Publisher – Tor U.K.

Published – Out Now

Price – £9.99 paperback £5.99

The war is over.
Its heroes forgotten.
Until one chance discovery . . .

Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade his mind in the war. And one of humanity’s heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.

Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed by an alien enemy. Many escaped, but millions more died. So mankind created enhanced humans ­such as Idris - who could communicate mind-to-mind with our aggressors. Then these ‘Architects’ simply disappeared and Idris and his kind became obsolete.

Now, Idris and his crew have something strange, abandoned in space. It’s clearly the work of the Architects – but are they really returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy as they search for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, and many would kill to obtain it.

Space Opera is a very popular strand in the science fiction genre. The sense of scale helps create an epic story and allows a giant canvas for the author to be inventive as to what wonders and dangers the universe holds in store for the reader. In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s exhilarating Shards of Earth, we get a trip to a future where the Earth itself has been destroyed but humanity in new forms strives to survive and a galaxy threatening power is returning to complete its destructive agenda.

In the future the human race is warned a powerful moon sized crystalline force known as the Architect is coming to destroy the planet. They cannot be stopped and a bar a few millions the Earth is transferred into a several thousand mile tendrilled work of art made of rock, once living beings and molten core. The human race was at war. A loose alliance of humans, genetically perfected women, AI and various alien races all trying to stop a foe that can do whatever it wants. Only a strange discovery of those with telepathic powers known as Intermediaries found a way to get into an Architect’s mind send a message and then watch them vanish. Seventy years later one soldier of the battle named Solace is awakened from cryogenic sleep to track down the telepath Idris who was there at the final battle. However, Idris has been far away from seats of power working with a rogue spacer crew who find a wreck in space that bears all the hallmarks of an Architect attack. The peace may soon be over.

What I really appreciated in this story was a huge sense of scale. The Earth being turned into massive alien art in just a few early paragraphs shows you what you’re in for. Tchaikovsky gives us a sense of a decades long battle and a centuries long evolution of humanity that gives the story that sense of depth. This galaxy is full of storylines, politics, technology, and dangers that this volume is just the latest instalment of. It’s a first volume very much focused on getting us to understand where things are, who are the major powers and introducing the characters we will be tagging along with.

We get a humanity that has split into cults, duelling lawyers, right wing purists and a secretive secret service with its own agendas. Then we have aliens galore and in particular this book introduces the Hegemony slowly convincing worlds to join it and who are ruled by….giant whelks who have their own secrets. Just for fun we get the Parthenon who are a race of women designed to be the best humanity can have in terms of strength, intelligence, and purpose. It’s a giant swirling mass of life that gives the story’s universe an enormous playground and we regularly get to visit a range of planets with dangers either from the inhabitants who worlds where the radiation, heat or sometimes just even the flora will kill you.

With that scene setting we can then enjoy the story and to help the reader get introduced to the bigger storylines to come we focus on Idris and Solace coming back together. Then we get introduced to the rest of the crew of the spacer ship Vulture God that like to find wrecks in space…and occasionally save some items for themselves. Solace is a familiar soldier archetype but very much one with her own individual morality and sense of self rather than simply one to follow orders. Idris is a veteran of travelling in space; introverted, nervous, and still suffering the scars of the last big Architect confrontation. Idris also has the ability as all Intermediaries do to travel in Unspace – the dimension that allows spaceships to travel vast distances. Here Tchaikovsky gives an strange unsettling non-place that feels haunted and where everyone feels observed – whenever a crewmember is in this place the story very much feels a sense of approaching horror and no one feels at ease including the reader!

Th wider crew of the Vulture God are also fascinating with a focus in particular on the Captain Rollo a amoral, charming and equally distrusting presence who treats the crew like his family; Kris their aristocratic on shoip lawyer who is running from her violent past and always enjoys a fight and my favourite Olli; Olli is a skilled mechanic who uses her knowledge to give her a mechanical body that gives her strength and agility regardless of her various physical disabilities. Her ingenuity and sense of worth battles constantly Solace for whom a society that has focused on perfecting the human genome is very much seen as a threat to Olliu. I loved how Tchaikovsky makes us accept Olli on her own terms - she too can be flawed and also a hero at the same time, but we see her first not her disabilities which she lives with not in spite of.

Finally connecting it all is the mystery of the architects from the moment the crew find this ship turned into weaving tendrils of metal and once living tissue they feel a mix of the desire to run, make a profit or warn people. Their discovery sets off a chain of adventures and planet hopping as the crew run up against various powers. Very much the first domino creating a cascade of galactic level tensions finally erupting. Each adventure requires action, thought and some interesting heroics using the skills of the crew and you soon learn no one is safe in this world which adds to the tension but behind it all is the mystery of what are the Architects and what does their return mean. To which for good measure we also get some clues about an ancient race known as the Originators who created the space lanes of Unspace and have old technology the Architects seem to fear. Just as things look settled the rugs are then taken out from under us and the finale is full on everything being put on the line and sets up the next volume too.

Its fun, action packed, filled with interesting characters and really does give us a sense of scale and more secrets to be uncovered. My only reservation from a Subjective Chaos point of view is this is very much an adventure beginning than just standing on its own two feet. However, it is also definitely one of the highlights of my SF reading this year! Highly enjoyable and oh look the sequel is calling to me now too! Strongly recommended!