Synopsis:
They looked into darkness. The darkness looked back.
An utterly gripping story of survival on a hostile planet from Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Children of Time.
A commercial expedition to a distant star system discovers a pitch-black moon alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is deadly to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.
Under no circumstances can a human survive Shroud’s inhospitable surface – but a catastrophic accident forces Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne to make an emergency landing in a barely adequate escape vehicle. Alone, and fighting for survival, the two women embark on a gruelling journey across land, sea and air in search of salvation.
But as they travel, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s unnerving alien species. It also begins to understand them. If they escape Shroud, they’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all . . .
Review:
I was sent a copy of Shroud in exchange for an honest review.
This is Adrian T doing what Adrian T does best. Writing stories that’ll make you sympathise with the aliens.
Shroud is an incredible first contact story that looks at both the impact on the humans and the impact on the aliens. The book starts on The Garveneer, a ship sent to scout a star system to see what mankind can harvest from it. Imagine capitalism but dialled up to 1000, with wage-worths and the ability to be put in stasis until you’re needed again (or maybe forever if you do something wrong). Here Tchaikovsky introduces you to a bunch of humans who are conditioned to put work above all else. They’re looking at a moon called Shroud and once they send Drones down to the pitch-black surface they start to see glimpses of alien lifeforms.
Shroud is a truly inhospitable place, and once Ceelander and Ste Etienne crash land on it’s surface in nothing more than a prototype vehicle they start an epic journey to try and get home. The entirety of Shroud is experienced through camera feeds and in the claustrophobic space they have. The gravity is so high that they’re stuck in these gel couches unable to even reach each other.
Once you get introduced to the aliens (from here the Shrouded) that’s where for me the story became something completely unique. The story starts being told in ‘Light’ (humans) and ‘Darkness’ (Shrouded). At first the Shrouded chapters are simple thoughts and enquiries, but by the end they’re this fully fledged species with it’s own society and knowledge. You see them learn about the humans and you see how they learn and react to this new creature in their midst. Neither party can speak with each other but there are moments where maybe they understand, or understand enough to survive.
Adrian T has crafted a whole working world on Shroud. They’re not just another human society and they learn/see/feel/exist completely differently to the humans with evolutionary history too. Alternating the chapters between the Shrouded and the humans was so fascinating as you saw the story from both sides, while also rooting for everyone involved.
I could wax lyrical about this book for ages. It completely captured my imagination and despite the fact that you never see much of Shroud due to it’s complete darkness (lights and cameras can only go so far) I could picture this whole world in my head. The Shrouded are unlike anything I’ve read before and there’s something infinitely weirder about aliens that don’t look like any lifeform we can describe. Honestly just pick this up and experience it for yourself, you won’t be disappointed.
Shroud is a masterclass in worldbuilding and in making your reader sympathise with alien lifeforms. Every time I think Adrian T has written his best book he releases another one that somehow tops it, and this is a perfect example.
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