Reviews with content warning for Violence - Shards of Earth

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

11 reviews

bluejayreads's review against another edition

3.75

I generally prefer fantasy over scifi, especially scifi as hard as Adrian Tchaikovksy tends to write. But I picked this up because I enjoyed his novella Elder Race and was willing to try something else. This is fairly hard scifi, but it had solid and likeable characters, a strong plot that manages to have our protagonists hopping from planet to planet without ever feeling contrived or like a fetch quest, and some absolutely amazing worldbuilding concepts. So many of the ideas were unique and tied into a great story. The amazing worldbuilding manages to make the whole story feel intricate and vivid, even though the plot isn't particularly complex. Adrian Tchaikovsky is a great writer and I enjoyed the read. I'm on the fence about reading book two - not becuase I think it will be bad or that there isn't room for a sequel, but becuase sequels are usually not quite as good as book one and while I liked this book, I wouldn't say I love it or call it a favorite. But again, this book was good, so I'm not ruling it out.

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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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andrewspink's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional relaxing fast-paced

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

4.0

The author rather throws the reader in at the deep end, with a whole load of concepts and characters, right from the beginning. That meant that I struggled to get into the book, although the glossary helped. However, once I'd read the first couple of characters and begun to understand its world, I found there was a lot to like. There was quite a lot of fighting, but the author takes care not to glorify it. There are some interesting feminist perspectives. There is a nice reference to H.G. Wells (the Thunderchild battleship features in War of the Worlds). There is an amusing use of 'pronouns' in which 'they' refers not to a different gender but a species made of multiple individuals. I liked that the aliens are properly completely different and alien, which is a refreshing change from much sci-fi.
All in all, a lot to like, and I'm definitely adding the sequel to my 'to be read' list.

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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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mdiffer's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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magis1105's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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? No

4.5

A very interesting battle.
After 50 years of war that humans barely made it out of, the new world still is fighting the same political issues. Worse still they still defend the right to practice slavery using lame excuses that those who are modified have a duty- they are not considered human enough.
Division on made-up moral or "naturalist" standards plays a big role in the social construct. And it's very hard to get over that.

The characters are fighting their own monsters- be it discrimination, or post-traumatic stress from the past war among a few other personal demons.
We have a found family setting, the personal growth, I was deeply moved by the characters and their circumstances- definitely have good fighting and [political intrigues. The con side - the romance or attempts at it were meh.
But overall I really liked it. I will continue the series as soon as possible.

Full review can be found https://bunkerofbooks05.wixsite.com/bunker-of-books/post/shards-of-earth

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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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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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