I was initially leery of picking up Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest book Shroud. It seemed to have a space horror vibe, and while I’ve enjoyed a lot of Tchaikovsky’s work, I’m not a horror fan. I don’t mind if a story has elements of it, but usually don’t enjoy straight horror. Thankfully, Shroud isn’t horror, but more a demonstration of how hard it could be to communicate with an alien intelligence living in a radically different environment.
Humanity has reached the stars, but only after struggling through a couple of “bottlenecks”, one of which involved the effects of what we’d done to Earth’s environment. Somehow this has resulted in a society ruled by corporations under an extreme form of capitalism, corporations driven to exploit resources in new solar systems and spread out under a manifest destiny type ideology.
When the Garveneer enters a new system to exploit, they discover a moon in orbit around a gas giant that is blasting out over the electromagnetic spectrum. Juna Ceelander is the executive assistant of the leader of the special projects team which is pulled out of hibernation to investigate. The team’s goal is to study the moon to see how it might be exploitable. They are motivated to be as useful as possible since they only earn money when they’re out of hibernation.
The moon is quickly named “Shroud” because it’s shrouded in an impenetrable atmosphere. It turns out to be larger and heavier than Earth, with a much higher gravity, leading to surface pressure over twenty times that of Earth. The atmosphere has no oxygen and has temperatures around minus thirty-five centigrade. It’s not an environment humans can survive in even for an instant. And yet their remote drones quickly discover life.
As they study the moon, the question of whether there should be a crewed mission on Shroud arises. The team engineer, Mai Ste Etienne, under orders from leadership, constructs mobile pods. Ceelander protests the danger but is overruled. She’s happy that she never has to go down into that environment.
Of course, there is a disaster, resulting in exactly that happening. When an accident makes the destruction of their work environment imminent, some of the team realize their only shot at survival is to get into the pods, which end up being ejected from the ship and landing on the surface.
Much of what follows reminds me of Stanley G. Weinbaum’s classic story “A Martian Odyssey”, a story of an astronaut who crash lands hundreds of miles from his team and has to journey back across the surface of Mars.
Ceelander and Ste Etienne end up in a pod together and find themselves in a desperate odyssey across the dark surface of Shroud to reach safety. Along the way they end up in a partnership of sorts with a group of aliens that at times seem threatening, at others seem like their guardians, but whose intentions and motivations are opaque.
But we as the reader get to see things from the alien’s perspective. They are puzzled by this new animal-like thing, which might show aspects of intelligence, but seems so ill-suited for survival. Yet something about it seems important, so after opening up another pod and not finding anything interesting in it (not understanding that it just killed a human), it devotes resources to following the pod with Ceelander and Ste Etienne in it, protecting, guiding, and learning from it as it can.
I enjoyed this book. And Tchaikovsky once again demonstrates his knack for coming up with innovative aliens. But there are some aspects of the story I’m not entirely wild about. The corporate dystopia trope is starting to wear a bit thin with me. And there’s an aspect of the aliens which I feel may be a well Tchaikovsky is going to a bit too often. However that aspect is crucial to the later parts of the plot which I’ll admit give the story a lot more punch.
But these are nits for what is otherwise a thrilling story. I’m learning to trust Tchaikovsky, even when the initial description of the book isn’t necessarily compelling. Highly recommended if it’s your type of tale.
SelfAwarePatterns 
The corporate dystopia thing is wearing a bit thin for me, too. Both in fiction and in real life. But the stuff about the aliens being puzzled and curious about the human pod sounds interesting. I have yet to read any of Tchaikovsky’s stuff. Would this be a good book to start with, or should I read Children of Time or one of his other earlier books?
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The corporate dystopia thing is pretty heavy in the first act (first 20% or so), and he spends a lot of time telling us about conversations rather than showing them. But it gets better once they’re on the surface.
With that in mind, Shroud wouldn’t be a bad one to start with. It’s self contained and fairly representative of his writing, particularly of the Children books. Although each of the Children books also tell a fairly standalone story. (I still recommend reading them in order.) The Final Architecture trilogy is the one you don’t want to start unless you’re ready to read the set.
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I think I’ll pick up Shroud, then. The part about the aliens protecting and guiding one of the human pods sounds fun to me.
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Looks like you’re reading a lot of fiction lately. I have been on fiction dry spell for a bit, not sure why. I dig that retro cover design, very eye catching. Little reluctant about alien stories, although I did like the last alien book I read, the title of which eludes me at the moment. It has been a while since I read it, and maybe I’ve already told you about it. Anyway, it was from the point of view of a paleontologist with terminal cancer who gets a visitation from aliens who tell him god really does exist and they can prove it. The ending was wild. I enjoyed it.
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I have been reading a lot of fiction lately, partly driven by the fact that there hasn’t been much TV recently I’m interested in (aside from Murderbot), and partly trying to get my head in a space for my own fiction writing.
Most alien stories are either about monsters (the Alien movies) or metaphors for human conflict (Klingons, Romulans, etc). I find most of the monsters tedious and the metaphors okay for what they are, sometimes. But it’s rare to get aliens that are truly different, something that might plausibly result from a completely separate evolutionary lineage. Tchaikovsky is pretty good on that front.
I think you did tell me about that book. Robert Sawyer, Calculating God? His writing has never captured me, but I know a lot of people enjoy it.
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That’s it! I ended up giving my copy to someone in my writing group who writes Sci-Fi, and I guess if I don’t see it hanging around, I forget. Anyway, I didn’t mind the aliens so much in that one because it didn’t take itself too seriously. But yeah, no monsters. Maybe when I was 10. My only complaint would be a long dialogue in the middle that could have been broken up or shortened, but other than that, it was definitely different, at least for me (but I don’t read much Sci-Fi as you know).
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I’m always curious what attracts people that don’t normally read sci-fi. I know Scalzi gets a lot of mileage with humor. (Although his last few books have been a bit too silly for my tastes.) A lot of sci-fi is unrelentingly serious, and often grim.
I wonder if that long dialogue was information dumping in disguise, something a lot of sci-fi indulges in.
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It wasn’t info dumping, but a long critique of evolution, as I recall. Interesting in its own way, but I would have made it much shorter for a novel.
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Thanks for the review. I’m hooked on Tchaikovsky, thanks to your earlier review, and I’m going through the oldies, free via my library. Just finished Days of Shattered Faith. (I like Pyotr Tchaikovsky, too 🙂 )
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Thanks Paul. I’ve never gotten into his fantasy stuff, but I know it’s where he first made his name. I’ve also been advised to read his Dogs of War books. Maybe at some point.
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