I am grateful to the kind people at Pan Macmillan for providing an advance copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. 

‘Shroud’ is a new novel by the author Adrian Tchaikovsky. It is a stand-alone novel, so there is no need to have read any of Mr Tchaikovsky’s previous books to enjoy this one. Although I highly recommend you do ! I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Shroud’; taking my time to read it slowly, prolonging the pleasure.

The book is set sometime in the future and begins with a prologue. A young woman, Juna, recently brought out of the deep induced-sleep of space travel, survives an accident in a space craft orbiting an apparently lifeless Moon, named Shroud, far from Earth. She has been expelled to ‘safety’ in a small escape module. She thinks to herself:

“I’m not supposed to be here. Not in this thing. Not down here…on Shroud.”

The early chapters backtrack in time, providing context and introducing some of the characters. The Earth is largely uninhabitable due to conflicts. A Corporation, the Concern, has replaced Governments, with a mission to populate and exploit far reaches of the Solar System. Earth’s inhabitants, those who have survived and are ‘fortunate’ enough to be of some use to the Concern, take part in these missions. Until they are no longer required. Juna, an endearing and optimistic young woman, works for the Concern and is the main narrator in this book.

She is part of a team, that was orbiting a Moon named Shroud, in an area of dead, lifeless planets. We learn a little about the Juna’s team. The dynamics and relationships. Juna is the glue that holds the team together. Shroud has been approved for exploration and mineral exploitation. Before the accident she reflects on her lifestyle, perhaps with a little sarcasm and a lot of reality:

“We were all properly grateful…We were lucky enough to live…”

Juna is a clever and likeable; someone with whom the reader will identify and enjoy. Despite her position in life as a low-level employee, she is full of spirit, funny, sometimes sarcastic. But also a realist, eager to survive, competent, doing her job to the best of her abilities, knowing full well that there are far worse alternatives than being an Assistant working for the Concern, evaluating, exploiting and inhabiting distant and sometimes dangerous Solar Systems.

Shroud has an extremely harsh and brutal environment. Cold and barren with a toxic atmosphere. And completely dark, always in the shadow of a nearby planet. Although unsuitable for life of any sort, initial analysis by the Concern team suggests it is a candidate for exploitation using robots, robotic equipment and drones. Juna and her colleagues do not intend to go anywhere near the surface of Shroud ! They are given the task of investigating some unexpected signals and radio-noise, essentially static, emanating from Shroud. Drones are sent to investigate, data, including some video recordings are evaluated and suggest some sort of life may exist. Flora or perhaps fauna may be the source of the signals. Then the accident happens. Juna and a couple of her team end up on Shroud. Alive but stranded. This book tells the story of their journey on Shroud, to escape to the safety of orbit, if indeed there is anyone up there to rescue them.

On Shroud, they have some resources for living, some mobility in their escape vehicle, but hardly any means of communications or defence. They encounter up-close, the source of the signals and noise they picked-up while orbiting and observed from the drone recordings. It is not too much of a plot-spoiler to mention that Shroud has inhabitants. After some encounters and unfortunate incidents, Juna muses to herself:

“…we could only try to understand them, as perhaps they were trying to understand us…”

The scene is thus set for a wonderful story of engaging characters and otherworldly incidents as Juna and what remains of her team, attempt to return to the relative safety of orbiting Shroud.

Mr Tchaikovsky builds his characters slowly, letting us come to know them better from their lived-experiences, their role in the Concern and for the unfortunates on Shroud, how they act under pressure. Juna and another young colleague, Mai, are both particularly endearing. They are brave, capable and tenacious while honestly accepting their chance of rescue is a small number, just shy of zero. Given their dangerous environment and threatening circumstances they somehow retain their humanity, their morality and also their humour. Quite something in a completely dark world, the environment only slightly illuminated by their vehicles with very limited lighting. Mr Tchaikovsky builds the atmosphere partially from what they see, but largely from what is unseen; often sensed or imagined. The quite frankly, horrific situations, are tempered by humour, sarcasm, human warmth as well as a strong desire to survive. The dialogue and thoughts often made me smile and occasionally chuckle aloud.

A close relationships develops between Juno and Mai as they share this adversity. A more complex, less well-defined relationship develops between them and the entity they encounter on Shroud. Reflecting on these events and outcomes, Juna thinks to herself:

“…just because they were sapient, didn’t mean they were nice.”

And a little later, some light-hearted pragmatism:

“Scientific curiosity is all very well but it doesn’t make you immortal…”

Although Juna is the primary narrator of the book, an alternative narration periodically comes from the entity they have encountered on Shroud. This is a fascinating aspect of the book and allows Mr Tchaikovsky to portray human-like characteristics in a non-human mind. A completely different way of sensory perception, learning, data retention and decision processing. There are less technical, more social aspects as well. Themes such as curiosity, memory, nurturing and self-sacrifice are explored from a unique perspective.

Both the Shroud entity and the human visitors view the other as strangers, from somewhere else. Aliens. Both wonder, at first, if the other is even sapient life, or perhaps some sort of low-level life-form, only capable of reflexive or echoing behaviour. The dynamics of the relationship forms almost a parallel plot, as Juna and Mai endeavour to survive and attempt somehow to leave Shroud. Mr Tchaikovsky explores various aspects of this First Contact. Themes such as communication, comprehension, learning, trust, benevolence and evolution are explored.

I loved this book. The horror is balanced by the humour and warmth displayed by the main characters and occasionally by the ‘kindness of strangers’. Various ‘human’ characteristics such as bravery, curiosity, understanding and tolerance are exhibited by many, but not all, of the participants in the story. The concept of First-Contact with a non-human Lifeform in such a brutal environment has stayed with me well after I have finished reading. One wonders if Mr Tchaikovsky will revisit Shroud again in another book. I’d love to know ‘what comes next’. But if not, this book is quite sufficient. A thought-provoking and very satisfying read. The plot is well developed, with twists and turns. Dryly funny in places. Endearing and credible characters are found throughout. Some ragbags as well ! And the ending is fulfilling, surprising and I think, ultimately uplifting. Although the reader is left wondering and hoping that the future for Juna and Mai, these sometimes lonely, probably damaged characters, is somewhat kinder than their past. A Great Read and a wonderful addition to Mr Tchaikovsky’s body of work. I wish him all the very best with the publication.

Will Tchaikovsky ever fail? Another brilliant story that only Adrian can write. When will he stop?? Never, i hope

A first contact novel by the great Adrian Tchaikovsky. What at some point looks like is going to be a horror novel due to the prominent darkness becomes a truly remarkable first contact novel full of action with human and alien POVs. Another great 'eat the rich' history from this author.

Frankly this was not the most enjoyable read for me. As always from Tchaikovsky the writing is impeccable, and he presents very interesting ideas but unfortunately as can be seen in some of his other science fiction work I find that he gets lost in the science of it.

A large portion of the start of this book is sciency jargon where the narrative takes a massive backseat and the characters are largely non-existent. We get told the gist of the premise and who the main character is, but it’s not particularly well done.

Once we do get into the story a bit more we find that his characters within this story are unlikeable and quite shallow. They served the purpose of providing a narrative and showing the strangeness of the world of Shroud through a lens that as a reader we can understand but I found it very difficult to connect to them and they ended up becoming a massive hindrance to the enjoyment of the world presented within shroud.

If you enjoy stories that explore characters or want to be able to connect with those that you read about this probably isn't for you. But if you enjoy the heavier side of sci fi and the way Tchaikovsky explores these ideas then you may have a better time with this than I did. While I loved the Children of Time, the faults or issues that one may have with that story are very prevalent in this novel, but in a manner that is more blatant and impossible to avoid.

"Let me put this into words you can understand."

Let's not bury the lede here. This is one of the best books I've read this year, and if a better SF novel is published in 2025 we're in for a good time. I can't remember the last time I was this impressed - or this moved - by a sci-fi book.

The best first contact stories invariably have something to say about what it means to be human. Putting us next to another sapient species means we inevitably begin to draw comparisons. How do we define "alien" if not by pointing at it and saying "not human"? In defining what makes something alien we inevitably are forced to reckon with what makes us human.

Shroud puts humanity on full display, peeling us apart piece by piece and looking at the resulting mess. It's a novel of both the best parts of human nature - ingenuity, curiosity, empathy, resilience - and the worst - violence, the endless cycle of colonisation and extraction, the reduction of people to little more than cogs in a machine. The arrogance to think that we're uniquely special.

Tchaikovsky's writing here is, I think, the best in his career. I've never read a book of his that I didn't at least enjoy, but in the past - specifically in the Shadows Of The Apt series - I've sometimes got a bit lost in his action scenes and the way he describes "weird" things. Shadows... was over a decade ago, though (The Empire In Black And Gold, terrifyingly, 16 years ago), and he's had plenty of time to improve his craft. Shroud is the evidence that he's put the work in. The frozen moon of Shroud is a truly weird, alien place, populated by some of the strangest aliens I've ever seen in fiction, but the prose is crystal clear. I can picture this world, and the awful things that happen to our main characters during their journey across it, like I was right there with them. The pacing, too, is great. This rattles along like the best of thrillers. There isn't a single wasted moment here. It's a proper gripping page turner, evidenced by the fact that I write this after having stayed up until 2AM against all my better judgement to finish reading it.

Over the past few years I've been really drawn to moody sci-fi horror. In 2020 I wrote The Wretched, a solo journalling game about being really stressed and having a terrible time on your own in space. Some of my favourite SF of recent years has had very similar themes. The Wretched was absolutely a response to the unique isolation of COVID lockdowns, and I suspect that's also true of much of the fiction along similar lines that's emerged since then.

Shroud is also a novel about having a terrible time in space, but it's specifically a novel about having a terrible time in space and leaning on shared bonds and our connections with other humans to help us endure and survive. Even in its most bleak moments, even when our worst impulses as a species are on display, it's still a novel that has some hope for the future. As I was reading it I couldn't help feeling like it feels like a novel about healing and rebuilding. As with a lot of recent SF I think this is a book that was forged in the aftermath of lockdowns, but it's a book that's able to imagine a coming together of people in the aftermath of catastrophe rather than one that wallows in isolation.

Shroud is released in February 2025, and I can't recommend it highly enough. I'm very grateful to Tor and Pan Macmillan for furnishing me with an ARC. Don't sleep on this on when it lands.

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 <i>Children of Time</i> 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.

A prospecting ship finds what promises to be an exploitable moon. Although the surface is very hostile to humans weatherwise, extremely cold and swirling with high winds in an atmosphere of sulphur and hydrogen, there are many recoverable chemicals which can be extracted. An unforeseen accident send two of the crew down to the surface, where to there amazement there are seemingly sentient beings, which observe them and later help them to travel across the surface to the lunar pole from where they can be recovered to the ship. Once there it is decided to put the mining operation into top gear, but the creatures on the surface start to capture pieces of equipment, which they seem to be able to learn from and copy. A lot has been invested in the operation now and that if it is to succeed conflict between those below and those above is inevitable. As usual from Adrian Tchaikovsky, a gripping story of immens imagination.

I'm a big fan of First Contact books, so this was obviously right up my alley. Tchaikovsky's writing is always great, the science was interesting but not too hard to follow. I found the story a bit lacking towards the middle, it wasn't as exciting as it could have been, but it was still overall an enjoyable read.

This is my first novel that I have read by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It was brilliant. I live SciFi and I lived Tchaikovsky's writing and world building. I felt the suspense and I connected with the characters. This book reminded me why I love SciFi and why I will read all of Tchaikovsky's work.

A group of space exploring humans bite off more than they can chew. A world of darkness, where creatures show us what we perceive or fail to perceive what intelligence actually looks like. An exploration into humanities understanding of other beings completely different from our own, and how we may look to other worldly beings.
Very thought provoking, which the author always does so well.

The characters were great. Some more frustrating than others, which does capture how our minds view ourselves compared to others.
The world builder is brilliant. Tchaikovsky does well do put you right and centre of the dark and threatening world of Shroud.

I loved hearing from the Shroud creatures point of view. This is exactly as I would see other ‘alien’ beings perceiving humanity, as if we are simply ants trying to go about our days.

It does fall into the shadow of other works by this author, or maybe it was my expectations. It is a great read, however I expected more..of something. I appreciate the story told, and loved the interludes.

3.5/5 rounded to a 4.

I was lucky enough to get an e-arc for this from netgalley.

I've read a lot of this authors work recently and this one didn't grip me from the start.

It feels similar to Rendezvous with Rama mixed with a brave new world. There is a large alien environment, in this case a moon, that is mysterifiying scientists. Here humanity have been grown in tanks by a corporation, each with specific strengths and weaknesses.

As much as I love this authors work, this one didn't hit for me. Its hard to put into words why but it seemed to take a long time for things to happen.

The book got better as it went on. I enjoyed seeing things from an alien perspective. I enjoyed seeing the value of a less techy but people person as I play a similar role.

Es prácticamente imposible ir al día con todo lo que publica Adrian Tchaikovsky pero lo que es más difícil todavía es entender cómo puede mantener el listón tan alto en sus publicaciones. Con Shroud nos vuelve a sorprender y deleitar con una obra de ciencia ficción especulativa de primer contacto, aunque si bien es cierto que el alien resulta ser demasiado humano, no por ello deja de ser una novela estupenda.


La humanidad se ha salvado por los pelos de la extinción provocada por el cambio climático, “gracias” a las grandes corporaciones que ahora controlan todas nuestras vidas. El Concern sigue aplicando las reglas del capitalismo extremo y como el crecimiento constante es uno de sus axiomas, la exploración espacial es la vía hacia el futuro, siempre que sea rentable. Los humanos especializados en diversos campos del saber permanecen en hibernación (almacenaje barato) hasta que se requieren sus peculiares características para exprimir hasta el tuétano cada recurso. Este tema, algo recurrente en la obra del autor de Lincolnshire, también tiene su importancia en Shroud aunque a mí sinceramente me parece que se ha quedado un poco en la superficie, en el mensaje de “qué malas son las corporaciones que me mandan a hibernar en cuanto que no les sale bien la cuenta de resultados”. En Alien Clay, por ejemplo, el mensaje era mucho más contundente.

Shroud es una luna con mucho potencial, pero con unas condiciones eclécticas que hacen que sea bastante difícil la exploración del terreno para establecer cabezas de puente para la colonización. Y es que está emitiendo constantemente en todas las frecuencias posibles, como si la luna le estuviera chillando al universo sin pausa. Esta metáfora de las dificultades en la comunicación si uno no se para o no sabe escuchar es la base de todo el subgénero de primer contacto y Tchaikovsky sabe utilizarlo para su propio beneficio.

Lo que comienza siendo una misión relativamente rutinaria se transforma en una lucha por la supervivencia de los enviados a Shroud. En este sentido, se conserva bastante bien la tensión a lo largo de las páginas del libro, si bien tiene algunos momentos de bajón y una coda final que creo que podría haber estado bastante más refinada.

El principal problema que le veo a la obra y que se puede atisbar en esta reseña es la “humanidad” del alienígena, que a pesar de sus diferencias entra dentro de lo que el ser humano puede llegar a comprender, lo cual creo que le hace perder algo de credibilidad a la historia. El escritor ha rebajado un poco la complejidad del encuentro de forma gradual, para adaptar el conocimiento de otro mundo y otra especie no humana al marco temporal en el que se desarrolla la novela, que es muy corto. No es que sea poco creíble, porque no sabemos qué nos podemos encontrar ahí afuera, pero si resulta conveniente en exceso.

Las protagonistas humanas de la novela también tienen algunos fallos, no sé si por que Adrian pretendía hacer más hincapié en el alien o porque son el fruto de un sistema extremo, pero es que resultan demasiado frías en general, haciendo bastante difícil que despierten la empatía del lector. Esto, por supuesto, no es algo imprescindible, pero sin duda ayuda a que el nivel de compromiso del lector con la obra aumente.

Nos encontramos ante un obra que me ha gustado mucho y que recomiendo sinceramente a pesar de los problemas que he encontrado por el camino, provocados quizá más por mi bagaje lector y mis expectativas que por la obra en sí.

Really enjoyed the world building and setting. Hopeful that this will be continued in future books as would like to know what happens to the characters.
Pacing was great and the different POV’s kept it engaging.
Scientific terminology was quite heavy but to be expected from Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Entertaining but neither groundbreaking nor thought-provoking

First, the good: i liked the setting, there was enough fun stuff to keep me engaged, and the writing is nice. There's aliens to look at, weird shit to investigate, it's in space and then on an unwelcoming planet... if you like this kind of stuff, have at it!

The not-convincing-but-not-bad: the alien POV was fun for a bit, but i felt that it didn't go far enough. There was a lot of potential, but in the end it didn't feel as alien as it should have, and was too predictable. I wish the author had gone deeper into the weird and given us a more "experimental" narration for their thoughts.

The mediocre: characters were so boring! The narration is way too dispassionate and the main character felt like she lived a thousand kilometers away from us. Couldn't connect with her at all, which means i felt very little of the tension: it's hard to be a "gripping story" when everyone is so bland. The other characters were very much NPCs with 1 defining characteristic each, and i couldn't care less about them.
The pacing also suffered. I got to 70% feeling engaged and thinking it was the end, only to have it drag on for another 30%, and it being super predictable and boring. I didn't make a connection to the characters and the mystery was solved (at least to the reader) so i didn't feel compelled to read on (and i can attest that nothing new came up!).

The bad: if you start making a point about how bad it is to have huge conglomerates that exploit humans, then you need to actually engage with the deep thoughts. When i already can't care for the characters, you need to show me novel ideas, interesting arguments, or something (anything!) to explain your idea.
Here i just got told a hundred time that the Concern (the megacorpo) is bad and exploitative. That's not enough! Just saying: we have to do the work or else they'll put us back in hibernation is boring, sorry. There was a pseudo "i was a good worker but now i see the bad and i don't like it anymore" twist, except that the character had always been expressing rebellious thoughts so it didn't hit.
I didn't feel the reach of the Concern, their power, the bad life, or any of the bad things. It felt way too much like being in an office with a bad boss and a low budget -- but i don't need to go to space for that!
There was no exploration of the bureaucracy, the surveillance, the authoritarism, the inhumane living conditions, the raising of children, the re-writing of history to suit the needs of the machine... then why did you bring them all up? Felt like we were vacationing in a dystopian world without any meaningful thoughts behind it.

So in conclusion: read if you love anything with aliens and a little extravehicular adventure; don't if you like the deeper thoughts and concepts of sci-fi: Alien Clay (by the same author) has both, but done a lot better.

3.75 ⭐

Una piccola premessa: sono di parte, la mia opinione sul libro potrebbe essere influenzata dalla mia fedeltà indiscussa all’autore. Nonostante trovi che Tchaikovsky abbia reso meglio in altri suoi progetti (un esempio, Children of Time, con cui ha moltissimo in comune) anche in Shroud ho ritrovato elementi e tematiche cardine, a me ormai familiari, che melo hanno fatto apprezzare: il risvolto espansivo e distruttivo del progresso tecnologico con sequenze orrorifiche, AI, specie aliene senzienti, l'incomunicabilità tra specie diverse.
Posso definire Shroud un sci-fi cosmic horror costruito da molte voci, uniche e distinguibili tra loro a comporre una narrazione architettonica e complessa. Molto più semplicemente, first contact with alien.
La Terra non è più abitabile - molte opere di speculative fiction ci preannunciavano questo triste destino - e l’umanità si sposta in modo distruttivo alla ricerca di nuove risorse da sfruttare. Un ristretto gruppo di prodigiosi ed eroici pionieri dello spazio si muove nel cosmo nel disperato tentativo di far perdurare la razza. Tutti sono utili, ma se non si rivelano indispensabili subiscono il sonno criogenico volto a non sprecare e razionare al meglio le poche risorse. In questo senso, si potrebbe aprire anche un’enorme parentesi sull’aspetto ecologico della narrazione.
Shroud è spessa tenebre che avviluppa ogni cosa, aria densa e ammonica, irrespirabile, oceani ghiacciati. Le comunicazioni sono interrotte, specie aliene senzienti sono in grado di riconoscere le onde radio, ma spesso per entrambe le parti è difficile - impossibile - comprendere le intenzioni dell’altro. Juna e Mai, si destreggiano tra i pericoli di un mondo biologicamente sconosciuto e dalle conformazioni inspiegabili, sono in grado di rimanere vigili unicamente assumendo cocktail di droghe stimolanti e calmanti, unico scopo: tornare alla civiltà che conoscono raccogliendo quanti più dati - e quanti più traumi - possibili.
I POV sono tre, due dei quali poco convenzionali. Se la narrazione umana è lineare e frenetica e vuole giustificare le proprie azioni, quella aliena ci consente di sbirciare il risvolto della medaglia, di guardare con gli occhi dell’invaso e non dell’invasore. Un terzo punto di vista è quello effettivo del narratore - che io personalmente ho identificato come la genesi della razza aliena, ovvero la memoria del primo individuo che cerca di ricomporre la sua storia spiegando come si è arrivati al momento presente.
La narrazione è altalenante, sequenze molto veloci, pregne di avvenimenti e cataclismi, si alternano a momenti strascicati e questo mi ha fatto tentennare sulla valutazione finale. Uno dei concetti più interessanti sta proprio nelle forme di vita aliena di cui, all’interno di intermezzi, ci viene raccontata la genesi. Possessori di una coscienza semplicistica, ma funzionale evletale, ricorrono alla memoria e all’appartenenza come forma di sopravvivenza. E’ come se ogni singolo individuo sia il tassello di un grande unico corpo in grado di accumulare informazioni, ricordi, azioni e agire di conseguenza.
Ringrazio Netgalley, Pan MacMillan e Adrian Tchaikovsky per avermi concesso di leggere il libro in anteprima in cambio di una recensione onesta.

A dark, crushing world inhabited by strange creatures and with resources that humans can plunder. Until two humans find themselves stranded, at the mercy of those primitive aliens.

This is an enthralling story, full of claustrophobic scenes, set on a world that is toxic to humans, but where the locals have developed a way to survive, and thrive.

I've loved every book I've read by this author, and this one was exceptional. The world building and the creativity that went into the different creatures on Shroud is phenomenal, and the human interactions are, unfortunately, just what you would expect. A must read for anyone who loves sci-fi, and for Adrian Tchaikovsky fans! Highly recommend.

Tchaikovsky has managed to write a book that feels super filmic even though it’s basically set in pitch blackness. Lots of exobiology, lots of adventure, lots of drugs, and plenty of corporation bashing - what’s not to love?

Excellent, both a tightly written science fiction thriller and a parable of "mastery of the universe"

I love a story about intrepid spacefaring humans exploring an alien planet and Shroud delivers just that (although it’s actually a moon!). The sheer level of detail that Adrian Tchaikovsky goes into in creating the darkness and overwhelming noise of Shroud is incredible. I loved seeing the layers of this utterly alien environment being peeled back.

I do wish the characters had been a little more developed. I really enjoyed our two main characters, but felt there could have been more moments of bonding and stronger personal arcs for both of them. But having said that, this novel is really more about Shroud than the people exploring it and the adventure-packed story definitely delivers on that front!

Weirder, more compelling, and a lot more fun than it has any right to be, Shroud picks up scraps and threads from other Tchaikovsky novels — just-so evolutionary sagas, pitch-black hydrocarbon exoplanets, very human awfulness — and reweaves them into a surprisingly taut and fresh adventure. One of his better one offs, which is a high bar to clear when you’re in a deep-sea bathysphere and crushing gravity.

———————

On the surface Shroud is arguably a bit of a throwback, following two castaways struggling to survive treacherous landscapes, freezing oceans, and alien monsters as they struggle back to (our) civilisation. It’s a plot that could have come straight out of 1950s sci fi and the American-pioneers-in-space canon, but one of Shroud’s great pleasures is how gleefully Tchaikovsky inverts the elements of his premise; instead of Heinleinian freemen, our space pioneers are two women stuck in corporate peonage, their ingenuity is largely bumbling about while the locals do the actual surviving, and all the derring-do happens while our heroes are prone in acceleration couches cranked up on improbably large doses of pharmaceuticals.

And somehow, despite the obvious potential for a fatal tonal clash, Shroud feels incredibly natural. A lot of the credit here has to go to Tchaikovsky’s mastery of incident and adventure-story plotting, which keeps things moving at a brisk clip with fresh perils while still tipping the hat to the drudgery of trying to cross half a planet inside a jazzed-up diving bell. It certainly helps that Tchaikovsky has outdone himself in imagining a truly alien ecosystem, logically drawing out how a lightless, crushing world might plausibly produce life very that is much not as we know it (and yet somehow also yielding excellent critters for driving a survival story forward).

The action off of Shroud is a bit less seamless, with the other human corporates being (usually) a bit too moustache-twirling and their local opposition a smidgen too all-capable for my taste, even if there is some nuance. But as the final twist of the plot makes clear, the actual heart of the story is firmly back on the ground, with inventive alien life rubbing shoulders with humans putting one robotic leg in front of another, again and again and again.