Synopsis:
Visit a world where sorcery intertwines with science by multiple Hugo nominee Adrian Tchaikovsky in this highly-anticipated sequel to his hugely popular Elder Race.
On a planet where stories govern identity, where science and magic are a merely point of view, a fallen princess, a reluctant wizard, and a precocious child must unravel the past to shape the future.
Betrayal, ancient myths, and the clash of worlds converge in this spellbinding tale of courage, friendship, and self-discovery.
Review:
One might accuse Adrian Tchaikovsky of being a writing machine. But, in recent days, we’ve seen the writings of machines thanks to various Artificial Intelligence models and to compare Mr. Tchaikovsky to a LLM would be an insult to one of the masters of the craft. The point stands, though, that he writes like he’s compelled by a witch’s spell to spill every amount of imagination he has in various stories or else she’ll turn his entire family into newts. I’ve already reviewed three new releases of his so far this calendar year and I know there are more to come.
Even with all that output, the quality of his writing still holds up. With Engines of Reason, in particular, we might see the best example of his genius this year. After releasing the novella Elder Race back in 2021, I’m not sure he ever considered that he’d revisit this world or characters. The story had an air of finality to it, even with many questions that went unanswered in the telling of the tale. So, when Engines of Reason was announced, I was a little taken aback, but I love that he was able to take a story that felt complete, add extra characters, depth, and backstory and change how we even felt about the original novella in the first place.
Based on novels like Alien Clay and Shroud, we know that Tchaikovsky can write aliens like we’ve never conceived of before. The strange and pure “alien-ness” of the beings that the humans encounter is so foreign that you almost have to re-wire your own brain a little to follow the storylines. There is an element of that here in Engines of Reason, but that alien-like quality also extends to one of our main characters – Nyr.
In book 1, Nyr is set-up as an anthropologist, second-class who was left behind on a primitive world. Generations go by, so by the time he’s needed again, his body and technology are so different from the natives that there is little comparison. I really liked the comparison and contrast with Star Trek’s Prime Directive and how Nyr handles it (or doesn’t in some cases).
In Engines, Nyr and the “friends” he made in the first book are back again, but 15 years have passed. In the meantime children have been born, relationships have changed, and the youth in the first book have grown and matured. But this book comes with new challenges and some of that stems from the problems in the first book that were “solved” but not necessarily eliminated. What does Nyr, Lyn, and their family and friends do to combat their newest enemy?
As with basically anything Adrian Tchaikovsky does, just sign me up and I’ll read it. If I haven’t read the previous books, I’ll do it. And if you haven’t read Elder Race, it’s definitely worth your time to polish off the first novella before picking up the next in the series. Now…after Elder Race, I didn’t foresee a sequel, but here I would be very surprised if Adrian Tchaikovsky doesn’t add another novella or two to the lore and future of the Elder Race series.
Thank you to Tor Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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