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adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Violence, Police brutality, Murder
Moderate: Animal death, Gun violence, Torture, Medical trauma, Colonisation
Minor: Sexual content
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Slavery, Excrement, Police brutality, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Deportation
Moderate: Torture
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Just from reading the synopses I figured that of the two Tchaikovsky works on the Hugo ballot for Novel, this would be my preferred one and I'm mostly correct. They both have things that chafe at me. I have a bone to pick with the writing on a sentence level. It's the only one of his books I've read so far in first person, and I don't think that's his strong suit. It's written in present tense too, but then we'll set asides from the narrator in the future looking back on that moment and they threw me out of the story. (Although there is a justification for this very late in the story. ) There's also a part that massively irritated me where a difficult task is set up, and then we get a flash forward showing the result for an entire chapter before going back to the start of the task. I felt it robbed the story of its tension, but I think this was a conscious narrative choice on Tchaikovsky's part.
On the other hand, damn, does anyone write xenofiction like Tchaikovsky does? Kiln is ALIEN in all the best ways. I loved trying to wrap my mind around the way life worked on this alien planet, and stopping to try and visualize all the living organisms that are encountered. He certainly understands how oppressive governments and systems work, and how outbursts against these things tend to fall apart and accomplish little. I liked the ways these two things fed into each other thematically, building layer by layer. The final set of reveals about the history of Kiln was deeply satisfying.
It's funny, a critique I had of City of Last Chances was that it was kind of weird to read a book about many disparate groups brewing revolutionary feelings, but none of the groups were leftist in nature. And I know I shouldn't judge a person's politics by their fictional writings, but after reading this one? I think Tchaikovsky and I could have a big, mostly-politically-aligned gripe session over some beers. (Hell, his protagonist is a stanch atheist and has a moment where he remembers that religious leftists exist and there's no way to completely scrub religion from humanity in a neutral way, and as a religious queer leftist myself I'll gladly buy a round for him over putting that in his book!) Beating back the tide of fascism is hard, as the woeful understatement of the year. I can't help but wonder if he chose to accept the nomination for both novels because in this political moment, he wanted people to read and engage with the different sets of ideas in both books. I take my hat off to that!
It's also kind of funny thatthis is the second leftist SFF novel I've read in a year where victory is achieved through some sort of hivemind.
On the other hand, damn, does anyone write xenofiction like Tchaikovsky does? Kiln is ALIEN in all the best ways. I loved trying to wrap my mind around the way life worked on this alien planet, and stopping to try and visualize all the living organisms that are encountered. He certainly understands how oppressive governments and systems work, and how outbursts against these things tend to fall apart and accomplish little. I liked the ways these two things fed into each other thematically, building layer by layer. The final set of reveals about the history of Kiln was deeply satisfying.
It's funny, a critique I had of City of Last Chances was that it was kind of weird to read a book about many disparate groups brewing revolutionary feelings, but none of the groups were leftist in nature. And I know I shouldn't judge a person's politics by their fictional writings, but after reading this one? I think Tchaikovsky and I could have a big, mostly-politically-aligned gripe session over some beers. (Hell, his protagonist is a stanch atheist and has a moment where he remembers that religious leftists exist and there's no way to completely scrub religion from humanity in a neutral way, and as a religious queer leftist myself I'll gladly buy a round for him over putting that in his book!) Beating back the tide of fascism is hard, as the woeful understatement of the year. I can't help but wonder if he chose to accept the nomination for both novels because in this political moment, he wanted people to read and engage with the different sets of ideas in both books. I take my hat off to that!
It's also kind of funny that
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Classism
Moderate: Torture, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
The basic premise of Alien Clay is that an authoritarian regime ruling Earth is using convict labour to staff scientific outposts on other planets. The plot is set on a world known as Kiln, where Earth’s The Mandate has set up a dome-protected facility from which to study strange architectural phenomena. It appears to them that Kiln once must have had a population of very human-like intelligent occupants – their orthodoxy about humanity and linear ‘progress’ leave no other possible explanations for the structures they find – and they want to discover where these inhabitants are (or, where they went / what happened to them). Convicts are flown in to perform the riskiest duties – venturing out of the dome, performing general labour, and so on – while a small number of non-convict staff oversee and dictate the goings-on of the facility. Narrator Arton was a scientist on Earth who participated in revolutionary committee work against the Mandate. He arrives on Kiln unsure of the fates of his comrades, unsure of who might’ve sold him out, and committed to opposing the Mandate and its vision of “science.” Of course, Kiln and its structures are absolutely not what they seem.
I really liked this! I have read quite a bit of Tchaikovsky at this point, and haven’t yet read a book of his that I didn’t like; this is perhaps the best standalone of his that I’ve read so far. I must say I wasn’t entirely sure at first how I felt about the narrative voice of the first person POV, Professor Arton Daghdev – something about the tone didn’t quite work for me at the beginning of the book, and I’ve read other reviewers comment on this. Ultimately, I think that feeling like the narrator is addressing me this directly is just not my favourite thing. By maybe 25% in, though, I was hooked, and by the end I think this stylistic choice makes complete sense.
Thank you to Orbit Books & NetGalley for providing me an ARC to review.
Content warnings: body horror, gore, violence, murder, death, blood, confinement, enslavement, mentions of vomit and excrement, torture (mostly not on-page), police brutality, colonization, injury detail
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Murder
Moderate: Torture, Colonisation
Minor: Excrement, Vomit
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was my first Tchaikovsky book and I wasn’t sure what to expect and the beginning didn’t give much in the way of help in that regard. But once it got going, it went. I love the concept, the execution, and the prose. The link I’ve seen made to Le Guin is rather appropriate with the artful if unsubtle statements about our humanity using interchanging horrifying/dreamlike unreality. Also loved seeing found family and queer side characters, neither something I’ve come to expect in this corner of SFF but is so very welcome.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Gun violence, Violence, Murder, Colonisation, Classism, Deportation
Moderate: Torture
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Vomit, Trafficking, Colonisation
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I enjoyed it! This guy writes some cool alien worlds. I am really fascinated with how life on Kiln works. The alien life remind me of siphonophores, or lichen, but with more complexity. The main character could be a little flippant at inappropriate times- some tense moments would be undercut by sarcastic or snarky thoughts from the narrator. I think I may have enjoyed some of those events more if the tone was more in line with the events that are happening.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Gun violence
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
plot: 1/2
prose: 1/4
pace: 1/4
main character: 0
side characters: 1/4
worldbuilding: 1/2
concept: 1/2
ending: 1/4
entertainment value: 1/4
emotional resonance: 1/4
My favorite thing about this book was the entire concept of the alien life. So much sci-fi is lazy and unimaginative of what non-earth life could look like and it's always refreshing to read something creative and truly alien on a fundamental biological level. I also appreciated the parallels with how effective fighting against The Mandate always fails because it can always divide you when you don't have the means to fully trust your fellow co-conspirators.
I have two main gripes with this novel, however. The first one is the main character. The inner monologue is giving privileged sarcastic know-it-all who, ironically, has main character syndrome. There are moments of self-awareness but they're nowhere near enough to make him likable. At no point do I feel sorry for him even though the audience is definitely meant to. He is simply insufferable and I don't blame any of the other characters for disliking him at any point.
The second one is the pacing. There are multiple times when the narrative gears up to follow a journey and then the next chapter skips to the end of the journey and tells you about what happened through small flashbacks. It's a mess and stops and starts in fits and does not flow. It's like the author couldn't figure out which narrative structure he wanted to use and it absolutely affected the reading experience.
In general, it was more of an interesting exploration of a concept but not necessarily a good narrative story or character exploration. Which is not necessarily a bad thing and the parts I did enjoy, I enjoyed a lot.
Thank you Netgalley and Orbit for the ARC.
prose: 1/4
pace: 1/4
main character: 0
side characters: 1/4
worldbuilding: 1/2
concept: 1/2
ending: 1/4
entertainment value: 1/4
emotional resonance: 1/4
My favorite thing about this book was the entire concept of the alien life. So much sci-fi is lazy and unimaginative of what non-earth life could look like and it's always refreshing to read something creative and truly alien on a fundamental biological level. I also appreciated the parallels with how effective fighting against The Mandate always fails because it can always divide you when you don't have the means to fully trust your fellow co-conspirators.
I have two main gripes with this novel, however. The first one is the main character. The inner monologue is giving privileged sarcastic know-it-all who, ironically, has main character syndrome. There are moments of self-awareness but they're nowhere near enough to make him likable. At no point do I feel sorry for him even though the audience is definitely meant to. He is simply insufferable and I don't blame any of the other characters for disliking him at any point.
The second one is the pacing. There are multiple times when the narrative gears up to follow a journey and then the next chapter skips to the end of the journey and tells you about what happened through small flashbacks. It's a mess and stops and starts in fits and does not flow. It's like the author couldn't figure out which narrative structure he wanted to use and it absolutely affected the reading experience.
In general, it was more of an interesting exploration of a concept but not necessarily a good narrative story or character exploration. Which is not necessarily a bad thing and the parts I did enjoy, I enjoyed a lot.
Thank you Netgalley and Orbit for the ARC.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
books that make you go "maybe being infected and consumed from within by a horrifying alien ecosystem that makes me an interconnected part of itself so fully i never feel lonely again wouldn't be the WORST solution to my problems actually"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Slavery
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence
Minor: Torture