Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I’ve read quite a few books by Adrian Tchaikovsky. He studied Psychology and Zoology at university, and he is great at writing about alien life-forms, including from their point of view. These are some of his books I’ve read:
Children of Time This is my favorite book of his and I recommended regularly to people who like science-fiction. It’s got quite a complex plot which I won’t attempt to explain, but it has a species of giant wolf-spider that have had artificially accelerated evolution applied, so they have become intelligent, and about half of the book is written from the point of view the giant wolf-spiders. Tchaikovsky is really great at that kind of writing. Another character is a satellite that is controlled by a consciousness that has been uploaded, and it’s gradually going mad from loneliness. It’s full of great ideas and very creative writing. It won the Arthur C Clarke Science Fiction award a few years go.
Dogs of War This is another favorite. It is written from the point of view of various creature/human hybrids that have been genetically engineered to fight in wars, including a swarm of bees. So there are parts written from the point of view of a collective consciousness of bees. Impressive writing and great fun.
The Doors of Eden This had less impact on me, but I still remember it as being an enjoyable read. It’s about someone who goes through a “timeslip” to another dimension.
The Expert System’s Brother I enjoyed this one too. More of a novella than a novel.
Cage of Souls This one I finished but there were times when I almost gave up on it. It’s fantasy rather than science fiction, about someone in a sort of semi-underwater prison with unknown creatures in the water. It felt a bit weak compared to his other stuff.
So Alien Clay has a similar kind of theme to his other books — a group that is on a kind of prison planet with alien life. Like Cage of Souls it was a bit of a struggle to read, and I almost didn’t finish. It is lacking in the breadth of ideas that some of his other books have, and feels a bit like it was just formula writing. I wouldn’t recommend it.
I have started one more of his recent books—Shroud, which is about, guess what, a group that is crashed on an alien planet with weird lifeforms—and I’ve got half way through it and I’m bored and I’m not going to finish it. It’s a shame. Tchaikovsky seems to be coming out with a new book every few months at the moment and they just aren’t as good as his older works. I wish he would write a bit less, but better. Some of these recent books have been quite weak but his good stuff is great science fiction. I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of his stuff for a while.