Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of the most prolific SFF authors writing today. This is the seventh or eight science fiction novel by Tchaikovsky that I have read. His stories always have unique concepts and interesting characters - many of them non-human.

This story is no exception. Tchaikovsky tells of a human invasion of an alien world (well, moon actually) where the humans make assumptions about the abilities of the native creatures. As I read this novel, I was reminded in ways of Alien Clay and Children of Time, for different reasons. The humans in this story are focused on colonization and spreading throughout the universe, much like in Children of Time. At the same time, the humans come into close contact with a unique alien sentient species reminiscent of Alien Clay.

This novel is thorough and fascinating in its world building and the omniscient viewpoint the author provides of the interplay between the humans and the native creatures, often alternating chapters, offers wonderful insights into both species. Tchaikovsky does an excellent job of giving the reader both perspectives and building towards an intriguing climax. I felt that Tchaikovsky certainly left me wanting more of this world and these interactions by the end of the story.

Highly recommended!!

Shroud is another great example of the way Adrian Tchaikovsky presents the concept of an alien intelligence vastly different from our own. I love the creativity and look forward to more.
4/5

This is my first experience reading an Adrian Tchaikovsky book. I had a great time. It was very interesting seeing how descriptive he was about the experience of trying to survive in space and how being have evolved to do so better. I was really hooked and will be looking at his other books.

Tchaikovsky is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors to read, and a new book from him about aliens and capitalist exploitation is always welcome. This time around we get a significant buildup of a skeleton crew trying their best with scraps to find out exactly what is going on on the plant they've been sent to explore and exploit, and their eventual crash landing on the plant. Only, they're not alone as they seem, and Tchaikovsky does an amazing job of treading through a thoroughly alien POV. If the last section seems a bit long, just trust me and hang in - the last paragraph or so of this is the message and the mood setter. This'll be a fun summer read when it lands.

Shroud is a sci-fi book by Adrian Tchaikovski. The premise is that humans have moved off an uninhabitable earth through the dubious laregesse of corporations. The goal of the corporations is to make a profit by spreading humanity. The story picks up with the discovery of a strange moon, which is sending out radio signals and the waking for hibernation of a crew to investigate. 
The main point of view character is Juna Ceelander, a low level dictionary whose job is to make sure the other members of the team play nice & and be able to help any of them with their jobs. A secondary point of view character is also added later in the book, but describing them would give a lot away. 
My favorite part of Shroud was the exploration of evolution in a lightless, low-energy environment. The ideas presented were interesting and felt very authentic. I was impressed with how the author could slip (as best as can be imagined) into a wholly alien state of mind. 
I went into this book having hard great things about the author, but little about the book and was pleasantly surprised. While some parts read a little slowly and others seemed a bit repetitive, Tchaikovski actually uses this as a device to help you empathize with the main characters. 
I would recommend this book to those who want to read something that will challenge you to look at the world in a new way that could only truly be explored in sci-fi.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. 4.5/5 stars. This book was a such a unique perspective on alien life and exemplified how little we know. I really enjoyed the different perspectives. The middle dragged a bit at times, but I think it was necessary to spend that time with the characters. The last 25% went incredibly fast and I could not put it down.

Probably really 4.5 stars

You can always count on Adrian Tchaikovsky for interesting alien life, but the hard thing about this one was it was so hard to picture in my head the world Tchaikovsky built. It wasn’t his description—it was the true alienness of Shroud, and that also made this book groundbreaking for me.

I don’t want to say too much for fear of giving things away, but I can safely say that if you liked Tchaikovsky’s books like Children of Time and The Doors of Eden, you’ll like this one.

I’d give this a full five stars for the first and last 25% and then four for the middle half which started interesting but became a tad repetitive.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books!

For about 60 percent of Shroud, I couldn’t get enough. Action and drama on a completely alien moon with our human protagonists hampered by dark and the unknown hidden beneath the blackness. You might think I hated the other 40 percent…but that’s what really clinched how exceptional this novel truly is. With each new thing I read the more I’m convinced that Adrian Tchaikovsky is the new Master of Fantasy and Sci-Fi.

That other 40 percent? That’s what a lot of authors would ditch on the cutting room floor, and perhaps with good reason in their cases. He takes the mundane of politics, economics, and culture -- potentially hundreds or thousands of years in the future -- and sculpts a bonkers first contact story around it. In the opening of Shroud, we’re introduced to a small team of scientists poised in orbit above a far-off moon. Science is happening, but it’s all under the direction of profit -- how can the government exploit the resources of the planet and moon to their advantage? That’s all there, lurking in the background, but the early scenes are all definitely framed around science from a first-person POV, so the crass capitalism isn’t front and center…yet.

When I saw that Tchaikovsky had another First Contact book, a year after putting out Alien Clay, I was a little concerned that it would be a similar story with similar beats. And…yes and no. When I read Alien Clay, I remember thinking that it felt like three different books inside of one volume and Shroud does this as well to a certain degree. But, the internal structure is vastly different and is very much its own unique novel that deserves to be read. In fact, I think Alien Clay and Shroud might work really well as a kind of duology in the differences of first contact between humans and an intelligent alien species.

Don’t get me wrong - this is not just a philosophical novel about what it means to be an alien or how we impose our own humanity upon the otherness of space. This novel rocks with horror-tinged action throughout the core of the book. After the team find what they believe to be life on the moon they’ve called Shroud, an accident on their station strands some of them on the moon that seems to be actively trying to kill them at every turn. It turns into a journey home with no guarantee of success. And the joy is that along the way we discover the life on Shroud is way more intelligent than any of them suspected.

I don’t want to say any of these are similar, but as I read I thought of a few other books and movies. There are tastes of Project Hail Mary as our hapless humans try to communicate with the well-intentioned aliens with mixed results. The Vin Diesel movie Pitch Black definitely came to mind in how they handled the darkness and the dangers that lie within the shadows. I even had thoughts of MacGyver as our pair of protagonists worked their way out of one situation or another.

OK, let’s finish up my thoughts on Shroud and that final 20 percent of the book. So the action-packed narrative of the middle portion wraps up… and again, I think many books end right there. Our characters are heroes for their achievements and we’re left with a happy ending for all. But that’s not what Tchaikovsky does and that’s really what puts Shroud above so many other books I’ve read this year. All the political and economic shadows that were lurking in the background of the first act of the book are back and are challenging the science that seems like it should be more important. The word “exploit” is even used in the final few chapters as a virtue for what they want to do to Shroud. The payoff of the novel is unique and unexpected and Tchaikovsky challenges his readers with their own values and interests.

Ultimately, I couldn’t have been happier reading Shroud. Tchaikovsky is at the top of his game and I look forward to each and every time his name is on the cover.

Thank you to Orbit for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am not typically a sci-fi reader. I have barely read any sci-fi books and some that I have I have ended up dnfing. But I am still bound and determined to try them and I know this author is a great writer. I did end up enjoying this, there were a few areas that were hard to get through—some pretty slow and repetitive scenes. Then there were other parts where I could not put down the book.

The story starts off with a small team of people who are trying to pierce the mystery of the planet Shroud. Shroud is a planet covered in darkness, absolutely no light is visible and there is a thick foggy atmosphere. The drones they are sending to the planet come back with imaging that there may be other life down there, but nothing like anyone has ever seen before.

An accident occurs on the ship in space leading our main character (Juna) and Mai to be thrown onto the planet. Juna and Mai are stuck in their space pod on a foreign planet where everything about the planet wants to kill them.

Mai and Juna soon come into contact with the other life on Shroud and find the creature(s)—called the Shrouded to be more complex than they seem. Mai and Juna then have to try to process their interactions with the Shrouded while at the same time trying to determine how they can get off of Shroud.

The main parts I enjoyed about this book where the Shrouded interactions as well as the point of view from the Shrouded. I thought this was a great addition from the author to include the Shrouded’s point-of-view. The world was also interesting and the author was able to paint an in-depth picture of what Juna and Mai where experiencing. Also the anxiety and distress of Juna and Mai as well as their coping mechanisms was done really well, since there were times I was feeling the anxiety myself.

If you do enjoy sci-fi, I would recommend giving this book a try. I really enjoyed the concept of Shroud and the Shrouded (who are way more complex than they seem). Even if you are not a huge sci-fi fan like me, I think you can still enjoy this since I did!

The Objective Review:

Shroud is a depressing book, its a book of horrors, of attempting to escape it only in order to regain it. There is no better world, only painful possibility and your choice in the matter is not your own in the end. It is horror imposed on the mind and body with no free will. Everything the book throws at you is meant for your suffering, to show that you cannot escape suffering.

We follow Juna, a administrative assistant whose sole purpose is ensuring that everyone can do their job in spite of themselves. She's a likeable heroine stuck in a corporate hellscape of a world that only makes demands and quotas. If results are not achieved, life is not permitted. After an accident, she is stranded on a planet with another woman whose sole purpose is serving as a way for the main character to showcase who she is and what she does. A plot device tailored for her needs. In fact, none of the other characters in this stories are really that important outside of being a vehicule for exposition, of which there is a lot of.

Thankfully, we are exposed to a character who offers us a refuge from this by exposing us to its complex mind. Another vehicule for Tchaikovsky to explore philosophy of the mind and consciousness, the challenges of communication, and the difficulty of relating to something that is beyond our understanding, or even each other. An idea that is the crux of the story and that is explored brilliantly.

Tchaikovsky explores existential horror as expertly as cosmic horror in this gripping, hard bitten tale of survival and fear of the unknown. Fans of Children of Time and hard scifi will find a great tale to enjoy. While issues of pacing permeates the book and characters are somewhat lackluster, the ideas expressed here are profound, reminiscent of both classic scifi and lovecraft's legacy of horror.

The ADHD Review :

Did you love The Martian, are you a fan of Lovecraft, well get ready for a tale of both smashed together in a long expositional tale of communication, planetary physics and alien life versus the corporate world. Do you want to be reminded of how grey your work life is while also being told it could be worst? Well dive in this tale of existential depression, an anxiety inducing tale exploring how depressing our lives our and how incapable we are of communicating and how it will come to bite us in the ass. 2 Stars because it does eventually says something more than capitalism and colonialism sucks.

This book crawled under my skin and settled there. It’s brutal and quiet and terrifying in that slow, creeping way that makes your breath catch. And yet, there’s this beating emotional core at the center of it all that made me feel so human. Tchaikovsky doesn’t just write sci-fi. He writes people. And god, he writes loneliness and connection in a way that feels too raw and too real. I loved how the planet itself feels like a character. The writing is gorgeously atmospheric, full of pressure and shadows and that uncanny sense of being watched. It’s the kind of story that messes with your head in the best way, but it’s also tender when you least expect it. I loved every minute of it. And I’d follow these characters into the dark a hundred times over.

really well-written scifi about crashlanding on an alien planet and existing in the world. fun protagonists! 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

Shroud is my first Adrian Tchaikovsky authored novel. I really liked the story and the ending, but the traveling of the main characters during the middle section was a bit lengthy. That's why I gave it three instead of four stars.

The prolific Tchaikovsky has written another fascinating book about featuring remarkably alien aliens in a remarkably alien setting. The denizens of an ammonia-atmosphere moon, highly inimical to human life, need to be understood by by stranded explorers hoping to escape back to their mother ship. The world building and science are great; the environment is oppressive (both on the moon and on the human ship0. Probably too oppressive for me, to be honest but I cannot deny the book is well written. The letdown for me is the ending, which was open-ended and inconclusive.

Pitch-black and haunting—Shroud is Tchaikovsky at his most alien and existential.

In this mind-bending planetary horror, survival isn't just about oxygen or warmth—it's about maintaining a grip on what it even means to be human when the landscape, the air, and the very laws of life feel rigged against you.

When Juna and Mai find themselves stranded on the surface of Shroud, an unlivable moon soaked in radiation and mystery, they begin a desperate trek through terrain that defies logic. Their surroundings aren’t just hostile—they’re unreadable. This is not a planet to be conquered or understood. It seems alive, as a being.

Tchaikovsky crafts his world with his signature scientific imagination. What elevates Shroud is how the narrative shifts between the survivors’ journey and glimpses into the perspectives of Shroud’s native life. These sections are eerie, and so radically different it feels like first contact with a new form of storytelling

This is science fiction for readers who like to feel unsettled, unmoored—and afraid. Think Solaris with a pulse of cosmic dread on two women who refuse to give in, even as the dark learns their names.

#orbit #panmacmillan #tor #adriantchaikovsky #shroud

SHROUD is a look at alien sentience, by the (alarmingly prolific) science fiction writer Adrian Tchaikovsky. Two engineers are stuck in their spacecraft (which is actually more like a bathysphere) on the surface of an alien planet they call Shroud. Shroud is actually a moon of a gas giant in some solar system far from ours; but it is larger and denser (and hence with greater gravity) than Earth. It is enclosed in a thick hydrogen/methane/ammonia atmosphere, so thick that atmospheric pressure at the surface is twenty times that of Earth at sea level, and also so thick that no light can get through. Even the searchlights of the spacecraft can only cut through the murk for small distances. The astronauts are stranded; they have to travel halfway across the planet to reach the space elevator cable, dropped by the spaceship they originally came in, which is the only point from which they can be rescued (and indeed the only point from which any message they send can reach space beyond Shroud's atmosphere at all). It turns out that Shroud is filled with rich and abundant life, which gets its energy from "planetary radiation, vulcanism, and a tiny greenhouse effect" (in this respect, Shroud is similar to some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn). As the protagonists struggle to move across the surface of Shroud, they interact in multiple indirect ways with the native life, which is blind (since there is no light on Shroud) but which senses its surroundings by emitting radio waves (radar sensing, communication, and thought, all in the same medium). The human protagonists' survival involves interacting with these native life forms in all sorts of ways. The novel is both an adventure story, and a sort of philosophical meditation on the possibilities of sentience.

I think Adrian Tchaikovsky will be remembered years from now. He should be at any rate. I haven't read a bad book by him. Netgalley gives me the option to read the new novel by Tchaikovsky, oh I'm in. I'm 100 percent in.
Shroud isn't quite next level as some of his other works but it's up there. Part survival, part horror, at times philosophical, all sci-fi and social commentary is also included. I don't like to give synopsis of books because I can never give it justice to the story I read (unless it's really bad). I can say that this much, like all Adrian Tchaikovsky's work it takes a concept and pushes it past all recognition.
The best part of Shroud that it takes something so alien and foreign and meshes it with humanity into a really memorable story.

This book reminded me a lot of the book Project Hail Mary, but the ending left something to be desired. I really enjoyed all of it up until the end. I had a lot of fun with the world of Shroud, and the new creatures and life that they encountered. I also liked the main human characters, all of them really, and found myself looking forward to reading each of their sections to hear more about them. The ending just fell short for me, it felt very open ended, and I found it really frustrating and immediately annoyed. I think I would have been able to rate as 5/5 if there had been an actual ending.

'Shroud' is a slow, careful analysis of what human colonization into the universe could look like. It is neither overly optimistic nor overly fatalistic.

I enjoyed looking both into humanity and the alien.

If you liked 'Project Hail Mary' then you will enjoy 'Shroud'.

They looked into the darkness and the darkness looked back . . .

New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists – and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is pitch black, but alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is anathema to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances should a human end up on Shroud’s inhospitable surface. Except a catastrophic accident sees Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne doing just that. Forced to stage an emergency landing, in a small, barely adequate vehicle, they are unable to contact their ship and are running out of time. What follows is a gruelling journey across land, sea and air. During this time, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s dominant species. It also begins to understand them . . .

If they escape Shroud, they’ll face a crew only interested in profiteering from this extraordinary world. They’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all.

In typical Adrian fashion, this one has it all. Aliens, greaqt deep characters and plenty of science fiction action. I haven't read everything by this author, but I believe this has to be one of his best works yet:)