Shards of Earth

Review originally posted on Geeky Galaxy.

I've started writing my reviews as I read, instead of how I used to do it, which was after I'd finished everything. I think it gives a slightly different perspective on things. So this review is in chronological order of reading the book...

There are also some mild spoilers below, but there's no major plot points and I've kept them to a minimum!

At first, Shards of Earth is very sci-fi-esque in that the beginning is heavy as you begin to learn this world, it's various alien species, it's political arrangements, hell, even physics. So for the first few days, I was picking this book up, reading a few pages and putting it down because I was struggling to dedicate the brain power to it to make sense of everything.

About 10% in and we're Introduced to Solace and Idris. Solace is a woman from a powerful female-only warrior society who desperately want an “intermediary” to ensure that not only are they the strongest, they have the ability to enter and navigate “unspace”. “Unspace” isn't typically easily navigated as most humans don't do well in it when awake, most sleep during it to avoid possible madness, comas etc. Intermediaries are specifically genetically engineered to be able to handle unspace, and there's a hint of much more.

Idris is one of these Intermediaries that Solace crossed paths with years ago during the defence of a planet from the “Architects”. Idris was a key weapon in the defence, and the Architects vanished for 40 years. Therefore, Idris was no longer a weapon and now just a navigator on a salvage ship.

Solace had been in cryo (stasis?) for a while, but has now been woken and tasked with getting an Intermediary for her warrior... family? She's looking for Idris...

Which is why I'm glad I stuck with this. I could see the beginnings of a great story with amazing characters. This is the first space opera I've read in a while that's gone really whacky with xeno-biology, where the descriptions sound so strange I'm struggling to even form an image of them. And I love that. They're not all bipedal with just an extra couple of fins or feathers or whatever else. The aliens are really alien. And there's a range of how they govern. There's hiveminds, hegemonies and every other sort of political/leading class you could think of. Makes a change and reminds me of Stellaris.

I don't want to post serious spoilers... but don't get too attached to the characters because you never know what could happen quite unexpectedly. One thing I did discover from this, however, is that Tchaikovsky is a master at the action sequences. Reading Solace fight in her suped-up armour against a symbiotic alien who repairs damage almost instantly was something else. It had great cadence and rhythm, with lots of tension and action, as well as lulls where you think you can catch your breath for a second before all hells breaks loose all over again.

Much like any heavy space opera, Shards of Earth takes a little bit to cement itself in your brain. A lot of aliens, a large cast of characters, ship names and more. Once it's there though, what a ride. Every page of this book was such a joy to read, from the space battles, to the urgent yet deliberate piercing of metaphysical minds. The book from start to finish was a delightful ride with plenty of world-spanning tension but also small personal relationships that explores the importance of friendship and crew.

And, of course, The Architects. They are such an amazing and unknowable antagonist, right up until the very end. They've got an incredible and terrifying power and no apparent reason as to why, other than to make art, but it all begins to make sense and leads neatly into an outcry for the next book. And I'm excited for more.

Creative and compelling.
Adrian makes another whole new world for us. With a far in the future human race along with many completely new alien lifeforms. The story remains a tantalizing space opera - you know there will be betrayals and challenges. Can the rag tag group make it? What will they have to give up to be free? What is freedom anyways? What is loyalty?
The ties that bind our heroes together are as human as we can find in a story - it's friendship and camaraderie. It's trust and faith. Maybe a little bit of hope.

Like any of his works, the reader has to do a lot of work to understand the world - but be patient and give it time. All of the new will seem familiar soon.

This was a very impressive, epic, science fiction story. While the author seemed to have a whale of a time slowly unveiling a vast and complex future setting (clearly carefully set up to pose challenging ethical questions) he managed to do that without ever giving me the feeling that I was reading an essay - no I was gripping the book hard and reading at every chance I had because this story is told through the eyes of a bunch of ground-level very flawed, yet relatable misfits from a range of backgrounds who I instantly warmed to and really wanted to see to safety.It felt a bit as if the crew from [b:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet 22733729 The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1) Becky Chambers https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405532474l/22733729.SY75.jpg 42270825] had been dumped in the middle of a truly epic, species ending, crisis. These are very different crewmates, but there's the same elements of being a family and understanding that we can all be family despite being different (even different species).

Whoa this is a difficult book to rate. I thought I would really enjoy it due to the Mass Effect vibes it gives off. But in summary unfortunately I didn't really like it. I really struggled to get through this and had to pretty much skim the last pages to finish it off.

Positives:

Some interesting themes, and technologies and alien races.

Criticism/ negatives:

- Unnecessarily long - cut at least 200 pages of it to make it 3/5. In this format it's wastes readers time, a lot! I kept looking at the bottom of the page to see what page i was on, disappointed by the progress.

- Massive info and character dumps in the beginning of the book. Poor first impressions

- Core mystery is not given enough intrigue to make me want to enjoy the journey.

- Core characters are not given...character to enjoy the journey with them

- Something is off with the writing, I wasn't really caring about anything happening in the book and had to re-read a lot of pages as attention kept drifting.

Why did I read it then? Good question, I guess there was still something in the main mystery I was hoping that would pay off in the end. But no, and would not recommend this to scifi fans either. Unfortunately will not continue with this series.

DNF @ 65%.

I think I ruined this book for myself. The ARC I received (thanks, Netgalley!) was formatted very poorly and would do a paragraph break mid sentence constantly. I had to crawl my way through the beginning of the book, and it was very hard to get invested. Then I got an audiobook copy from my library, and instead of restarting, just picked up where I left off. My general apathy to that point combined with the sheer amount of worldbuilding this book does left me confused what was going on half the time, and I kept having to rewind it to catch up. When I got to 65% in and realized I didn't care about anybody or anything going on, I knew it was time to hang it up. Because of that, I can't really say this book is bad. But I also can't recommend it, because I did listen to it and was continuously apathetic about the entire experience. It genuinely seemed like the entire first half is just people telling you a whole bunch of things that happened and people who exist and places to go and creatures there are. Also, why are there SO many named spaceships?? This entire book feels like those Blackwater chapters in A Clash of Kings where Davos is noticing every single ship in the navy and telling you their names and crews, only instead of them then all bursting into flames one by one, these ships just continue to exist, having the audacity to continue having names I'm supposed to remember.

I could see myself giving this book another try someday. The other stuff I've read by Tchaikovsky has been a hit. But I'd rather stop now instead of forcing myself to continue and guaranteeing that I'd dislike it.

Huge alien beings known as Architects have the power to wipe out planets, and no one knows why they do it. Enter the crew of the Vulture God, a salvage ship that discovers evidence of the Architects returning after 50 years of peace in the galaxy.

I loved Tchaikovsky's Children of Time so I was really excited to read this one. However I found the first third to first half to be very dense on information and quite hard to keep up with. Luckily if you stick through with it, it does get better.

50 years ago in the future, Aliens attacked humans. Destroying ships and entire planets. The only thing that saved them was Indris, an enhanced elite fighter. Only you don't know how he did it or how he's so elite until the story ramps up. Now not only must he fight intergalactic pirates but he and his new crew must save the world again from the Aliens.

What absolutely outstanding book. Adrian's imagination is just so great with his descriptions of the different alien species, worlds, and cultures. I loved to read about every character in this book and one of the antagonists was dope. I will be finishing this series immediately!

This is hard to rate, on the one hand the actual story, when it happened,  was fantastic, on the other hand much of this book was world building which was done in a, for me, boring way. The usual stereotypical ‘ragtag group of' space pirates/smugglers/traders/scoundrels but with a heart of gold goes through boring pirates/smugglers/traders/scoundrels stuff and we learn about the world in the process. You have read that in a 100 books a 100 times before. But the world, the universe, is fantastic with a rich history and multiple alien races and it just feels real.
Looking forward to book 2