Reviews with content warning for Torture - Shards of Earth

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Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

9 reviews

bethmalena's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

When it comes to space pirates, I think I like Becky Chambers’ ragtag shipmates better. Still, I ended up enjoying the characters and the action, though the pacing and arc seemed off at the end. I’m super intrigued by the big baddies (the Architects) who felt really fresh to me, so I’ll read the rest of the series.

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theaceofpages's review against another edition

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mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

There are a lot of characters, species, races and complexities in this book. I appreciate how much effort must have gone into it. It did take a while to sort everything out in my head though (nd to be completely honest, I'm not 100% sure that I've got it all in place). The story definitely got more interesting as it went on, in pat because I started to understand the setting and characters better and in part because the action picked up. I'll definitely keep an eye out for the next book in my library

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iono's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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mar's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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aulandez's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is my fourth Tchaikovsky/Czajkowski book, and he just keeps impressing me. Children of Time and Children of Ruin were big-ideas sci-fi on the level of Kim Stanley Robinson, Asimov, Herbert, LeGuin, Butler, and for me he quickly entered the same category as those pillars of the genre. Doors of Eden elegantly walked a line between big ideas and character-focused adventure, and I loved the audiobook read by Sophie Alfred (Ace!) of Doctor Who fame. His books don’t exist first and foremost to explore a big idea, being a compelling story is what’s most important to him, but there are ideas he’s consistently interested in exploring, like the nature of biological and social evolution, and whether human beings can meaningfully direct the nature of our ecological, anatomical, psychological, or social future. Everything I’ve read so far, and his two big series Shadows of the Apt and Echoes of the Fall all seem to orbit around these questions, all while his capacity as an author (particularly in terms of character and atmosphere) just keeps increasing with every successive work. While I feel like he has a lot in common with the classics of big-idea sci-fi, and there are lots of echoes of Asimov, Herbert, and KSR, he has less in common with the current crop of hard sci-if authors than he does with the inheritors of LeGuin & Butler’s feminist-infused social sci-fi tradition like Ann Leckie and Arkady Martine, and Shards of Earth reminds me of nothing more than Ancillary Justice.

Shards of Earth is the most fun of his books that I’ve read, and while it doesn’t compare to Children of X in terms of scale or philosophical originality, it shoots past anything I’ve read from him in terms of character and weirdness. Clam alien gods! Lobster-cockroach people who graft LCD screens to their bodies and rent the space out for banner ads. Attitudinal robot archeologists. Queer space amazons who watch pirated k-dramas. Disabled space pirates with killer adaptive-assistive technology. And are the Castigar tunicates or annelids (tube-worms) that shape their shells to imitate human bodies? How much do you wanna bet Adrian has a saltwater aquarium?

I’ve noticed lots of complaints about the book’s failure to live up to their muscular standards of what “hard” sci-fi should be, and it think those readers missed the point of the book. Tchaikovsky pumps books out at a pace that Brandon Sanderson should find threatening, and like Sanderson he seems to mix up his length and vibe in an effort to keep himself engaged and manage the flow of publications. I don’t really think Children of X is hard sci-fi, but its certainly muscular, cerebral, and dense. I think Shards of Earth is meant to be the first in a series of lighter fare, owing more to Star Wars or Miles Vorkosigan than Dune, action-adventure focused, but not skimping on weird sci-fi ideas or political intrigue, ultimately a fun romp for author and audience. As a short, fast, fun action adventure that also provides a bit of meat, it’s great. My biggest complaint is the lack of romance, which Tchaikovsky really seemed to be trying to create space for but didn’t seem to know how to handle. In the end he seems have confirmed particular relationship will move forwards in future books, but it came off lifeless, and that particular relationship really undermines the character development of the characters involved, while he leaves off another that had a lot more narrative potential. I almost wonder if he was hesitant to pick up on the threads of queerness he’s seeded through the book, but maybe he’ll weave something I’ll appreciate more in future books. If it’s meant to be hard sci-fi ala Peter Hamilton or Alastair Reynolds, it’s definitely a failure, starting with the fact that it’s consistently fun to read!

I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next in the series, and despite my intentions to avoid author-bingeing this year, the next book I’m picking up is definitely one of the stack of Tchaikovsky’s I haven’t read yet.

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laurareads87's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Shards of Earth is an epic space opera that follows the multi-species crew of a run down patched together salvage ship who find themselves at the centre of interplanetary political manoeuvring with the spectre of a second war with the planet-destroying Architects – moon sized entities humans know almost nothing about, but which destroyed Earth – looming.

There are a lot of things that I like about Shards of Earth that would lead me to recommend it to fans of space operas. Tchaikovsky has managed to develop a cast of characters of multiple different species – several of which are far from humanoid – while giving them distinct personalities, avoiding reducing each to a kind of representation of their respective species. Though a little bit slow at the beginning (for perhaps the first 15% or so), the plot moves along at a good pace overall, kept me interested throughout, and contained a few twists I did not see coming. Finally, with Shards of Earth Tchaikovsky has constructed a complex world with many societies, colonies, and alien species; the political and historical dynamics are very well developed without too many detours into ‘info dumping’ explanations.

The book includes indexes of characters, worlds, species, and ships, as well as a timeline for reference – while I appreciate these inclusions, I did not find that I needed them to follow what was going on. I can see them being very useful to revisit before reading the next book in the series as a refresher: this was my first book by Adrian Tchaikovsky but won’t be my last – I’m glad that this is the first book in a series because I’ll happily read the rest (though it’s worth mentioning for those not necessarily wanting to start a long series that this novel works quite well as a standalone – it left me wanting to read more, but not unsatisfied with how it ended).

A minor complaint from a technical standpoint is that I’d prefer if the chapters were shorter for the e-book especially – having only 5 parts plus a prologue in a book this long is not my personal preference when it comes to navigating an e-book table of contents, though these chapters are broken up with line breaks and shifts in perspective that form convenient spots to pause reading if needed.

Thank you to Orbit Books + Netgalley for providing me with an ARC.

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queenmackenzie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is the third book by Adrian Tchaikovsky that I’ve reviewed, and the third of his new books I’ve read this year. He is certainly a powerhouse when it comes to releasing books, and I am more than happy to try and keep up! So far, I have not been disappointed. This story is set in a world in which humans have been colonising space for about two centuries, and it begins at the end of the war with the Architects, great planet-sized beings that got their name from the way they destroy worlds by twisting and ripping them to create works of art. Very early on in the book there is a chilling description of Earth as it has been left by the Architects, a great flower-like structure with its core exposed and frozen, forever reaching towards the sun (this is actually the image on the cover of the book).

‘In the seventy-eighth year of the war, an Architect came to Berlenhof. The lights across the galaxy had been going out, one by one, since its start. All those little mining worlds, the far-flung settlements, the great hollow polyaspora of human expansion, exploding out from a vacant centre. Because the Architects had come for Earth first.’

In the aftermath of the war, all the different factions that had united against this unstoppable force begin to split into factions, so that along with the great loss of planets and lives, and the depletion of resources, there is great tension politically across the known universe. Unaltered humans -the Colonisers- are resentful of other groups, such as the genetically modified humans and other species that have integrated themselves into society, and another war seems to be brewing. It is in this high-strung political climate that the crew of Vulture God, a salvage vessel aboard which Idris now makes a living, finds a ship only recently destroyed, and it seems clear it was done by an Architect. From here the crew are hunted by all the various factions who seek to use this finding for their own gain, while more sinister things seem to be happening in the depths of space…

One of the things I loved about this book is the scale: it is set in space, which is as infinite as you can get, but there are certain elements that actually make it feel huge. The massive Architects, the ‘unspace’ that people use to travel between distant parts of the universe, the void in which a large and incomprehensible presence haunts all who cross it, and the Throughways and Relics left by a civilisation named the Originators, which nobody truly understands. These massive elements of the universe pair perfectly with the claustrophobia of the spacer life, in small ships that keep recycling parts to keep running, in overpopulated docking bays on overpopulated planets. The contrast was well executed, and it made me feel the same way the characters did as I read the different parts.

And speaking of characters, this was definitely a fun cast, and I got very attached to them! Tchaikovsky has a great knack for character writing, and especially writing group dynamics. I loved getting to know the point of view characters and their internal thoughts, but I also enjoyed watching their interactions and changing relationships with others. Idris and Solace were probably my favourites of the main cast, though Rollo comes a close third, and everyone (strange aliens included) feels well-rounded and believable, even those that appear in only a few scenes.

‘The lethal barrage of fire fell away from them, raindrops down a window. Except the window was the universe and ‘down’ was in every direction.’

But really, Shards of Earth is just beautifully written. It perfectly balances the technical language with vivid imagery, and the character development pulls it all together to create this brilliant thing. And of course, it wouldn’t be an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel without creatures of weird and wonderful evolutionary traits! Powerful clam overlords, crabs with screens on their shells, strange worm-like creatures, and near-indestructible symbiotes populate these pages, and I hope to see more in the next instalment!

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honeyreads1066's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

3.25

First off, this is a complicated sci-fi epic that I was so excited to read.

This book is mainly about 2 people, Solace and Idris. Solace is a soldier from a race of genetically engineered women whose task is to recruit Idris for their cause. Idris is a previous soldier turned navigator who was genetically experimented on to allow him to fight a world-ending being called the Architects. After responding to a normal call for a request to bring back a ship, the crew discovers something that changes everything.

This book is way more plot-based than character-based but saying that doesn't mean that I disliked any of the characters when I was not supposed to. they were written with depth and I found them very intriguing but I didn't feel very emotionally attached to them. That may be because it is plot-based.

In terms of the plot I was hooked, I'm not going to lie I was incredibly confused for line the first 20% of this but I'm glad I stuck it out. It's been a while since I've read anything that is so unlike the real world and thus it took a moment to get used to but once I did I was very intrigued. There are a lot of questions about a lot of things, some that are answered and some that aren't in this book but it does hit you.

The pacing is a little slow but honestly, I think it works well, it gives you a chance to get immersed into the world and understand fully what is happening.

Overall this was solid, I enjoyed myself and I have a few questions I want to be answered so when the next book is read I will be there.

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rubyhosh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

4.0

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