I really enjoyed this book. Captivating and gripping!
Both books in this series have caused me to gulp a bit when starting, as my kindle flags up how many hours it is going to take me. However, by the time I am part way through this, I am quite happy for it to be a long book and am happy for it to carry on as long as it likes. There was no part that I thought could have been cut shorter!
This second book was, for me, a bit more enjoyable than the first. The world building had already been done, so I accepted the characters and the situation, and could knuckle down and enjoy the story.
There is another book coming - the story is not complete but the particular dramas of this book are, so there is no ghastly cliffhanger. I must admit I am looking forward to it - this is a fabulous world and I would be happy for many more stories to be set in it - there are loads of spin off stories possible, and I would love to read them!

EYES OF THE VOID takes the series from high-stakes mystery and pursuit to the brink of galatic war where everyone is arguing with each other over who gets to control Idris (without really consulting him) rather than teaming up to fight off the Architects. Because, of course, all the powers are far more concerned with how much power they might lose in a team up than all the lives.

This combination really makes you root for the narrators because they feel like the lone voices of reason surrounded by corporations/governing bodies who are all villains of one sort or another. Plus it really makes them the scrappy underdog up against literally everyone and highly under resourced as you can never quite trust the group nominally backing them right now.

Olli gets to narrate in this book, in addition to the four narrators from the previous (Idris, Kris, Solace, and Havear.) I like this spunky robot-controlling woman who has such confidence in taking on anyone. I really enjoyed seeing more of her.

The larger cast also lets the book be in more places at once. It's still very tight, location-wise - it's not far flung locations with everyone at different ends of the galaxy - but it does let there be more moving parts in an action sequence. It makes the book feel bigger while still very much feeling like a single, cohesive story (vs some other far-flung cast books that feel so separate.)

This book also very much confirmed to me that I am not a big fan of digital reading. I find it really hard to put down digital books and come back to them (my attention wanders MASSIVELY on putting it down) which means I try to read them in one sitting. And that is very hard to do for a book this big. I want temporary respite from books, particularly long, large ones.

It's a testament to how engaging this book is that I didn't struggle with it, given its digital length. I could certainly feel like I was in need of finishing, to have that break, by the end, but I was still interested in keeping going, still wanted to find out more. I didn't resent the book (which I most certainly have for other long books I felt obliged to finish.)

The finale of this trilogy looks to have a big moral dilemma at the heart of how to defeat the Architects, and a new faction/splinter has joined the game too. Looks to be a promising third book next year!

Following on from the first in the trilogy, Tchaikovsky gives us more of the same. The ominous spectre of the Architects hang over the universe, threatening to appear from nowhere at any time and utterly destroy worlds in their macabre way and the ragtag crew of the Vulture God are again caught up in the chaos and vast political schemes.

The story rattles along like nobody's business, never dwelling on any sequence too long before some new development moves it on its way again. It's great to spend more time in the company of well-realised characters in a fascinating and complex universe.

If I can find any fault in the novel, it's in the abruptness of the conclusion. The story is wrapped up quickly with a number of plot threads left dangling, to be picked up again in the next instalment. Though I'm sure this will make for a great trilogy, it means that this middle book feels a little incomplete to the extent that I turned the last page expecting another chapter, without realising I was at the end.

That being said, I'm very excited to discover how Tchaikovsky will conclude what is on track to be a five-star trilogy for me.

Eyes of the Void is the sequel to the excellent Shards of Earth, which we reviewed, well, far too long ago now. I think the sequel must have been held up by the pandemic. But in any case, it's going to be on shelves soon, so it's time to give it a look and see whether it's worth reading. .

Yes.

Just wanted to get that out of the way right off the bat. This is top quality space opera. It has characters you can sympathise with, and empathise with. It has some aliens that feel like people, but also feel different, with perspective soutside our experience. It has some humans that feel like aliens, too. Some because they've modified themselves in personal ways that change the way they present, some because of the way their society shaped them, and some just because their perspective has shifted out past the lens of common experience. This is one of Tchaikovsky's strenghts: giving us a vast array of different possibilities embodied in people. This is a universe steeped in the waters of conflict, one aware of the costs, but it's also a universe teetering on the ege of transhumanism, of defining, redefining and ignoring what different people think it means to be human. The breadth of imagination on display is stunning. From the technologically super-powered clams, whose dialogue is delphic enough it requires interpretation by human acolytes, through the society of tank-grown women, determined to save both the universe and themselves, to the shattered remnants of a grimy human polity, struggling to rebuild itself after an apocalyptic conflict, and beyond that into the truly unknown. Every few pages you're left thinking "Oh, that's pretty cool." In its depth and detail, grandeur and grime, there's a living, breathinng universe resting in the pages in front of you, and it always feels vibrant and real.



The characters...well, in a way there's no surprises. You'll know the central cast of reprobates from the previous book. I still have every sympathy for Idris, a man brought out of time, both metaphorically and physically. A man crushed by the things that were done by and to him during a past war, now desperately trying to rebuild in peace - or at least, prevent atrocities from happenning again. And his crew of smart mouthed, feisty folk are as diverse, exciting and entertaining as ever. Watching a ships lawyer duel with swords as well as words (and sometimes both at once) will never not be fun. As is seeing a giant scorpion battlebot go on a rampage. But I digress. Idris is people. Sad, sometime slonely, feeling a little broken and displaced, but definitely people - and so are all the other folks around him, whether or not they're, well, human. Tchaikovsky shapes his characters with care, giving us people we can feel for, people we can forgive, people we can understand. Whose pain he draws so artfully you can feel it searing your own soul, and whose joy can leave you turning pages on a grey day with a smile.

Basically, to be a little less lyrical for a second, both our protagonists and their foils anre fully realised people in their own right, not ciphers on a page. They live and breathe and feel real, and as a consequence, we, the reader, feel alongside them. I know I've missed these folks, and I bet you have too.

The plot - well, I won't spoil it. If nothing else, this is another brick thick story, so I'd probably struggle to spoil it if I wanted to, because there's just so much going on at any given ti,e. But somehow it all hangs together, the tightly woven strands of interweaving story and character drama coming together to make a narrative tapestry that is a thing of beauty. And also a thing that will leave you turning pages late into the night, wanting to know what's going toi happen next. I will say that there's some amazingly depicted space battles, some wonderfully byzantine politics, and a cavacalade of love and joy and sorrow and wrath and defeats and triumphs enough to go around. You're not going to be bored, that's for sure.

In the end, you're probably here to know if you should reaad this. If you're in the market for a vital, intriguing, fascinating, explosively entertaining space opera, then yes, yes you should.

As with all of Tchaikovsky's books, Eyes of the Void makes you think. And I mean really think. There is no obvious storyline that lacks imagination or a simple line of thought. It is manic,and it is chaotic, and it is thoroughly brilliant. The characters immediately take shape in your mind and the fantastical descriptions of said characters makes the most creative mind seem tame by comparison. This book stretches the realms of the impossible while taking you on a wild ride through the space we know, that's above our beautiful Earth, and the 'unspace' in between. If you are a fan of Tchaikovsky's (which I am- children of time still remains one of my favourite books ever) then you will love this. Just one word of warning, as this may well make the thousands of pages knit more easily together, read the time line and appendix of characters at the end of the book, FIRST, before embarking on the book. It will save you a lot of skipping back to remember who on earth is who.
4.5****/5*

If "Shards of Earth" floated your spaceship, "Eyes of the Void" will have it fueled up and soaring off into outer space! The story expands brilliantly in this second book of "The Final Architecture" trilogy, and I'm comfortable enough with the concept now that I'm starting to speculate on where this could all end. Brilliantly written. Brilliant characters. A story to keep you up past bedtime, and thinking about it when you're not actually reading.

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

I did not realise this was part of a series when I requested it. I managed to finish the book as a standalone - picking up threads here and there - but I definitely struggled at times and definitely felt I was missing something. Now going to read the first part of the series and then read this again.

The story itself is an exciting voyage through space and time - full of complex alien tech, species, inter-species rivalry, espionage and some rather fabulous baddies.

Recommended for hardcore scifi fans - but read the first book before you attempt this one!

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.

When people talk about things being widescreen, this is what they mean. This book careers between several planets and solar systems, stuff gets blown up all over the place, brilliantly original aliens do horrible things, different factions of humanity vie for galactic supremacy in the face of existential threat, there's something nasty in the woodshed of space-time, and our heroes are right in the middle of it all. Shards Of Earth was terrific fun, and this maintains that. It's high concept, high energy, high fun space opera, and roll on the next part.

Following on from the utterly brilliant Shards of Earth, Eyes of the Void continues the story of the disparate yet valiant crew of the battered salvage ship Vulture God in their fight for survival against the might of the moon-sized Architects.

Now that a way to safely transport the Architect-repelling Originator artefacts has been determined, the various governments of the colonies and their allies are feeling more secure in their abilities to defend themselves, and so their attention has turned inwards to petty bickering and brinkmanship. Relationships between the Hugh and the Parthenon are at breaking point, exacerbated by the fact that the only being yet to meaningfully communicate with the Architects, the Intermediary Idris Telemmier, has decided that his safety and morals are best guaranteed by the Parthenon, and has defected to work for the warrior faction in their bid to engineer their own Ints. When the Architects reappear and prove that they are not so easily deterred, can the former allies organise themselves to mount any sort of defence?

You absolutely, 100% need to have read Shards of Earth before coming to Eyes of the Void; you can’t pick this one up as you go along – it’s just too much information and history across too many people, species, allegiances, and worlds. If you have already read it but are worried that your recall is a little rusty, Tchaikovsky has been an angel and included a glossary of terms, historic timeline and a cast of characters to prod your memory.

Despite steady character progression, fascinating insights into some of the alien species (especially the crab-like Hannilambra and the composite-being Hivers), and plenty of action, Eyes of the Void slightly missed the mark for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great read, but it didn’t quite live up to the brilliance of Shards of Earth – possibly because it’s the middle book in the trilogy. The only specific reason for my dissatisfaction that I can put my finger on is that the pacing of the novel felt a little rushed in places, and that maybe the story could have been better served by the trilogy being stretched to a quadrilogy.

Whinges about pacing notwithstanding, Tchaikovsky has produced yet another great read, and I’m really looking forward to the concluding novel.

I received a free reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The second instalment of the absurdly prolific Tchaikovsky's current space opera series, though like more space opera than you might expect, it comes with a strong undercurrent of cosmic horror. From the off, part of the beauty of this setting is how neatly the usual SF cheats tie together, so the faster than light drives and the shields both derive from the same central idea – and now, it turns out, so do the implacable, enormous Architects who are once more fatally reshaping inhabited planets, and the Originator relics which until recently were almost the only way to stop them, but which no longer seem to do the trick. Obviously, with a third book to come, we don't get all the answers yet, and it would be profoundly unsporting of me to give away all we do get here, but for me it perfectly fulfilled the middle book remit of moving things along, escalating, answering some questions while posing more, without ever feeling like it was cheating or our attention had been unfairly misdirected.

Not that the attraction is only in the cosmic structure; this isn't the Asimov school of SF, where the ideas might be interesting but the characters are cardboard. The worlds are depicted with that Star Wars, Alien, Expanse awareness of how grotty space travel could be, especially when species are having to desert their planets in a hurry. Hence the spacer bar where "Rotary drones wobbled overhead delivering drinks that they only spilled half of. You could get drunk in Skaggerak just sitting around with your head tilted up and your mouth open." Sometimes it threatens to tip into the parodically grim: "a veiny gas giant like an infected testicle crawling up the horizon of Hismin's Moon and leaving precious little of the sky free of its malign radiance." But there's enough life and humour to the leads to pull back from that brink, even in the face of Armageddon.

And that Armageddon...well, since the Event, I've been very reluctant to read anything with certain plausible ends of the world. Plagues are out, and likewise global warming, so that recent sunken world Cat Valente is getting skipped for the foreseeable, and I'd be steering clear of Neal Stephenson's latest even if his last one hadn't been such a misfire. Ruddy great aliens doing macrame with planets, though? That's fine. Except that what becomes increasingly clear this time out is that Tchaikovsky is doing one of them there metaphors which people who don't read much science fiction are always so surprised to find in science fiction. This is most obvious in the central section set on the planet Arc Pallator, which is definitely, visibly and quite imminently doomed, but whose inhabitants are desperately trying to put a brave face on the matter, while the various visiting factions get distracted from the little matter of impending planetary catastrophe in favour of pointless pissing contests and jockeying for short-term advantage. Meanwhile, certain vested interests are wondering if this might not be the ideal time to roll back the clock and redraw the boundaries of who counts as a person. None of this is mere allegory, mind; Tchaikovksy isn't Chris Chibnall or some litfic goon trying to write about the climate, he's a proper writer, so all of this also still works on the level of alien spaceships unveiling cool secret weapons as they engage in spectacular battles, forge desperate alliances, and generally press all the classic space opera buttons.

Moving through these pyrotechnics, our leads. Idris, the almost comically hangdog saviour of humanity, wishing he didn't have to do it all over again, determined that any new Intermediaries he creates should be volunteers like he was, not the convicts who've been used since – but what does consent mean in a militarised clone society? Or indeed, when the alternative is extinction? Solace, one of said clones, uneasily promoted from frontline Angel Of Punching You In The Face to officer and agent. Foul-mouthed Olli, and the gradations of affection which can be detected in what at first sight just looks like being awful to everyone all the time. And knife-wielding lawyer Kris, whose plot during the finale could very easily have felt like a distraction from the massive showdown over the worst planet in the galaxy, but really didn't, because knife-wielding lawyer Kris is amazing. At the end of the book, lots of stuff has blown up in entirely satisfactory fashion, thought-provoking themes of absence and loss have been prodded at, and everything is nicely set for the grand finale. Which, knowing Tchaikovsky's work-rate, he probably dashed off last Thursday lunchtime, but for which the exigencies of publishing mean the rest of us will have to wait a year or so, during which time he'll have three other books out.

(Netgalley ARC)

After picking up the first book of this series ( Shards of Earth ) courtesy of my local library, and enjoying it quite a lot, I was pleased to find book 2 turn up as an option on Netgalley, even if I worried about the whole 'difficult middle book' situation that often happens. In the end, I still enjoyed Eyes of the Void but it did struggle with pacing and I found myself skimming at times, of which more later.

The basic premise of the trilogy is that both humanity and the alien species they've encountered are under threat from another alien lifeform, this one that nobody can communicate with and with a particular mission - the Architects job is reclaiming things left behind by another long-extinct alien civilisation, regardless of how many lives it costs. Back before the start of the books, two of the main characters had survived the Architects' previous visit, with one of them (Idris) using the way his brain had been altered by chemicals and surgery for the purpose of touching 'unspace' to make contact. That uniqueness makes Idris much sought after, by people who either want to own him (pretty much literally) or those who want to duplicate what was done to him, neither of which choices really works for him.

In this book, after finding himself a bunch of friends in a battered spaceship in the previous volume, Idris agrees to help see if it's even possible to make more people like him without the high death toll all previous programmes had resulted in. Unfortunately, when the plot requires Idris to be separated from his friends, that's when (for me, anyway) the pacing starts to break down and the book drags - finding himself literally isolated from the rest of his world with yet another bunch of people who want to make use of his unique abilities but none of whom I give a crap about, things definitely started to become less interesting for me and there was a bit of skimming.

All in all, still an enjoyable read with a lot going on but the third book remains on my library/Netgalley list rather than being something I'd fork out cash for - I reserve that for books I know I'll want to re-read and this just doesn't quite hit the spot for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, via Netgalley. This is my honest review of the book in question.

I feel privileged to read this book early, as I really enjoyed the first book in this trilogy & do enjoy reading all this author's work.
I always feel the second book is the toughest to write, as it needs to be enjoyable and frankly good, but also link with the first book & cover sufficient ground & prepare the landscape to make a third book viable.
This book stands strongly, but suffers from the second book syndrome slightly where there are lots of explanations and lots of context, which at times caused my attention to drift. Again, the author struggles with human depiction of emotions & actions, but excels at robotic & alien interactions, which still puzzles me.
But overall a great read & I keenly anticipate the next book in this series.