I was so excited to read this conclusion to Tchaikovsky’s Final Archtecture trilogy and it absolutely did not disappoint (except when I reached the end and realized that I wouldn’t be spending any more time with these characters). It’s classic space opera with an extremely existential threat to humanity (and humanity’s various alien sometime-allies), with plenty of facets looking out only for themselves. As usual with Tchaikovsky’s novels, no matter how weird things get, it’s the beautiful character work that pulls the reader along; most of the arcs end well, and some end excellently.
Tag: author-adrian tchaikovsky
City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Ilmar is a city at the edge of the Palleseen empire, and one conquered in name but perhaps not in spirit; it is full of restless natives, bitter refugees, starry-eyed students, and ruthless criminals, and also sits on the edge of a haunted magical forest, last resort for the desperate. Tchaikovsky assembles a cast of archetypes and then proceeds to make them into whole characters that grate on one another’s edges and force one another into growth, and sets it against a background of cultural repression and inevitable rebellion. Fascinating read.
Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Radically different from other books in the series, this book is basically an extended meditation on Descartes’ “brain in a vat” thought experiment, but it’s Tchaikovsky, so of course there are aliens involved, as well as humans fighting desperately to survive. One interesting aspect of this is the inclusion of the entities previously established in the series: sentient spiders and octopi, as well as a very opinionated and extremely old AI. The book starts out straightforward, but then seems to jump in time and branch into various scenarios, which starts to clue the reader into the fact that something is obviously going awry. I liked it quite a lot as a standalone thought experiment, but I don’t think it actually moved the series forward as much, in the long run, as the previous books did.
Eyes of the Void, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Sequel to Shards of Earth, though a little less focused and more fragmented in the plot. Here Tchaikovsky, having created a huge host of alien cultures and many worlds, seems to want to dig into them and explore them even as his interdimensional space monsters are tearing everything down around them. His characters are pulled in different directions, running from enemies, chasing various leads, and following shadowy cabals, while the interstellar factions stumble (or are perhaps directed) towards war. The whole thing ends on a cliffhanger promising even more action; there is so much going on that I may have to re-read both books before the third is published next year.
Shards of Earth, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Space opera is the best opera! Years after the war with the Architects (vast, incomprehensible creatures who sculpt entire spaceships and planets into art-nouveau loops and whirls, without a care to whether or not other life-forms are affected), veterans of the fight have faded into obscurity (some more successfully than others). Idris, one such veteran, stumbles upon a damaged ship with new signs of Architect damage, a discovery that sets off an explosion of interplanetary drama, as well as personal drama for his misfit salvage crew. Definitely more on the fantasy side of sci-fi (interstellar travel is through a haunted hyperspace), and the alien biologies and politics are delightfully inventive. Really fun ride. First in a series.
Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Really short and focused compared to previous Tchaikovsky reads. It starts out feeling like a fantasy novel, with a princess running away to seek the help of an legendary wizard… but then you find out that the wizard is actually a hapless anthropologist, stranded when he came to study a far-flung space colony, and his fabled magics are really just Clarke’s third law in action. The characters were thoughtfully created and beautifully executed, and their internal, interpersonal, and external conflicts were all brilliantly woven together, with the narrative giving each time to develop and grow. Really solid piece.
The Doors of Eden, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Doors of Eden / Adrian Tchaikovsky
I expect this of Tchaikovsky by now, but no one condenses centuries of hypothetical evolutionary development like this guy. Interspersed with totally plausible and yet very different ways life could have evolved and thrived (or not) on Earth, we follow some really well-crafted characters through events that get really strange. Really ambitious book, great journey, though the ending felt weak and didn’t quite live up to the development.