James Nicoll Reviews

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2025 Shroud is a stand-alone science fiction novel. It is also a rare example of me getting around to reading a new Tchaikovsky close to the actual publication date (or one of them).

Special Projects Administrator Juna Ceelander is living the dream, as long as the dream is working as hard as she can as one insignificant worker for the Concern, and being put into cold storage whenever her expertise is not required.

The interstellar cancer known as the Third Stage Commercial Expansion has just metastasized to Prospector413. Now all that remains is to strip the system of its resources.

Prospector413 has a resource not encountered before.

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Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2024 Alien Clay is a stand-alone science fiction novel.

The Mandate, possessing as it does the correct views on every subject, discourages deviation from the one true path. Professor Arton Daghdev and his colleagues believed that science fell into a gray zone. In fact, the Mandate’s apparent tolerance for unsanctioned hypotheses was a ruse to get foolish academics to expose themselves… so they could be arrested.

Daghdev, no fool, worked out what the Mandate was up to as soon as he was purged, arrested, questioned, convicted, put into suspended animation, and dispatched on a one-way trip to Imno 27g, also known as Kiln. This is a death sentence, albeit a slow one.

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Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2021 Elder Race is a stand-alone science fiction novella. 

Plagued by demonic invasion, the people of Ordwood begged Lannesite for aid. Lannesite’s Queen decreed that Ordwood’s problems, while tragic, were not Lannesite’s problems. No aid would be forthcoming.

Outraged at her mother’s lack of compassion, the Queen’s least impressive offspring, Lynesse Fourth Daughter, convinced herself to embrace bold action. Nyrgoth Elder, last of the ancients, long ago promised that Lannesite could call on him in their hour of need. Whether the old sorcerer is still alive is unknown. Nobody has seen him in a lifetime. Nevertheless, Lynesse sets out for his isolated mountain tower. 

Old Nyrgoth is still alive, scarcely aged a day. However, he is no sorcerer.

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Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2020 The Doors of Eden is a stand-alone science fiction novel.

First-generation Brit Lisa Prior¹ and posh Elsinore ​“Mal” Mallory befriended each other in school thanks to a shared interest in Forteana. Over time they became more than friends, something that they kept secret from their families. How the relationship would have played out in the long run remains a mystery, because one day the two teens ventured out onto Bodmin Moor to look for cryptozoological treasure.

They found something. Only Lisa returned home from Bodmin Moor.

Four years later…

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2019’s Children of Ruin is the second book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series. 

Before it annihilated itself, Earth’s first great technological civilization dispatched starships to nearby star systems, there to terraform promising worlds. Millennia later, Earth’s second great technological civilization also dispatched starships. The purpose was not to reshape worlds according to humanity’s whim, but to escape the deadly trap Earth had become. 

Nobody expected to find a planet full of portiids, genetically engineered intelligent spiders, but humans were convinced… compelled, really, to come to terms with the unintended products of Avrana Kern’s bold uplifting efforts. The starship Voyager is the product of the unexpected partnership, crewed by humans, portiids, and an emulation of the long-dead Kern, dispatched to explore a neighbouring star system. Who knows what wonders await them? 

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Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Walking to Aldebaran is a standalone science fiction novella. 

Lucky Gary Rendell has realized his childhood dream of being an astronaut! Even better, what was thought to be Planet Nine has turned out to be an enigmatic alien artifact and Gary has been assigned to the joint mission dispatched to examine the massive structure. 

Marvels wait inside. 

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Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2016 Spiderlight is a secondary-world fantasy. 

Dark Lord Darvezian’s legions of darkness threaten to overwhelm the forces of light. He is but the latest in a long line of Dark Lords. So far, each of them has been brought down thanks to instructions provided by confusingly worded prophecies of unknown provenance. 

Nth expected to spend his life with the rest of the brood serving the great spider Mother in a forest few dare to enter and fewer live to exit. Then one day, a party of ambitious murder hobos comes calling. 

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Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2018 The Expert System’s Brother is a standalone science fiction novella. 

Aro is a village like any other: nestled next to a great tree, run by ghosts sharing the bodies of living persons, persons selected by the wasps. Handry was an unremarkable example of an Aro inhabitant … until the day of the mishap. 

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2014’s Seal of the Worm is the tenth and final volume in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadow of the Apt series. 

Good news for Wasp Empress Seda: its old enemy Collegium has fallen and occupied by Wasp forces. Stenwold Maker has vanished and is presumed dead (at least by some). Seda’s mystic rival Cheerwell Maker has been consigned to the lightless realm of the Worm, which is as close to hell as this world offers. 

There are just a few minor hitches. The Wasp Empire’s alliance with the Spiderlands proved all too brief. Imperial forces need guard their flank from their former ally. What seemed an unstoppable advance has stalled. 

More importantly, when Seda tipped Cheerwell and her friends into the Worm’s realm, Seda released something terrible. 

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2013’s War Master’s Gate is the ninth and penultimate volume in the Shadows of the Apt decology. 

The Wasp Empire may be short on kindness, egalitarianism, and respect for human rights, but it compensates with warlike resolve and deep reserves. It has failed many times to crush Collegium, but, undaunted, its forces are marching into the Lowlands yet again. 

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