier ataque físico con sus poderes de regeneración que deja a Lobezno camino del asilo.

Me gustaría saber cómo se va a seguir desarrollando la historia para poder tener una opinión más completa, pero como primera novela de una narración más larga Shards of Earth me parece recomendable, aunque no exenta de fallos.

This is the third book by Adrian Tchaikovsky that I’ve reviewed, and the third of his new books I’ve read this year. He is certainly a powerhouse when it comes to releasing books, and I am more than happy to try and keep up! So far, I have not been disappointed. This story is set in a world in which humans have been colonising space for about two centuries, and it begins at the end of the war with the Architects, great planet-sized beings that got their name from the way they destroy worlds by twisting and ripping them to create works of art. Very early on in the book there is a chilling description of Earth as it has been left by the Architects, a great flower-like structure with its core exposed and frozen, forever reaching towards the sun (this is actually the image on the cover of the book).

In the aftermath of the war, all the different factions that had united against this unstoppable force begin to split into factions, so that along with the great loss of planets and lives, and the depletion of resources, there is great tension politically across the known universe. Unaltered humans -the Colonisers- are resentful of other groups, such as the genetically modified humans and other species that have integrated themselves into society, and another war seems to be brewing. It is in this high-strung political climate that the crew of Vulture God, a salvage vessel aboard which Idris now makes a living, finds a ship only recently destroyed, and it seems clear it was done by an Architect. From here the crew are hunted by all the various factions who seek to use this finding for their own gain, while more sinister things seem to be happening in the depths of space…

One of the things I loved about this book is the scale: it is set in space, which is as infinite as you can get, but there are certain elements that actually make it feel huge. The massive Architects, the ‘unspace’ that people use to travel between distant parts of the universe, the void in which a large and incomprehensible presence haunts all who cross it, and the Throughways and Relics left by a civilisation named the Originators, which nobody truly understands. These massive elements of the universe pair perfectly with the claustrophobia of the spacer life, in small ships that keep recycling parts to keep running, in overpopulated docking bays on overpopulated planets. The contrast was well executed, and it made me feel the same way the characters did as I read the different parts.

And speaking of characters, this was definitely a fun cast, and I got very attached to them! Tchaikovsky has a great knack for character writing, and especially writing group dynamics. I loved getting to know the point of view characters and their internal thoughts, but I also enjoyed watching their interactions and changing relationships with others. Idris and Solace were probably my favourites of the main cast, though Rollo comes a close third, and everyone (strange aliens included) feels well-rounded and believable, even those that appear in only a few scenes.

But really, Shards of Earth is just beautifully written. It perfectly balances the technical language with vivid imagery, and the character development pulls it all together to create this brilliant thing. And of course, it wouldn’t be an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel without creatures of weird and wonderful evolutionary traits! Powerful clam overlords, crabs with screens on their shells, strange worm-like creatures, and near-indestructible symbiotes populate these pages, and I hope to see more in the next instalment!

Shards of Earth is the first book in a brand new series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I was lucky enough to have an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have to admit I’m usually more of a fantasy reader, I’ve tried some YA sci-fi before but this was my first introduction to the space opera genre.
It was fine and i am hoping to pick up the next book in the series very soon

First off, this is a complicated sci-fi epic that I was so excited to read.

This book is mainly about 2 people, Solace and Idris. Solace is a soldier from a race of genetically engineered women whose task is to recruit Idris for their cause. Idris is a previous soldier turned navigator who was genetically experimented on to allow him to fight a world-ending being called the Architects. After responding to a normal call for a request to bring back a ship, the crew discovers something that changes everything.

This book is way more plot-based than character-based but saying that doesn't mean that I disliked any of the characters when I was not supposed to. they were written with depth and I found them very intriguing but I didn't feel very emotionally attached to them. That may be because it is plot-based.

In terms of the plot I was hooked, I'm not going to lie I was incredibly confused for line the first 20% of this but I'm glad I stuck it out. It's been a while since I've read anything that is so unlike the real world and thus it took a moment to get used to but once I did I was very intrigued. There are a lot of questions about a lot of things, some that are answered and some that aren't in this book but it does hit you.

The pacing is a little slow but honestly, I think it works well, it gives you a chance to get immersed into the world and understand fully what is happening.

Overall this was solid, I enjoyed myself and I have a few questions I want to be answered so when the next book is read I will be there.

Adrian Tchaikovsky has fast become one of my favourite authors; within the span of four books I have read by him, I have come to the conclusion that the reader can never go wrong with Tchaikovsky. Shards of Earth, the first in The Final Architects trilogy, is another splendid example of Tchaikovsky’s phenomenal imagination and skill!

Earth, along with billions of its occupants, was destroyed—twisted and warped into a colossal work of art, in fact—by an inscrutable enemy larger than Earth’s moon that came from the far reaches of the universe, whom the surviving humans named the Architect. Earth was but one of the multitude of worlds reshaped into bizarre artworks by Architects irrespective of what species of sentient beings those worlds housed. The only thing that worked for humans against Architects were Intermediaries, or Ints—humans with surgically altered brains capable of connecting with the gargantuan consciousness of the Architects—who, somehow, made the Architects go away more than eighty years after they had first appeared. Presently, about forty years since the disappearance of Architects, Idris Telemmier—one of the very few surviving original Ints who is living obscurely as the navigator of a salvage ship travelling the space and the deep void—and his crew discover something that portends the return of the dreaded Architects. Can humanity, and the other organisms, thwart the Architects once again? Or, will life, in all its forms, be snuffed out by the monstrous entities?

With the entire universe as his canvas, Tchaikovsky paints a dazzling picture of multiple worlds inhabited by many unique, fascinating beings in Shards of Earth—the Parthenon: genetically engineered female warriors, the Hannilambra: crab-like business-minded aliens, the Hivers: highly evolved cyborg insect intelligence, the Tothiat: super-resilient composite species, and the Essiel: enigmatic masters of the Hegemony. Each of these species and characters has a unique personality and voice, and Tchaikovsky brings them all to life effortlessly. He has a lot of trust in his reader’s ability to figure out things and thrusts them straightaway into the thick of things; the initial chapters take quite some patience, attention and perseverance to get through. Once past the starting blocks though, it becomes a spectacular ride through space and unspace—the uncharted, lethal, maddening deep void beyond real space navigable only by human Ints and few other alien species. The complex and entirely absorbing plot has plenty of breath-taking action sequences, all vividly described in Tchaikovsky’s engaging, intelligent prose. The characters—human ones and aliens alike—are superbly crafted and will be remembered for a long time.

Amidst the frenzied action, there definitely are a few places, especially when Idris engages his mind with bigger consciousnesses, where the pages feel like dragging. But those parts are small and far between, and the rest of the book just keeps the reader in its mesmerising hold right up to the excellent finish—conclusive in many senses but holding enough in suspense to make the sequel impatiently awaited. Now that is what I, and anybody who has read this magnificent Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Space Opera, want the most: Bring out the next volume, and the one next to it, immediately!

Thank you, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Tor / Pan Macmillan, and NetGalley for the privilege of reading the ARC of Shards of Earth in exchange for my honest review!

This book is unputdownable - I burned through the (nearly) 600 pages in three evenings.

Fast paced, relatable characters (including the non-human ones), with the human factions often being their own worst enemies during a time of immense danger to all life in the Universe.

The joy of this book (for me) is that you get to know (and care for) multiple characters, and I felt upset when bad things happened to them - looking forward to the next books in the series.

The Architects came for Earth first. Humanity had nothing to stop them, so Earth fell, torn asunder and remade at the Architect’s whim. Decades and many dead planets later, our last best hope were the Intermediaries, a handful of surgically altered humans borne into space by a female warrior caste, the genetically engineered Parthenon. At immense cost, the enemy was stopped … and went away.

Fifty years on, the Council of Human Interests, the governing body of the Colonies known as the Hugh, is on the brink of conflict with the Parthenon. Idris, an Intermediary instrumental in the last encounter with the Architects, now hiding from the Hugh lest he be forced into slavery, is now the navigator and pilot for a disparate crew on the salvage vessel, Vulture God. Wishing to avert a war the Parthenon order Solace, the warrior tasked with his protection during the war, to find him and convince him to join them and help them make their own Intermediaries. Idris wants no part of the Hugh or the Parthenon, but what he wants soon becomes irrelevant when the Vulture God discovers the wreck of a ship bearing the all too familiar signs of attack by the Architects.

Shards of Earth is a fantastic first book in what promises to be an outstanding space opera trilogy. Tchaikovsky has formed a rich tapestry of alien species and worlds, a devastating adversary, and a vividly imagined history, and peopled it with believable characters whom I came care about very quickly. The story is involved and complex and left me wanting the next book immediately. Yet another masterclass in sci-fi from Adrian Tchaikovsky!
I received an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Shards of Earth is my sixth book from Adrian Tchaikovsky and one unlike the others I read so far: this author moves from one kind of story to another with enviable ease, so that I’m now certain that no matter which work of his I pick up, I will be pleasantly surprised by what I find. This first volume in the Final Architects series brings us fully into the space opera genre with a story spanning many worlds and civilizations and introducing the most terrible kind of adversary, one which does not seem to act out of malice or thirst for power, but simply because that is its way - one for whom the words collateral damage or consequences seem to hold no meaning at all. More than once I have wondered how events of the past year have weighed on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s imagination as he crafted the Architects, entities that work according to their own inner programming (not unlike a virus!), unaware of the damage they are inflicting…

At the start of the novel, galactic civilization is two generations past a catastrophic event which threatened to annihilate every form of life - human or alien - in the universe: moon-sized things appeared literally out of nowhere, changing the shape of the worlds they encountered in a sort of destructively “artistic” way, erasing in the process all life present on those worlds. The Architects - so the mysterious entities were named - seemed attracted only by inhabited worlds, and their deadly attention did not spare either alien or human civilization: Earth was one of the worlds so reshaped, and the people who were able to escape from the cataclysmic remolding of their worlds lived like refugees under the constant threat of the appearance of an Architect in their skies. A last, desperate attempt was made to contact the aliens by genetically enhancing a group of human volunteers (called the Intermediaries) who would be able to communicate with the Architects in the hope of stopping the destruction: during an all-out battle involving the allied fleet created to face the threat, the Intermediaries were able to stop the mindless carnage, and the aliens disappeared just as swiftly as they had manifested.

Some fifty years after the end of the war, what had been an alliance forged under the threat of annihilation has now fractured into a number of governing bodies more often than not at odds with each other: danger forgotten, every one of them - including some criminal conglomerates - seeks power and dominance over the others. The Intermediaries, already marked in body and mind by the transformation, did not fare so well and most of them died, while a program to create more is underway using convicted criminals, not so much as a defense against a return of the Architects - which many deem impossible - but rather because one of the side effects of the genetic enhancing is the ability to navigate unspace, the ghastly nowhere between worlds. Idris Telemmier is the last one of the original group of Intermediaries, and he now works as a navigator for a crew of interstellar scavengers on a ship very aptly named Vulture God: he does not age, nor does he need sleep, but he’s a very troubled individual and all he wants is to be forgotten and to forget - as impossible as it is - the horrors he had to witness, which makes a strange discovery, made by the Vulture God’s crew in the far reaches of space, even more disturbing: the Architects might be coming back…

It takes a while for Shards of Earth to make the reader comfortable within its pages, or at least that was my experience at first: Tchaikovsky wastes almost no time in explaining his universe, plunging the audience in medias res so that one feels a little lost - that is, until a closer look at the character and civilizations list, not to mention the useful timeline, opens a window on this huge, complex background and everything falls into place. The aliens peopling the Galaxy are indeed quite bizarre creatures, confirming the author’s richness of imagination: they are not only weird-looking, but they come from equally outlandish civilizations and their interactions with the humans can go from the humorous to the quite terrifying. Yet it’s the human (or post-human…) characters I connected with more deeply, particularly the crew of the Vulture God, which gave me the same kind of wonderful vibes I could find in Firefly or The Expanse, making me feel perfectly at home with this group of mismatched individuals.

Idris is the one who required more “work” from me because at first he comes across as gloomy and sullen: it’s only as his story comes into light, bit by bit, that it’s possible to understand the depth of the damage inflicted on him first by the procedures necessary to turn him into an Intermediary, then by his war experiences and finally by the constant journeys into unspace - the navigational medium that can turn an unmodified human into a crazed wreck and weighs on an Intermediary with the conflicting sensations of loneliness and of a looming, threatening presence. If Idris is able to still maintain a grip on sanity it’s because of the bond he forged with his crew-mates, an apparently ill-assorted group that has grown into a found family whose interactions are a joy to behold - from expansive captain Rollo who calls the members of his crew “children”, to dour drone specialist Olli, whose stunted body made her a wizard in remote control of machinery; from crab-shaped alien tech Kit to lawyer Kris, whose main job is to protect Idris from being indentured by unscrupulous conglomerates, they all create a wonderful sense of familial cohesion that looks like the only barrier separating Idris from a devastating breakdown.

That’s the main reason the arrival of an old acquaintance of Idris places them all on defensive mode: Solace is a member of the Parthenon, a human faction that long ago left Earth establishing a society of parthenogenically created women-soldiers - she and her sisters fought valiantly against the Architects, but are now looked on with suspicion, not least because there is a great deal of misinformation about their civilization and goals. Solace is tasked with convincing Idris to help the Parthenon create their own Intermediaries, should they be needed with the possible return of the Architects, and when she joins the Vulture God she initially upsets the balance aboard the vessel, but as the days go on and a series of dramatic events plagues the crew, she feels torn between commitment to her duty and the growing sense of belonging that her adventures aboard the ship are bringing about.

As far as space opera goes, Shards of Earth is a perfect, quite engaging representative of the genre, and for this very reason I refrained from mentioning any detail from the fast-paced string of events at the core of this story. What I’m more than happy to share, however, is that the last 15-20% of the novel moves from a fast pace to a breakneck speed that had me turning the pages as quickly as I could, because the stakes were enormous and the various revelations beyond compelling. And the good news is that although this is the first volume in a series, it does not end in a cliffhanger: granted, we understand that the various pieces have just been set in motion on this galactic chessboard, but this segment of the story is tied up quite satisfactorily - although I would not mind reading the next book right now ;-)

If you are a fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky, I’m certain you will enjoy the depth and scope of his new work, and if you never read any of his books, this might very well be an amazing introduction. Either way, you will not be disappointed….

This is a space opera that I enjoyed more than I thought I would. I have been consuming a lot of science-fiction lately and I’ve found I am really enjoying it. I thought the writing style was so good and I found it good to read. I thought most things were understandable and it is an accessible book for people.

The worldbuilding is amazing and I really liked it. The human colonies were so good to see and I liked how the different worlds were set up. There are of course aliens in the book too. Some aliens were really weird. Someone I want to know more about is Ash who is the sow survivor of a planet of people who were destroyed by the Architects. The architects themselves were okay, I didn’t feel much for or about them.

The characters were okay, I didn’t really connect to any of them and the overall plot was similar to some other sci-fi books and films. I did like the overall story but it didn’t grip me at any point. It took me awhile to read this book because of that. I would recommend this book to sci-fi lovers and fans of the author will most likely love it. I may try this book again in audio format as that’s my preferred way to sci-fi.