First of all, I read through the previous Dogs of War books in preparation to review this one properly. I'll be honest, the first two hit harder than this one since those hit closer to home while this one is more "far out". It's set in a time that's beyond ours currently.

Just like the other books, it makes you think about how humanity evolves and its creations and how the creations in the end are still similar to its creators, good and bad.

Bee Speakers, in my opinion, is a great book and sequel, but is harder to read/follow with its even more amount of POV's than the previous books combined. It made it quite a bit harder to read through. (Over a whopping 60 chapters!)

I am leaning into "spoiler" territory, but it does make you feel hard to place emotions and I would say you could compare it to certain moments in the Horizon series (video games). If you know, you know.

I am curious what a fourth book would bring, if there will be one.

Buzz out!

As someone who isn't that much into scifi, I thought this was a really good book. The plot and the technology were very enjoyable ; but also, it can be read without having even touched the other books in the series.

Returning readers of this blog know that I love reading a good Adrian Tchaikovsky book, and with Bee Speaker he delivers again. This is the third book in the Bioforms (or Dogs of War) series, but each book can be read as a standalone with returning characters. This time, Bees takes centre stage. Or do they? The distributed intelligence of genetically and cybernetically enhanced bees may be the focal point of the book, but in this story in particular, it’s the cast of characters that makes it. The setting is post-apocalyptic Earth in a way that has a distinctly Fallout theme to it, but less irradiated, and characters from the less badly affected Mars have come to Earth to try and help out. It does not go well. Standout characters include Irae, the mercurial reptillian Bioform whose thinking changes with the heat dial they adjust on their clothes; Serval, the guiding hand to her warrior tyrant husband in their bunker of testosterone-filled ex-mercenary descendents; Wells, a dog Bioform engineer whose nose is confused by Earth and looks so montrous that people fear her despite her initially gentle nature and Cricket, a young Apiary monk in way over his head.

It’s a lot smaller scale than most of Tchaikovsky’s novels, focused on a small and varied collection of communities and people trying to eke out a life in the more dangerous and backwards remains of civilisation. The Old, as they call it, is still around them, though, preserved in small pockets, and the coming of far more advanced visitors from Mars with no notion of how volatile things can be throws what was a carefully controlled balance up into the air. It’s quite a different story from the first two Bioform books, but I enjoyed it for what it was and was happy to get a new take on the setting.

Disclaimer: I received an advanced reader copy of this book via NetGalley and my opinion is entirely my own.

Adrian Tchaikovsky has built a career out of personifying the other. From the spiders in Children of Time, to the Shrouded in Shroud, Tchaikovsky has a knack for instilling emotional heart into monstrous and scary creatures.

The Dogs of War series is no exception. Featuring bear scholars, war machine dogs and hyper-intelligent bees, the series is built on putting the person into the monster and the monster into the person. Bee Speaker continues this theme and does a brilliant job at it.

Set well into the future, after the collapse of Earth society, a group of Martians, bioforms and modified humans alike, receive a signal requesting help from Earth and set out to do just that.

What follows is an enduring mystery that slowly unravels, as the Martians struggle to acclimatise to Earth in both a physical sense, and a societal one. The story is delivered across multiple perspectives, with each character having well-defined and unique voices. The perspective shifts serve to show the narrative in different lights and fleshes out the story. Tchaikovsky masterfully builds the tension in a way that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. Irae is a standout character, a “glass lizard” who teeters on the edge of madness, blurring the lines between person and monster. Tchaikovsky uses a unique prose style for Irae that is in itself skitterish and unstable that really builds on the character.

Bee Keeper really is a spectacular novel and well worth the read, even if you haven't read the prior ones in the series. While they are set in the same universe, the Dogs of War books quite easily can be read as standalone novels. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Tchaikovsky is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.

I read both earlier entries in the Dogs of War series earlier this year, going in expecting fast-paced action centred around a giant military dog. What I got instead was a thoughtful and compelling exploration of AI, humanity, and the often blurry line between the two. The first two books dig deeply into these themes, so a third instalment along the same lines might have risked feeling repetitive. Fortunately, Tchaikovsky seems to agree, as the third book takes the series in a new direction.

Set several centuries after the events of the second book, this story trades the near-future sci-fi setting for a post-collapse, dystopian world with a distinctly fantasy-like atmosphere. I haven’t read Tchaikovsky’s fantasy work before, but it’s clear he’s comfortable in the genre. The worldbuilding is imaginative and intriguing: a mysterious hooded religious order devoted to Bees, bunkers filled with sword-wielding barbarian men, roaming 'witches' who gather fungi and share knowledge with passing villages. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but surprisingly it all fits together quite well.

The narrative is told through a range of POVs, which helps create a rich, layered story. However, I felt we didn’t get to stay with any one character long enough to really connect with them. Irae’s chapters were a highlight, but still didn’t quite reach the emotional impact of Rex, Honey, or Jimmy from the earlier books.

I enjoyed this entry, but it’s the weakest of the series for me. That’s largely due to the shift in focus from the political and ethical questions surrounding bioforms and AI to the themes of communication and cultural relationships with technology. It’s still a strong book, just a different kind of story than its predecessors.

Thank you to Head of Zeus for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I went into Bee Speaker with high hopes. Both Dogs of War and Bear Head impressed me, and I was curious to see where Tchaikovsky would take us next. Two centuries have passed since the last book, and now the action shifts to a ravaged Earth and a thriving Mars. Tchaikovsky is especially good at throwing together a mismatched crew in a hostile environment and making you interested in them.

The premise is solid. A cryptic distress signal from Earth draws a group of genetically engineered Martians back to the planet of their origin. Things fall apart quickly, and what starts as a help mission turns into pure chaos. There are techno-Feudal warlords, a strange religious order devoted to the outlawed Bee intelligence, and a still-functioning remnant of old-world tech in the form of the Factory. It’s a world of broken allegiances, stubborn survivors, and hard decisions.

Where the book falters, for me, is in the way it’s told. The choice to structure it with over 60 chapters through the eyes of nine main characters makes the story feel cluttered. Time and time again, I was essentially reading the same scene again, just from a different point of view. Initially, it was interesting, but after some time the structure tired me a bit. Some characters felt vibrant and necessary. Others, not so much.

Then there’s the info-dumping. I get that we’re jumping 200 years ahead, and some context is needed. But the pacing took a hit every time the story paused to rehash events or dive into background explanations that didn’t always feel urgent or fresh. I didn’t mind being reminded of the past books, but I didn’t need to be reminded quite so often, or so thoroughly.

That said, Tchaikovsky’s imagination is still firing on all cylinders. The Bees remain one of the coolest ideas in the series. There’s a lot of richness here, even if it’s sometimes buried beneath repetition.

The ending is satisfying, but not shocking. It ties up this chapter nicely and leaves room for more. And I’ll likely read the next one if it comes, because despite my frustrations, this world is interesting.

So, is Bee Speaker worth reading? If you’ve come this far with the series, yes, absolutely. Just don’t expect the same momentum or clarity you found in the earlier books. It’s a good story caught in a slightly unwieldy frame. Not a misfire, but not a masterpiece either.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is the most prolific author working in today’s science fiction field. He also consistently manages to create engaging adventure stories combined with thought-provoking ideas. As a case in point, last year’s Alien Clay spun a tale of political prisoners incarcerated on a planet with a deadly – and very strange – biosphere, while also subverting and reimagining what it is to be a dissident and how the systems of power created to grind down opposition can be rendered useless with a shift in perspective. Likewise, the latest instalment in his Children’s Series – Children of Memory – has a multi-species crew (including humans and portiid spiders) trying to unravel the mystery of a human colony that shouldn’t exist while narratively dissecting what it means to be sentient, the different modes of sentience that can arise and how easy it is to ascribe sentience to something when it’s not really there.

Bee Speaker is the third instalment of Tchaikovsky’s Dogs of War Series, driven by another big idea about ‘uplifted animals’ that have been operated on to create intelligence and sometimes physically changed as well in order to better do humanity’s bidding. The creation of an animal slave species is obviously an ethical minefield, which is explored in earlier books in the series. But in the world of Bee Speaker, time has moved on and animal ‘bioforms’ have been emancipated and are viewed as ‘people’ just like everybody else – at least on the nascent human colony on Mars, where humans had to operate on and change their own biology to survive.

While Earth has slid into a post-apocalyptic dark ages with different groups struggling for control or simple survival, Mars's colony was guided away from certain doom by the intervention of Bees – a distributed intelligence existing across an uplifted swarm of actual bees.
The colony on Mars don’t know much about what’s happening on Earth as most of the technology that could transmit a signal to them has broken down during the collapse. But then they receive a distress call from ‘another’ Bees and send a small group to help. That’s when things start to go wrong.

The post-collapse landscape of Earth is peppered with different groups: bunker-dwellers who horde the weapons they’ve stockpiled in order to lord it over everyone else; bioform factories which stand as islands of still-functioning tech from the before times; an apiary run by an order of monks, devoted to preserving what knowledge of old Earth they can; and simple villagers trying to build a life on whatever tracts of less-polluted land they can salvage. But none of these things is exactly what it seems, just like none of the people the Martians meet can be taken on face value.

Tchaikovsky pushes these familiar post-apocalyptic scenarios into new and sometimes surprising territory, while also delivering an action-filled tale as the Martian team – which features two very entertaining bioforms, the ‘good dog’ Wells and the insanely contrary ‘dragon’ Irae – try to make sense of things and help who they can without getting killed in the process. But within all that, there’s also a fascinating inspection of distributed intelligence, what it can be and do, and how it might be a danger to every living thing on Earth. Because while Bees is the only distributed intelligence on Mars, Earth is far older and far more complex.

Bee Speaker is another top-notch science fiction tale from an author who – at least so far – can do no wrong.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Head of Zeus who provided me with an Advance Review Copy.

I am grateful to NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. 

‘Bee Speaker’ is a new novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It is the third instalment of his ‘Dogs of War’ science-fiction series, set in a future where genetically engineered Bioforms live alongside humans. Although I have not read the first two books of the series, I did not sense I was significantly missing out on any background or context in this book. It is a riveting story, something of a ‘First Encounter” between humans and non-humans. Entertaining and thought-provoking throughout, with a fine ending. I greatly enjoyed it and look forward to reading the first two books in the series.

The setting is as follows (paraphrased from the publishers description).

The end of the world has come and gone. Humanity has bled almost to death from a thousand cuts. While Earth fell apart, on the almost forgotten colony on Mars, engineered humans and beasts aided by Bees and their Distributed Intelligence, has survived and thrived, becoming an independent entity over the generations with little to connect them to their ancestors on Earth. Until a signal arrives, begging for help…


What happens next is the story told, from multiple perspectives, in this book. What could go wrong ? Well, the reader will soon find that pretty much everything could and does go wrong.

This book has a lot of characters and communities. The population on Earth has decreased and humans have abandoned cities and major population areas. The surviving communities pretty much live a subsistence lifestyle, with some groups having a little more technology and therefore hegemony than others. Conflict is common, alliances shaky with various superstitions and folk-traditions becoming commonplace. Some groups have old and failing technology while others attempt to retain human knowledge for a better future. Then there are the groups with weapons who use them or the threaten violence to pursue their aims.

In short, a desperate mess of humanity, lacking any unity or cooperation. The remaining humans face an even bleaker future without external help.

The initial chapters set the scene. A dystopian Earth of course, but with some human communities having Bioform dogs . Physically powerful and sentient creatures, they are largely equivalent to their humans partners, although feared and distrusted by many.

Mr Tchaikovsky’s books rapidly grab the readers attention and this is certainly the case with “Bee Speaker”. The plots are exciting and the cast of humans and other Spacers is always fascinating. What I enjoy most are what has formed these characters, what makes them who they are and how they think. And most of all, the relationships they build, cultivate and cherish. In this book, relationships within and between various groups of humans and ‘human-adjacent sentience’. The plot unfolds from several perspectives, with multiple protagonists providing the reader with their thoughts amongst the fears and uncertainty of their lives.

And into this dysfunctional Earth, the arrival of a small expedition of capable and carefully selected Martians, returning to their ancestral home to provide much-needed help. That is the plan anyway.
The four Martians are a mix of the lifeforms that have evolved on Mars. Far in advance of humans in many ways. Not only in technology but also their worldview and attitudes to other lifeforms. Intelligence and societal governance is more advanced than Earth has ever been. Peaceful solutions and cooperation have been essential to their survival on a hostile planet. They do not see themselves as Humans. There was much discussion about even sending help to Earth. A distant planet which has largely lost contact with the Mars Colony over generations. Yet their advanced and benevolent society concluded, not entirely by consensus, that helping their very distant ancestors was the right thing to do.

The Martians who arrived on Earth are a diverse group. Democratic in leadership, individualistic in their outlook on Earth and their views of the human inhabitants. And to further complicate matters, the Earth environment, climate, atmosphere and gravity is having exaggerated influence on their physiology and thought processes. Beyond what they had expected. I loved these otherworldly characters. They are the heart and soul of this book. And the action and excitement as well. The Martian society may be far advanced in behavioural terms, but there are still signs in their DNA of their human and animal origins, both strengths and weaknesses. Instincts are near the surface as they encounter this ancestral planet of Earth. Once they enter the plot, we see the story from their perspective as well. This is a particularly attractive part of Mr Tchaikovsky writing. Seeing and feeling a foreign world from a Martian point of view. And the Martian characters have a wide range of feelings and opinions about their mission, particularly when things go wrong !

This brings us to another fascinating aspect of the story. Earth societies are a mess. How will the people respond to the arrival of a group of strangers, in their eyes barely resembling humans and some of them closer to medieval beasts. One would think (hope ?) that failing societies would be grateful or at least open to external assistance. It goes without saying, events do not progress as planned. There is death and mayhem amongst the fear and misunderstanding. Also some fine examples of tolerance, benevolence, dignity and bravery. It is probably not hard to guess which groups display the more humane characteristics.

I loved the plot developments and many of the side stories of life on Mars and Earth. As in his other books, Mr Tchaikovsky injects humour into the plot, amongst the action and excitement. One Martian character is particularly snarky in thought and speech. Laugh-out-loud hilarious sometimes ! An example is his initial impressions of life on Earth:

It is truly amazing how many flavours of dumbness an apocalypse can spawn.

The other Martian character tend to be more cerebral, thoughtful and compassionate. The reader will enjoy these characters as well, with their admirable aims and determination to help the dysfunctional human communities, come what may.

Bees play a role as well, but not until the latter stages of the book. Whilst AI is the current obsession in the Technology industry today, perhaps mankind should prepare for what might come next. Distributed Intelligence, or DisInt. The Bees have this attribute and consequently have comprehension, thoughts and actions proportional to their numbers. And they can quickly increase to very, very large numbers, consequently achieving superior influence and power. The Bees role on Mars is portrayed as not entirely benign, but enabling and then almost separate to the Martian society and its evolution. The reader will wonder what role Bees might play on a messed-up Earth. Almost as a side story, DisInt has become a part of some humans on Earth, albeit in a basic, limited mode. This adds richness and colour to the story and enables twists and turns in the plot.

The conclusion and what may happen next is somewhat unexpected, poignant, a little bitter-sweet yet satisfying. Thought-provoking and offering tentative optimism.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed Mr Tchaikovsky’s other books. While the plots is certainly compelling and imaginative, it is the character development that really stands out. Particularly with the Martians visitors. Deep, rich, believable characters with all the flaws and strengths one might hope to find in such a story.

Which brings me to my one, small quibble. Very small. The book has a lot of moving parts; distinct entities and characters. I care less for some of them, not due to their behaviour or actions, but due to a lack of background. Not knowing very much about their past and how they came to be. Perhaps this is something developed in the first two books of the series ? One or two characters could have been omitted from this book and the plot would not have been greatly affected. This might have allowed for a deeper, richer character development for some of the secondary yet important characters.

I finished reading this book about a week ago and it is still fresh in my memory and will, I expect, remain there for a long time. It has been a pleasure writing this review, revisiting the fascinating plot, a ‘First Contact’ of sorts. Exploring themes of communication, comprehension, learning, trust and benevolence between cultures and species. And of course revisiting with the memorable characters, particularly the Martians. I do hope Mr Tchaikovsky is able to weave some of them into his future writing plans. ‘Bee Speaker’ is a Great Read and a wonderful addition to Mr Tchaikovsky’s body of work. I wish him all the very best with the publication.

Adrian Tchaikovsky never disappoints. When I pick up one of his books I know I am going to have a good time, while also having my brain stretched in the best possible way. "Dogs of War" is a favourite of mine, so it was a pleasure to meet some other Bioforms stuck in a very different situation, a long time in the future from the previous books in the series.
The pace is fast, the danger is at times visceral and the inter-factional conflicts are realistic and difficult to resolve. At the same time, there is humour (albeit sometimes black) and friendship (albeit often snarky). The situation of a small, close-knit team finding themselves in a hostile alien environment they must learn to understand and work with in order to survive will be familiar to readers of Tchaikovsky's other works.
I was hooked from the beginning and raced through to the end, and even though there are nine point-of-view characters, each one was completely distinctive and I never came close to forgetting who was who.
Although this can absolutely be read as a stand-alone, I think it gains more depth if you are familiar with the other two novels in the series. I hope there will be a fourth some time.

It is truly amazing how many flavours of dumb an apocalypse can spawn. [loc. 1990]
Third in the series that began with Dogs of War and continued with Bear Head. The time is about two centuries after the events of Bear Head, and three generations after the fall of the Old ('the world that once was') due to failure of the global information network, in a 'deluge of artificially-generated false testimony' exarcerbated by climate disaster. Human existence on Earth is now rather dystopian, as a group of Martians discover when they respond to a distress call.

The Crisis Crew team consists of two humans (Tecomo and Ada) and two Bioforms -- genetically and biologically engineered animals, originally created to serve humans, now regarded as people and part of a thriving Martian society. One of the Bioforms is a Dogform, Wells, who is overwhelmed by the sheer sensory input of Earth: the other is a Dragonform, Irae, who is the best character in the book. (Not in a moral sense. Definitely not in a moral sense.)

The call they answered came from the Factory, which still makes dogforms (though their process is more brutal, less high-tech, than the original Bioforms). Cricket, a young monk from the Apiary (where they cherish and worship Bees), encounters the 'monsters' on his way to the Factory, and finds himself involved in momentous events. The inhabitants of the Griffin Bunker are determined to fight to preserve their feudal society; a Distributed Intelligence is roaming the countryside in a number of bodies; the monks have a secret, and the Bunker another.

I'm not super-keen on post-apocalyptic stories, but this was fun. There are nine narrators, each with a distinctive voice (an achievement in itself) and a different set of prejudices, beliefs, and traits. Four of those narrators identify as female, and there's a non-viewpoint character who is clearly trans. Though almost all of the story takes place on Earth, we get a good idea of how the Martian colony has evolved and transformed. Earth, meanwhile, is not devoid of Old People, which in this novel means a person from before the apocalypse.

Fascinating characters, clever plot, themes of transformation and of personhood -- and, of course, a close-knit team dealing with an alien, technologically-backward culture.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 5th June 2025.

Thank you to Netgalley and Head of Zeus for providing an digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I always have a good time with Tchaikovsky’s, without fail. Even when he’s not firing on all cylinders he is head and shoulders above most of his peers in the field. Thankfully for us then he is not only firing on all cylinders with Bee Speaker, the engine has also been overclocked and topped off with jet-fuel.

A fantastic book containing all the best elements of the previous two instalments in the Dogs of War series, but also bringing fresh new ingredients. New characters, new technology (or corrupted versions of The Old), new situations and settings.

It speaks to Tchaikovsky’s skill that he is able to tell a (insanely) complicated story from a dizzying array of POV characters without the reader ever becoming confused as to who is speaking, what they want and what their unique spin on the events are.

Fun from start to finish, with emotion, mystery, action and an underpinning of thought provoking philosophy.

I hope there’s a fourth book in the series.

I loved the first two books in the series, and this was an excellent addition. Set 200 years after the others, it was an interesting look into the future of mankind.

A colony on Mars has survived, and thrived, despite the odds, and four of its inhabitants travel to Earth after receiving a distress call. But when they arrive on a Mad Max-style dystopian Earth, things start to go wrong quickly.

There is a myriad of characters, each one different, and it's down to the author's skill that you can keep pace with everything that's going on. The plot is fast paced, and the story is gripping, with a satisfying ending and, hopefully, more books to come! I highly recommend the whole series.

Many thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for this advance copy.

I’m so glad that Bees got a book of her own!
I love AT’s imagination; this story twists and turns and sometimes left my head spinning but I really enjoyed it.
An unlikely group of ..heroes?…saviours? from Mars answer a vague distress call from an Earth that has descended into a Mad Max-type feudal existence. And right from the start things go horribly wrong. Can Bees-who has been adhering to a self-imposed non-interference policy on Mars sort things out on Earth? Or make things worse?
This book has some great characters and excellent world building.
The conundrum of Malkin is never resolved; laying the groundwork for another sequel, perhaps?

This is the third installment in the Dogs of War series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. First off, this cover is absolutely stunning. This is a thrilling science-fiction story in a post-end-of-the-world existence in space. There are nine POVs but they flow together seamlessly. It will be interesting to see if the author chooses to end the story here or add another entry in this world.

Bee Speaker is the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Bioform series, and thankfully, it doesn’t fall into “book three syndrome”. I found the third Children of Time book a bit like déjà vu in space, but with this series, each entry feels fresh and weird in the best possible way.

This one drops us into a new post-apocalyptic Earth where people are living their best lives among the ruins of modern civilisation - think Horizon Zero Dawn meets Silo, but with way more bees and fewer robot dinosaurs. Meanwhile, over on Mars, society is actually doing kind of fine? Which is wild, all things considered - but nice to see off the back of Bear Head. The Martians get a ping from an echo of Distributed Intelligence Bees and off they go to Earth with an away team featuring two human-aliens, a bloodthirsty lizard, and a dog-monster. No notes.

I adored the Mars crew. Each member has a distinct voice, some actual personality, and I don’t know if I was supposed to love Irae, the creepy-murder-rage-lizard, as hard as I did - but here we are. I really enjoyed the “this is all going wrong but we will do our best” vibes they give off. Earth, on the other hand, is full of different factions, each with their own business to deal with, all trying to figure out how to deal with their new interplanetary guests.

I do have a tiny bone to pick: there are so many POV characters. Like, so many. The book starts off at a decent pace, but the sheer number of perspectives made my brain feel like it was buffering every few pages. It took me a while to settle in (like a month-while) but once I hit the halfway point, I was finally powering through.

The ending was a little blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. It wraps up fast, maybe a little too fast, and while nothing wildly unexpected happened, it still left me going, “Wait, that was it?” Not bad - just… brisk.

I’m curious if Tchaikovsky is planning more in this universe. We’ve gotten 3 out of 4 of the OG bioforms, but Dragon might be left to the dogs... Speaking of - Dogs of War is still my favorite, but Bee Speaker is a fun, chaotic entry that can stand on its own if you’re new to the series and willing to jump straight in.

Another enjoyable and unique Adrian Tchaikovsky read. If you have read the two previous novels in the Dogs of War series you will no doubt enjoy this third instalment. If you are new to the series, reading Bee Speaker will continue concepts from the previous two novels however is a story outright on its own.

Similar to previous Adrian Tchaikovsky books and especially his most recent novel Shroud, the novel is heavily driven by the plot with creative characters, plot points and locations. Throughout the novel we follow the perspective of multiple interesting and flawed characters as we revisit Earth after an unknown catastrophe.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, it is fast-paced with solid character development and an ending that satisfies the reader.

Thank you #NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the free review copy of #BeeSpeaker.

This is the third of the Dogs of War series but I had not read the first two and it did not matter. Perhaps because the narrative is related from many POV and the overlap of details fully explains the past. But it did get a bit confusing sometimes remembering all the different factions bee/Bee/bees/Bees and their history.
I liked the setting of a future Earth slowly destroyed and becoming a reduced feudal society and while some of the old technology exists it is often broken or nobody knows how to use it. While in contrast Mars has survived much better. So that when a call comes from Earth asking for help they respond. They being a mixture of bio engineered humans and animals that were all easy to relate to.
The classical hard scifi ideas in this book are great to read about and I liked the digs about the previous mega rich elite of Earth and their obsessions with themselves and creating boltholes for future collapse.
I loved one of the author’s previous books but found another too slow. He always has brilliant ideas in his books and I rate this as another success
Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the ARC

Another excellent, fast paced, plot driven story that puts us a couple of centuries beyond the previous books Dogs of War and Bear Head. Civilisation on Earth has collapsed, but the colony on Mars has endured with the help of Bees, an outlawed distributed intelligence. Then a request for help from Earth results in an intrepid work crew from Mars answering the call from the old homeworld. Our story starts after our intrepid crew have arrived on Earth, and where things have already started to go spectacularly wrong.

It’s an ensemble piece, with each of the 60+ short chapters being told from the perspective of one of 9 key characters. Gluing the narrative together are the four visitors from Mars, whose good intentions and ill preparedness put them in the position of both creating and resolving problems and conflicts between the incumbent organisations: a feudal group based in an old bunker, a monastery dedicated to the worship of Bees, and the Factory - a bastion of remaining technology from before the collapse.

Tchaikovsky is an excellent storyteller, and this is another great example of the “small group with limited resources in an inhospitable environment” setup that he so ably uses in his stand-alone novels Alien Clay and Shroud. While the themes of distributed intelligence and coercion carry through from the previous books in the series, these are just undercurrents in a more straight-forward power struggle of good vs. bad, albeit with some nicely blurred lines between them.

The conclusion of the story is satisfying, although largely plays out as expected. Happily, though, it leaves a rich combination of characters, organistions, and power relationships that are ripe with potential for another novel in the series if the author so chooses… something I will be hopefully looking out for.

Thank you #NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the free review copy of #BeeSpeaker without obligation. All opinions are my own.

‘Bee Speaker’ - Book 3 of the ‘Dogs of War’ series by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

I loved reading Dogs of War & Bear Head so couldn’t wait to get my head into this next instalment in the series. The events in Dogs of War & Bear head’s story pickup right after the other, however Bee Speaker move the time line forward a little over 200 years into the Future. Wherein Earth has become a Dystopian wasteland devout of almost all technology & Mars has thrived after the events at the end of Bear Head. But seemingly out of nowhere Mars receives a call for Help & perhaps naively a small group of Bio-enhanced Martians, of whom just want to Help, answer Earths & perhaps more importantly, Bee’s, Call.

In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s usual fashion, his imagination is once again free to run wild & provides yet another stellar addition to my growing pile of read books.

Is it perfect?? The cold answer here is No. it’s a great story for sure, but I have to admit I found some parts to be… repetitive is the only way to put it. Unfortunately this is more a byproduct of the style in which the tale is told. Bee Speaker is written from the perspective of every main character telling their own side of the events as they happen & this inherently means we get a Lot of overlapping story. Had this been the only issue I would not have had recourse to really mention it. However there are far to many occasions wherein the action is interrupted with, seemingly, unnecessary info dumps of past events or previously mentioned information. It doesn’t ruin the book overall but I did find it harder to maintain gripped interest in reading it at times.

If you have invested time into Dogs of War & Bear Head this is definitely a must read book. The continuance of the story, despite moving forward 200+ years, has been expertly done while adding a Mad Max/War of the worlds type touch to the series. It’s an excellent addition just missing out on five stars solely due to the at times repetitiveness of the writing.

Thank you to #NetGalley #HeadOfZeus #BeeSpeaker for allowing me the privilege and honour of this ARC ebook of ‘Bee Speaker’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky to read & review.

The comments & opinions above are solely my own & are reflective of my experience reading this book.

Este es el primer libro de Adrian Tchaikovsky que he leído este año, seguramente no será el último, pero nunca dejará de sorprenderme la extraordinaria capacidad de este autor para publicar de forma constante y con un nivel medio de calidad bastante elevado. Bee Speaker es la tercera parte de la serie Dogs of War, de la que ya comentamos la homónima Dogs of War y Bear Head.


El autor decide volver a poner el foco en la Tierra, ofreciéndonos una mezcla entre Cántico por Leibowitz y Fallout, exponiendo el ocaso de la civilización, donde solo en pequeños reductos se guarda todavía algo de la tecnología de antaño. Es un libro eminentemente pesimista, que juega con distintos puntos de vista y que puede llegar a resultar confuso en ocasiones, pero creo que esto es un efecto buscado por el escritor para exponer de forma cruda el funcionamiento de una inteligencia distribuida en ciernes, un poco como Elly Bangs en Unity.

En un tono más serio que en las entregas anteriores, veremos cómo las bioformas se han de adaptar a un mundo decadente, donde la supervivencia no está para nada garantizada. Me gusta muchísimo cómo habla de los bunkers de los preparacionistas multimillonarios, cuya principal preocupación no era solo sobrevivir, si no conseguir que la subyugación de los guardaespaldas a los que contrataron como protección sea indiscutible, de forma que no quepa el menor atisbo de rebelión. La “solución” que ofrece Adrian es algo previsible, pero no por ello deja de tener consecuencias desastrosas. Recuerda, ligeramente, a la idea de Derek Kunsken y sus homo puppets. Tampoco se queda corto con su crítica al machismo recalcitrante que parece el inevitable destino de la humanidad, controlada por la testosterona.

La nueva bioforma basada en los animales de sangre fría me parece todo un descubrimiento, con su capacidad para regular la temperatura que la hace tan versátil como imprevisible, y sus diálogos interiores tan volubles como variable es su carácter. Es un elemento desequilibrante en la narrativa que aporta los mejores momentos de la novela.

Definitivamente, la serie va mejorando conforme vamos teniendo nuevas entregas. No sé si Tchaikovsky tiene intención de continuarla, pero desde luego que estaré la primera de la fila para leerlo si decide hacerlo.