This is a beautiful, uplifting story exploring a kind of ‘in-between’ place where the dead go to view their memories before they move onto the afterlife. It’s a story that deals with death and grief without actually touching on those subjects directly. You feel for all these people and those they’ve left behind, but it’s also a celebration of their life and what they achieved. The outlier here is the final character, Mitsuru, who tragically dies at the hands of her parents, but ultimately she gets her happy ending still.
Pan Macmillan
Review: Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Alien Clay provides further evidence of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s unparalleled and unfathomable imagination. A master storyteller and world builder, Tchaikovsky delivers another fascinating speculative vision of an alien ecology, that is innovative and immersive.