Book Review: Shards of Earth, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

[inverarity]

A space opera that feels like a classic: will a motley crew of free traders save the galaxy from killer moons?

Orbit, 2021, 548 pages

The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery....

Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.

After Earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared - and Idris and his kind became obsolete.

Now, 50 years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It's clearly the work of the Architects - but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.

In a short time Adrian Tchaikovsky has become one of my favorite authors. He hasn't struck out with me yet. And as much as I like his fantasies, his science fiction really knocks it out of the park. The Children of Time series is up there with David Brin's Uplift and Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought series as one of my all time favorites, and now that I've started the Final Architecture series, I think it will join them.

Shards of Earth is set in a far future in which Earth has been destroyed (again - Tchaikovsky seems to like destroying Earth in his space operas) by giant moon-sized constructs called Architects. The Architects appeared out of nowhere and attack planets - and only inhabited planets - with unstoppable weapons that reshape them at an atomic level. Earth was turned into a strange, twisted space ornament, inside out and cored and split and depopulated. Entire space fleets have gone to battle against the Architects, and been twisted, disassembled, and likewise left floating in space as bizarre debris crafted according to the unfathomable aesthetics of the Architects. The Architects are unstoppable planet-killers with unknown motives, like Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers.

Then Idris, an "Intermediary" who is one of the few humans capable of guiding spaceships in and out of "unspace" to skip light years at a hop, faced the Architects in a final battle 50 years ago and... somehow attracted their notice. And once they noticed him, they left.

The Architects have been gone for 50 years. Idris, unaging and unsleeping, is now a member of a motley crew of salvagers. When their ship, the Vulture God, comes across a wreck in deep space that has been twisted apart and reshaped in a horribly familiar manner, it seems the Architects are back. This is enough to throw multiple civilizations into a panic... and to make everyone in the galaxy want to either capture or silence Idris and his companions.

I thought from the opening of Shards of Earth that this would be an epic scale novel about space empires and Big Dumb Objects in space. And it is! But it's also about a diverse, motley spacer crew having Adventures. Besides Idris, the psychic space navigator with PTSD, there is Rollo, a jovial buccaneer captain, Medvig, a cheerfully mercenary AI, Kit, an even more mercenary crab-like alien, Olli, a pilot with a body stunted since birth who makes up for it by walking about in her own hacked-together mecha, Barney, an engineer, and Kris, an interstellar lawyer and expert duelist. Later they are joined by Solace, a beautiful "warrior angel" from a race of genetically-engineered superwomen. Each of them has a backstory, each of them has issues. They don't all like each other, but they are family.

The setting is part Star Wars and part Firefly, and it will also scratch your Expanse itch. There are bizarre and interesting aliens, AIs, and humans of various pedigree, as well as multiple space empires and factions, space gangsters, space secret police, and space cults.

Space opera was my first true literary love and sometimes it breaks my heart when it's dumb or stupid, but Tchaikovsky writes rippin' space opera with characters who are brave and sometimes funny and sometimes tragic, and stakes that are worthy of a good space opera. (Moon-sized genocidal planet-killers!) And of course there are big twists and more books to come.



Also by Adrian Tchaikovsky: My reviews of Children of Time, Children of Ruin, Children of Memory, Empire in Black and Gold, Dragonfly Falling, Blood of the Mantis, Salute the Dark, The Expert System's Brother, The Expert System's Champion, and Made Things.

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My complete list of book reviews.

Comments

The Doors of Eden

[max-sinister.livejournal.com]

Hi Inverarity,

so far I've never read a book by Tchaikovsky, but your reviews are piquing my interest. Now "The Doors of Eden" looks especially interesting, but unfortunately, it's not among your reviews. Too bad, I'd have liked to know about your opinion.

Re: The Doors of Eden

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that one yet, but I will probably get to it eventually (but not until after I've finished his Architects and Shadows of the Apt series).

Re: The Doors of Eden

[max-sinister.livejournal.com]

As said - I'd be interested in you writing a review of it.