Member Review

With Shroud, Adrian Tchaikovsky takes his readers, once again, on a fantastic journey across an alien world that only his prodigious imagination can conjure. Shroud is a moon in a distant planetary system, called so by the explorers aboard the commercial exploitation ship orbiting it due to its extremely dense atmosphere and the screaming electromagnetic interference that renders remote observation impossible. A freak accident puts two crew members – scientist Mai and administrative assistant Juna – on the moon’s surface inside a pod built by Mai for a still-in-the-talks manned mission to Shroud. With no way to communicate with their ship and surrounded by a hostile, unknowable ecosystem, the pair must navigate a landscape whose features and inhabitants are far beyond human comprehension in the hitherto untested pod that is barely more than a prototype.

Book after book, Tchaikovsky continues to amaze his readers, not only with his marvellous world-building but also with nonlinear plotting and impeccable characterisation, and Shroud is no exception. The narrative unfolds through two distinct voices: Juna’s human perspective and the eerie, alien consciousness inhabiting Shroud. The latter is truly a work of genius, with a strikingly non-human tone that feels as unfathomable as the moon itself. Without offering much explanation, Tchaikovsky compels the reader to gather information the same way his protagonists do – by groping around in the darkness, trying to make sense of the experiences.

Confined within the claustrophobic pod with only each other for company, Juna and Mai go through moments of terror, bewilderment, hope, despair, energy, and exhaustion as they confront the absolute unknown with nobody to support them, and Tchaikovsky’s prose puts the reader right inside the pod to experience all those moments. His recurring themes of human exploitation of resources and the retribution of the exploited find prominence also in Shroud, making it a humane story despite its alien setting.

While Shroud delivers suspense and bursts of action, it has no tidy resolutions and detailed explanations. It is more like an exploration, with illuminating moments interspersed with drudgery and tedious metaphysical discourses, which may not appeal to readers looking for clarity and momentum. Fans of Tchaikovsky and other readers looking for hard Science Fiction that poses tough questions about humanity’s evolution will do well to pick this one up.

I am grateful to Pan Macmillan / Tor for the digital review copy of Shroud in exchange for my unbiased review.