Collection
Publication
New York, NY : Orbit, 2021.
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML:The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us an extraordinary new space opera about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all. The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery . . . Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers. After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared - and Idris and his kind became obsolete. Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It's clearly the work of the Architects - but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain..… (more)
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User reviews
LibraryThing member SChant
A decent Space Opera. The characterisation and world-building are sketchy but acceptable, but the real problem is sheer bulk. If 150 – 200 pages of extraneous flab had been trimmed off it could have been a really tight and pacy novel. So, a reasonable read with judicious skimming, but I probably
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won’t be picking up the next doorstopper instalment (why is everything a trilogy these days?). Show Less
LibraryThing member rivkat
Forty years after the Architects destroyed Earth and a bunch of other inhabited planets, humans have started squabbling again. A group of cloned/parthogenesis-reproducing warriors are either interested in getting rid of anyone else or determined to be humanity’s protectors, depending on who you
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listen to; a bunch of planets have become clients of alien overlords whose tech is capable of keeping Architects away, and they’re proselytizing, and the remainder of humanity is semi-united under the name Hugh, continuing the process that produced the one successful anti-Architect tool by enslaving and killing hundreds of criminals for every one who emerges able to navigate unspace. That’s when things go south. Look, there’s a lot going on, and species I haven’t mentioned, and it’s a wild ride; the characters have different voices and senses of humor, and I think it’s my favorite of his I’ve read. Show Less
LibraryThing member antao
As I read Tchaikovsky’s “Shards of Earth” I remembered an article by Frank Wilczek on “What is space”. Wilczek speaks about space in terms what he calls "The Grid" ... he calls this ... the primary reality, of which matter is a secondary manifestation ... Where our eyes see nothing our
There is a persistent myth that Einstein, with his special theory of relativity, eliminated the ether. As with most myths, this one is based on a kernel of truth. Einstein indeed discredited some clunky models, popular at the time, which postulated mechanical underpinnings for the electric and magnetic fields. Those crude “ethers” are gone. But the implicit message, that Einstein emptied out space, is dead wrong. Einstein did not eliminate space-filling fields as the primary ingredients of physical theory.
He also says: Besides the fluctuating activity of quantum fields, space is filled with several layers of more permanent, substantial stuff. These are plenums, or ethers, in something closer to the original spirit of Aristotle and Descartes—they are materials that fill space. In some cases, we can identify what they’re made of and even produce little samples of it.
So when a mass can also be called an energy from E = m(0)c^2 and this seems to come from the structure of space-time, surely there's more below the almost crude space-time picture of Einstein, something deeper that's responsible for this energy. So this formula should be able to be derived from this. At a quantum level of description?
Tchaikovsky’s “unspace” as a grid? Or “unspace” as Vonnegut's Chronosynclastic Infindibulum? Or as Harry Harrison 's spaceship fuel, "transvestite"? Doesn’t really matter. “Shards of Earth” is a passable yarn.
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brains, pondering the revelations of sharply tuned experiments, discover the Grid that powers physical reality. He also reveals that Einstein only eliminated "clunky models" of the ether.There is a persistent myth that Einstein, with his special theory of relativity, eliminated the ether. As with most myths, this one is based on a kernel of truth. Einstein indeed discredited some clunky models, popular at the time, which postulated mechanical underpinnings for the electric and magnetic fields. Those crude “ethers” are gone. But the implicit message, that Einstein emptied out space, is dead wrong. Einstein did not eliminate space-filling fields as the primary ingredients of physical theory.
He also says: Besides the fluctuating activity of quantum fields, space is filled with several layers of more permanent, substantial stuff. These are plenums, or ethers, in something closer to the original spirit of Aristotle and Descartes—they are materials that fill space. In some cases, we can identify what they’re made of and even produce little samples of it.
So when a mass can also be called an energy from E = m(0)c^2 and this seems to come from the structure of space-time, surely there's more below the almost crude space-time picture of Einstein, something deeper that's responsible for this energy. So this formula should be able to be derived from this. At a quantum level of description?
Tchaikovsky’s “unspace” as a grid? Or “unspace” as Vonnegut's Chronosynclastic Infindibulum? Or as Harry Harrison 's spaceship fuel, "transvestite"? Doesn’t really matter. “Shards of Earth” is a passable yarn.
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LibraryThing member santhony
I’ve had mixed results when reading the author’s work. I found Children of Time to be outstanding, but the sequel, Children of Ruin an exercise in navel gazing. City of Last Chances was not science fiction and I didn’t particularly care for it. I decided to order the author’s Final
This science fiction work is set in a universe in which the Earth and many of its colonies have been destroyed by an alien civilization called The Architects. Periodically, a huge artifact simply appears in the skies over a planet, and systematically destroys it. The destruction is brought to a halt by the development of a class of specially trained humans who can somehow “make contact” with The Architects. The Architects disappear for decades. This book takes place at the time when the Architects return.
The primary characters of the book are the crew of a deep space salvage ship. One of the crew members (Idris) is one of the specially trained humans who made contact with the Architects. Due to his training, he is able to navigate the ship through “unspace”, the trick used to avoid FTL travel. The story includes other alien civilizations, which are not terribly well imagined.
In my opinion, the book could have been edited to lose about 100 pages of extraneous material. While definitely better than Children of Ruin, it is a far piece from Children of Time.
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Architecture trilogy based upon the promise shown in Children of Time. This is the first book of that series.This science fiction work is set in a universe in which the Earth and many of its colonies have been destroyed by an alien civilization called The Architects. Periodically, a huge artifact simply appears in the skies over a planet, and systematically destroys it. The destruction is brought to a halt by the development of a class of specially trained humans who can somehow “make contact” with The Architects. The Architects disappear for decades. This book takes place at the time when the Architects return.
The primary characters of the book are the crew of a deep space salvage ship. One of the crew members (Idris) is one of the specially trained humans who made contact with the Architects. Due to his training, he is able to navigate the ship through “unspace”, the trick used to avoid FTL travel. The story includes other alien civilizations, which are not terribly well imagined.
In my opinion, the book could have been edited to lose about 100 pages of extraneous material. While definitely better than Children of Ruin, it is a far piece from Children of Time.
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LibraryThing member ChrisRiesbeck
OK space opera, the start of a trilogy. This is my first Tchaikovsky, so I don't know how it compares to his previous series.
Decades earlier, planet-destroying Architects were ripping populated planets apart for some unknown reason, starting with Earth. They went away after being contacted by
If you liked the Expanse, you'll probably like this, though I found it derivative in comparison.
Decades earlier, planet-destroying Architects were ripping populated planets apart for some unknown reason, starting with Earth. They went away after being contacted by
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human telepaths -- an exploited group reminiscent of the telepaths of Babylon 5. Now they might be back. A main character is the telepath who was the primary savior of humanity. Oddly, everyone notes how he hasn't aged but no one asks why not. If you liked the Expanse, you'll probably like this, though I found it derivative in comparison.
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LibraryThing member ben_a
A perfectly enjoyable read, but a disappointing step down from the Children of Time/Children of Empire duo. Fight scenes are overly cinematic in the negative sense, and the Firefly-style junk steamer camaraderie didn't do much for me. But perhaps I am simply being irascible...
LibraryThing member jakeisreading
Shards of Earth is the first instalment in The Architects Trilogy and delivers all the far-future worldbuilding and biological strangeness that many readers loved about Children of Time. The book dives straight into the action and doesn’t slow down. There’s a steep learning curve with different
My favourite thing about the book was experiencing Tchaikovksy's curious imagination. Who else would come up with ideas like incomprehensible moon-sized aliens that can manipulate matter on a molecular level? Or a spacecraft that substitutes propulsion with a ‘grabby drive’, harnessing ambient gravity to flit through space like an interstellar fly? Discoveries are vast in this story set in a post-singularity far-future.
The plot closely follows a ragtag salvaging crew who are in just a bit over their heads, and there’s plenty of drama of the personal and world-saving variety to keep up the tension. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like I really connected with the characters, but I might have been more emotionally invested in the book had my schedule allowed for longer reading sessions.
While I didn’t love Shards of Earth quite as much as I did Children of Time, the overarching mystery of the Architects has me excited to see where this series goes next.
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names, places and organisations to get your head around, but the handy glossary helped jog my memory between reading sessions.My favourite thing about the book was experiencing Tchaikovksy's curious imagination. Who else would come up with ideas like incomprehensible moon-sized aliens that can manipulate matter on a molecular level? Or a spacecraft that substitutes propulsion with a ‘grabby drive’, harnessing ambient gravity to flit through space like an interstellar fly? Discoveries are vast in this story set in a post-singularity far-future.
The plot closely follows a ragtag salvaging crew who are in just a bit over their heads, and there’s plenty of drama of the personal and world-saving variety to keep up the tension. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like I really connected with the characters, but I might have been more emotionally invested in the book had my schedule allowed for longer reading sessions.
While I didn’t love Shards of Earth quite as much as I did Children of Time, the overarching mystery of the Architects has me excited to see where this series goes next.
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LibraryThing member ronploude
The Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a great beginning to a new series. Having just finished the book, I can’t project where the rest of the series will go, which is a good thing. Not being able to do so is an indicator of the standalone nature of this book and of how it left me
Book one of The Final Architecture series is about the interspecies crew of an independent salvage ship named the Vulture God. The ship and crew scour the galaxy in search of items that they have been privately contracted to retrieve. Their most recent assignment gets them in the middle of an interworld dispute over the re-emergence of The Architects, an unstoppable alien species that reshapes inhabited planets thus destroying them and their inhabitants.
After locating and salvaging a destroyed ship they were contracted to find, the Vulture God gets hijacked by alien gangsters who steel both the ship and the wreck. The crew, with the help of a Parthini agent, manage to hijack their ship and salvaged prize back. The gangsters pursue them through unspace and finally recapturing the Vulture God on the outskirts of human space. The Partheni, a human clone warrior clan, boards the gangster’s ship, rescues the Vulture God and its crew, and sets up the scene for the book’s climatic finality, a battle with The Architects.
One of the Vulture God’s crew members is an Intermediary Navigator named Idris Telemmier. Intermediaries have mental abilities that help them quickly calculate space routes through uncharted unspace. While Idris is in demand for his skill, he prefers to be part of the Vulture God crew and not be aligned with any government or political group. The humans want him repatriated so that they can use him. Idris is a survivor of the last war with The Architect and was the one who mentally communicated with it resulting in The Architect withdrawing from its world-destroying endeavor. When another Architect shows up over Berlenhof, a central human colonial administrative world, Idris volunteers to command a Partheni ship to attack The Architect and mentally defeat it. He fails in at both and is withdrawn to recuperate. Still recovering from his battle, he takes the Vulture God out to the battle and, this time, mind-melds with The Architect and once again gets it to withdraw.
After several days of recovery, Idris warns the colonies that The Architect will be back and that they should stop celebrating its defeat and spend those efforts better preparing for the next battle. The book ends with Idris joining the Parthini warrior faction where he pledges to establish a class for training volunteers to become intermediaries.
There was more going on in this book than the story. Human colonies are broken up into factions that reflect some of those we have today. There are the Nativists who want a homogeneous human-centric society and are against humans who disagree with them. There is a Hegemonic cult that looks to an alien race for care and protection and whose believers are willing to declare absolute fealty to them. There is the Parthenon whose followers believe that their righteous cloned purity and scientific advancements make them a benefactor class that can be called on to save humanity when threatened. And finally, there are the Hugh, Council of Human Interests, who are human centrist wishing to rule over all the human colonies. These factions are distrustful of each other and look for ways to spread their beliefs to the rest of humanity.
I imagine that the next book takes off from where this one leaves off, but, even without another book, Shards of Earth was immensely enjoyable and was a good mentally engaging read.
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liturgically satisfied.Book one of The Final Architecture series is about the interspecies crew of an independent salvage ship named the Vulture God. The ship and crew scour the galaxy in search of items that they have been privately contracted to retrieve. Their most recent assignment gets them in the middle of an interworld dispute over the re-emergence of The Architects, an unstoppable alien species that reshapes inhabited planets thus destroying them and their inhabitants.
After locating and salvaging a destroyed ship they were contracted to find, the Vulture God gets hijacked by alien gangsters who steel both the ship and the wreck. The crew, with the help of a Parthini agent, manage to hijack their ship and salvaged prize back. The gangsters pursue them through unspace and finally recapturing the Vulture God on the outskirts of human space. The Partheni, a human clone warrior clan, boards the gangster’s ship, rescues the Vulture God and its crew, and sets up the scene for the book’s climatic finality, a battle with The Architects.
One of the Vulture God’s crew members is an Intermediary Navigator named Idris Telemmier. Intermediaries have mental abilities that help them quickly calculate space routes through uncharted unspace. While Idris is in demand for his skill, he prefers to be part of the Vulture God crew and not be aligned with any government or political group. The humans want him repatriated so that they can use him. Idris is a survivor of the last war with The Architect and was the one who mentally communicated with it resulting in The Architect withdrawing from its world-destroying endeavor. When another Architect shows up over Berlenhof, a central human colonial administrative world, Idris volunteers to command a Partheni ship to attack The Architect and mentally defeat it. He fails in at both and is withdrawn to recuperate. Still recovering from his battle, he takes the Vulture God out to the battle and, this time, mind-melds with The Architect and once again gets it to withdraw.
After several days of recovery, Idris warns the colonies that The Architect will be back and that they should stop celebrating its defeat and spend those efforts better preparing for the next battle. The book ends with Idris joining the Parthini warrior faction where he pledges to establish a class for training volunteers to become intermediaries.
There was more going on in this book than the story. Human colonies are broken up into factions that reflect some of those we have today. There are the Nativists who want a homogeneous human-centric society and are against humans who disagree with them. There is a Hegemonic cult that looks to an alien race for care and protection and whose believers are willing to declare absolute fealty to them. There is the Parthenon whose followers believe that their righteous cloned purity and scientific advancements make them a benefactor class that can be called on to save humanity when threatened. And finally, there are the Hugh, Council of Human Interests, who are human centrist wishing to rule over all the human colonies. These factions are distrustful of each other and look for ways to spread their beliefs to the rest of humanity.
I imagine that the next book takes off from where this one leaves off, but, even without another book, Shards of Earth was immensely enjoyable and was a good mentally engaging read.
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LibraryThing member capewood
2021 book #79. 2021. 40 years ago an implacable alien menace almost wiped out humanity's place in the galaxy. Now they're back. Good story, good characters, good world-building. My favorite hard SF of the year.
LibraryThing member breic
A great story by the end, but it takes a long time to get there. I wish Tchaikovsky would go back and rewrite the first 200 pages.
LibraryThing member MontzaleeW
Shards of Earth
(The Final Architecture #1)
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
This book is going in my favorite folder! Wow! Loved it! This is a complex story wrapped in worlds of wonder with the most imaginative characters ever!
I felt like I was there, like I knew each planet and their society. For each world! I
The many concepts of space and unspace were made comprehensible and it fascinated and terrified me!
I can't wait to read the next book! This has so much going on! Politics, societies and their issues, strange creatures/species, plants, the unknowns, the bond between team mates, the Ints who use their mind to navigate space and unspace and battle the Architects! There is so much more too! Awesome!
(The Final Architecture #1)
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
This book is going in my favorite folder! Wow! Loved it! This is a complex story wrapped in worlds of wonder with the most imaginative characters ever!
I felt like I was there, like I knew each planet and their society. For each world! I
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felt I knew the characters, and there are plenty, each stood out and I was able to keep them straight because the author made each character so vividly alive!The many concepts of space and unspace were made comprehensible and it fascinated and terrified me!
I can't wait to read the next book! This has so much going on! Politics, societies and their issues, strange creatures/species, plants, the unknowns, the bond between team mates, the Ints who use their mind to navigate space and unspace and battle the Architects! There is so much more too! Awesome!
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LibraryThing member purpledog
Shards of Earth just proved to me again why I am such a big fan of Tchaikovsky. He really knows how to tell a story. His imagination and prose are both outstanding. Combine that with a well thought out, fast-moving plot and I have never been disappointed.
If you have not read anything by this
If you have not read anything by this
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author, I suggest you put one of his books on your TBR list. All around great read and I highly recommend to fans of Space Opera. Show Less
LibraryThing member AVoraciousReader
Book source ~ Tour
Earth and many other worlds were destroyed by the Architects, a species that is planet-sized and who kills billions when they reshape a world (or ships) into art. Mind-blowing stuff. How do you stop something so huge, who doesn’t even acknowledge sentient life? Enter the
Ho-ly shit! This is a massive richly detailed world. There are so many species, so many customs, so much politics that in the beginning it was hard for me to get a handle on everything. It didn’t help that my life was completely disrupted in May so I could only shoehorn in a few pages at a time. Not conducive to a great reading experience of an epic space opera. In any case, it does take a bit of sorting out as to what the hell is going on and who is who, but once the dust settles oh, boy. Hold on to your britches because this is one hell of a ride.
The characters are awesome. Each and every one of them. There is not a single one who drags the story down. Each species is unique and described in detail. Even so I did have a hard time picturing some of them. The story flows. I mean, really flows. There’s action and danger and personal conflicts. It has everything. The story revolves around Idris and Solace, but is told from a couple of different POVs which is good because a tale this massive needs more than one POV to provide a well-rounded feel. Now that I’m immersed in this world I need more. I will definitely be continuing this series. If you love epic sci-fi then you better not pass this one by.
Earth and many other worlds were destroyed by the Architects, a species that is planet-sized and who kills billions when they reshape a world (or ships) into art. Mind-blowing stuff. How do you stop something so huge, who doesn’t even acknowledge sentient life? Enter the
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Intermediaries or Ints. Idris Telemmier is a survivor of the war against the Architects as is Solace, a member of the Parthenon. 70 years after they ended the war it looks like the Architects are back and this time there are precious few of the first class of Ints left to fight this time. However, Idris is still alive and he’s going to do all he can to defeat them or, at the very least, convince them to go away. Solace is once again by his side, but will it be enough?Ho-ly shit! This is a massive richly detailed world. There are so many species, so many customs, so much politics that in the beginning it was hard for me to get a handle on everything. It didn’t help that my life was completely disrupted in May so I could only shoehorn in a few pages at a time. Not conducive to a great reading experience of an epic space opera. In any case, it does take a bit of sorting out as to what the hell is going on and who is who, but once the dust settles oh, boy. Hold on to your britches because this is one hell of a ride.
The characters are awesome. Each and every one of them. There is not a single one who drags the story down. Each species is unique and described in detail. Even so I did have a hard time picturing some of them. The story flows. I mean, really flows. There’s action and danger and personal conflicts. It has everything. The story revolves around Idris and Solace, but is told from a couple of different POVs which is good because a tale this massive needs more than one POV to provide a well-rounded feel. Now that I’m immersed in this world I need more. I will definitely be continuing this series. If you love epic sci-fi then you better not pass this one by.
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LibraryThing member malcrf
A little fantastical, but fascinating characters and page-turning prose. Probably a 3.75 really, but not bad.
LibraryThing member tuusannuuska
There's just so much to love about this book. I keep being amazed at Tchaikovsky's imagination and skill as a writer, so superb. Everything from the world to the plot to the themes to the characters to the dry, unexpected humor is just so well crafted and immersive that I just don't know how I'll
Maybe I'll come back later to write a more articulated review, but for now I can just sum this up as easily the best scifi I've read so far this year.
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cope waiting for the sequel.Maybe I'll come back later to write a more articulated review, but for now I can just sum this up as easily the best scifi I've read so far this year.
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LibraryThing member Shrike58
If there is a trend that I can point to in terms of my genre fiction reading this year it's that, too often, I start a novel with some anticipation, but find myself being underwhelmed. This has happened enough that I have to conclude that the problem is with me, rather than with some of these
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books. As to what this problem might be, it may well be that the current emergency has just kill my ability to have patience with the more brick-like novels, particularly when what patience I do have I save for being engaged with the real world. That brings us to this novel, which is well-constructed and has depth of world-building, but which really didn't engender that much fascination; at this stage of the game the main characters really aren't grabbing me. That leaves the question of whether or not I want to read another thousand pages of this stuff; probably, but I have to think about it. Show Less
LibraryThing member reading_fox
Adrian's new trilogy - SF again. Almost space opera, in that it's multi-system spanning with distinct trade blocks and human factions, but the focus, like an Epic Fantasy, is on a small core of characters rather than a grander scope.
Humanity had entered a golden age with DIspora out to many
However this was several decades ago and life moves one. They'd been turned back by a few souls who had the right mindset to understand u-space and gravity and could 'talk' in a manner of 'go away' to whatever these things were. One of the last remaining First Wave specialists was Idris, who has made a living as a quiet life with a spacer crew running junk retrieval. However what was supposed to be just another job gets decidedly complicated when they discover a ship that has the distinct Architect signature. They try to keep it quiet and report it responsibly, but many parties are interested including an old friend from one of the more radical human factions.
It actually reads somewhat like the Apt series, with characters fading in and out, a lot of assumed background knowledge which is carefully alluded to if you pay attention (there's a timeline and glossary at the back). One or two of the personalities are a bit too similar, especially the irritating Trine/Rollo pair. The world building is otherwise interesting, playing with gravity is a bit tricky to make believable and the uspace is always going to be handwavy - but it's a plot device and intentionally unclear.
Nice to read some new space opera!
Humanity had entered a golden age with DIspora out to many
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different star systems using the not completely understood Throughways of u-space that an alien civilization had left in their wake (a good cop out of violating FTL physics). Other aliens had been encountered, but they all proved to me more or less amenable to Trade, cultural exchange and working relationships developed. Then the Architects arrived - they'd been encountered by other species before, all of whom had been destroyed. The vast Architect crystal ships had absolute control of gravity, and wrecked everything they desired, distorting it into twisted shapes sometimes of beauty but bereft of life - and when this involved whole planets the catastrophe was unimaginable. However this was several decades ago and life moves one. They'd been turned back by a few souls who had the right mindset to understand u-space and gravity and could 'talk' in a manner of 'go away' to whatever these things were. One of the last remaining First Wave specialists was Idris, who has made a living as a quiet life with a spacer crew running junk retrieval. However what was supposed to be just another job gets decidedly complicated when they discover a ship that has the distinct Architect signature. They try to keep it quiet and report it responsibly, but many parties are interested including an old friend from one of the more radical human factions.
It actually reads somewhat like the Apt series, with characters fading in and out, a lot of assumed background knowledge which is carefully alluded to if you pay attention (there's a timeline and glossary at the back). One or two of the personalities are a bit too similar, especially the irritating Trine/Rollo pair. The world building is otherwise interesting, playing with gravity is a bit tricky to make believable and the uspace is always going to be handwavy - but it's a plot device and intentionally unclear.
Nice to read some new space opera!
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LibraryThing member CraigGoodwin
Another thoroughly enjoyable tale from Adrian Tchaikovsky. He seems to deliver consistently high quality and fun books.
Excellent story, with more to come, and strong characterisation. Enigmatic bad guys are always a bonus too.
Enjoyed the narration too.
Excellent story, with more to come, and strong characterisation. Enigmatic bad guys are always a bonus too.
Enjoyed the narration too.
LibraryThing member SpaceandSorcery
I received this novel from Pan/McMillan through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review: my thanks to both of them for this opportunity.
Shards of Earth is my sixth book from Adrian Tchaikovsky and one unlike the others I read so far: this author moves from one kind of story to another with
At the start of the novel, galactic civilization is two generations past a catastrophic event which threatened to annihilate every form of life - human or alien - in the universe: moon-sized things appeared literally out of nowhere, changing the shape of the worlds they encountered in a sort of destructively “artistic” way, erasing in the process all life present on those worlds. The Architects - so the mysterious entities were named - seemed attracted only by inhabited worlds, and their deadly attention did not spare either alien or human civilization: Earth was one of the worlds so reshaped, and the people who were able to escape from the cataclysmic remolding of their worlds lived like refugees under the constant threat of the appearance of an Architect in their skies. A last, desperate attempt was made to contact the aliens by genetically enhancing a group of human volunteers (called the Intermediaries) who would be able to communicate with the Architects in the hope of stopping the destruction: during an all-out battle involving the allied fleet created to face the threat, the Intermediaries were able to stop the mindless carnage, and the aliens disappeared just as swiftly as they had manifested.
Some fifty years after the end of the war, what had been an alliance forged under the threat of annihilation has now fractured into a number of governing bodies more often than not at odds with each other: danger forgotten, every one of them - including some criminal conglomerates - seeks power and dominance over the others. The Intermediaries, already marked in body and mind by the transformation, did not fare so well and most of them died, while a program to create more is underway using convicted criminals, not so much as a defense against a return of the Architects - which many deem impossible - but rather because one of the side effects of the genetic enhancing is the ability to navigate unspace, the ghastly nowhere between worlds. Idris Telemmier is the last one of the original group of Intermediaries, and he now works as a navigator for a crew of interstellar scavengers on a ship very aptly named Vulture God: he does not age, nor does he need sleep, but he’s a very troubled individual and all he wants is to be forgotten and to forget - as impossible as it is - the horrors he had to witness, which makes a strange discovery, made by the Vulture God’s crew in the far reaches of space, even more disturbing: the Architects might be coming back…
It takes a while for Shards of Earth to make the reader comfortable within its pages, or at least that was my experience at first: Tchaikovsky wastes almost no time in explaining his universe, plunging the audience in medias res so that one feels a little lost - that is, until a closer look at the character and civilizations list, not to mention the useful timeline, opens a window on this huge, complex background and everything falls into place. The aliens peopling the Galaxy are indeed quite bizarre creatures, confirming the author’s richness of imagination: they are not only weird-looking, but they come from equally outlandish civilizations and their interactions with the humans can go from the humorous to the quite terrifying. Yet it’s the human (or post-human…) characters I connected with more deeply, particularly the crew of the Vulture God, which gave me the same kind of wonderful vibes I could find in Firefly or The Expanse, making me feel perfectly at home with this group of mismatched individuals.
Idris is the one who required more “work” from me because at first he comes across as gloomy and sullen: it’s only as his story comes into light, bit by bit, that it’s possible to understand the depth of the damage inflicted on him first by the procedures necessary to turn him into an Intermediary, then by his war experiences and finally by the constant journeys into unspace - the navigational medium that can turn an unmodified human into a crazed wreck and weighs on an Intermediary with the conflicting sensations of loneliness and of a looming, threatening presence. If Idris is able to still maintain a grip on sanity it’s because of the bond he forged with his crew-mates, an apparently ill-assorted group that has grown into a found family whose interactions are a joy to behold - from expansive captain Rollo who calls the members of his crew “children”, to dour drone specialist Olli, whose stunted body made her a wizard in remote control of machinery; from crab-shaped alien tech Kit to lawyer Kris, whose main job is to protect Idris from being indentured by unscrupulous conglomerates, they all create a wonderful sense of familial cohesion that looks like the only barrier separating Idris from a devastating breakdown.
That’s the main reason the arrival of an old acquaintance of Idris places them all on defensive mode: Solace is a member of the Parthenon, a human faction that long ago left Earth establishing a society of parthenogenically created women-soldiers - she and her sisters fought valiantly against the Architects, but are now looked on with suspicion, not least because there is a great deal of misinformation about their civilization and goals. Solace is tasked with convincing Idris to help the Parthenon create their own Intermediaries, should they be needed with the possible return of the Architects, and when she joins the Vulture God she initially upsets the balance aboard the vessel, but as the days go on and a series of dramatic events plagues the crew, she feels torn between commitment to her duty and the growing sense of belonging that her adventures aboard the ship are bringing about.
As far as space opera goes, Shards of Earth is a perfect, quite engaging representative of the genre, and for this very reason I refrained from mentioning any detail from the fast-paced string of events at the core of this story. What I’m more than happy to share, however, is that the last 15-20% of the novel moves from a fast pace to a breakneck speed that had me turning the pages as quickly as I could, because the stakes were enormous and the various revelations beyond compelling. And the good news is that although this is the first volume in a series, it does not end in a cliffhanger: granted, we understand that the various pieces have just been set in motion on this galactic chessboard, but this segment of the story is tied up quite satisfactorily - although I would not mind reading the next book right now ;-)
If you are a fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky, I’m certain you will enjoy the depth and scope of his new work, and if you never read any of his books, this might very well be an amazing introduction. Either way, you will not be disappointed….
Shards of Earth is my sixth book from Adrian Tchaikovsky and one unlike the others I read so far: this author moves from one kind of story to another with
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enviable ease, so that I’m now certain that no matter which work of his I pick up, I will be pleasantly surprised by what I find. This first volume in the Final Architects series brings us fully into the space opera genre with a story spanning many worlds and civilizations and introducing the most terrible kind of adversary, one which does not seem to act out of malice or thirst for power, but simply because that is its way - one for whom the words collateral damage or consequences seem to hold no meaning at all. More than once I have wondered how events of the past year have weighed on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s imagination as he crafted the Architects, entities that work according to their own inner programming (not unlike a virus!), unaware of the damage they are inflicting…At the start of the novel, galactic civilization is two generations past a catastrophic event which threatened to annihilate every form of life - human or alien - in the universe: moon-sized things appeared literally out of nowhere, changing the shape of the worlds they encountered in a sort of destructively “artistic” way, erasing in the process all life present on those worlds. The Architects - so the mysterious entities were named - seemed attracted only by inhabited worlds, and their deadly attention did not spare either alien or human civilization: Earth was one of the worlds so reshaped, and the people who were able to escape from the cataclysmic remolding of their worlds lived like refugees under the constant threat of the appearance of an Architect in their skies. A last, desperate attempt was made to contact the aliens by genetically enhancing a group of human volunteers (called the Intermediaries) who would be able to communicate with the Architects in the hope of stopping the destruction: during an all-out battle involving the allied fleet created to face the threat, the Intermediaries were able to stop the mindless carnage, and the aliens disappeared just as swiftly as they had manifested.
Some fifty years after the end of the war, what had been an alliance forged under the threat of annihilation has now fractured into a number of governing bodies more often than not at odds with each other: danger forgotten, every one of them - including some criminal conglomerates - seeks power and dominance over the others. The Intermediaries, already marked in body and mind by the transformation, did not fare so well and most of them died, while a program to create more is underway using convicted criminals, not so much as a defense against a return of the Architects - which many deem impossible - but rather because one of the side effects of the genetic enhancing is the ability to navigate unspace, the ghastly nowhere between worlds. Idris Telemmier is the last one of the original group of Intermediaries, and he now works as a navigator for a crew of interstellar scavengers on a ship very aptly named Vulture God: he does not age, nor does he need sleep, but he’s a very troubled individual and all he wants is to be forgotten and to forget - as impossible as it is - the horrors he had to witness, which makes a strange discovery, made by the Vulture God’s crew in the far reaches of space, even more disturbing: the Architects might be coming back…
It takes a while for Shards of Earth to make the reader comfortable within its pages, or at least that was my experience at first: Tchaikovsky wastes almost no time in explaining his universe, plunging the audience in medias res so that one feels a little lost - that is, until a closer look at the character and civilizations list, not to mention the useful timeline, opens a window on this huge, complex background and everything falls into place. The aliens peopling the Galaxy are indeed quite bizarre creatures, confirming the author’s richness of imagination: they are not only weird-looking, but they come from equally outlandish civilizations and their interactions with the humans can go from the humorous to the quite terrifying. Yet it’s the human (or post-human…) characters I connected with more deeply, particularly the crew of the Vulture God, which gave me the same kind of wonderful vibes I could find in Firefly or The Expanse, making me feel perfectly at home with this group of mismatched individuals.
Idris is the one who required more “work” from me because at first he comes across as gloomy and sullen: it’s only as his story comes into light, bit by bit, that it’s possible to understand the depth of the damage inflicted on him first by the procedures necessary to turn him into an Intermediary, then by his war experiences and finally by the constant journeys into unspace - the navigational medium that can turn an unmodified human into a crazed wreck and weighs on an Intermediary with the conflicting sensations of loneliness and of a looming, threatening presence. If Idris is able to still maintain a grip on sanity it’s because of the bond he forged with his crew-mates, an apparently ill-assorted group that has grown into a found family whose interactions are a joy to behold - from expansive captain Rollo who calls the members of his crew “children”, to dour drone specialist Olli, whose stunted body made her a wizard in remote control of machinery; from crab-shaped alien tech Kit to lawyer Kris, whose main job is to protect Idris from being indentured by unscrupulous conglomerates, they all create a wonderful sense of familial cohesion that looks like the only barrier separating Idris from a devastating breakdown.
That’s the main reason the arrival of an old acquaintance of Idris places them all on defensive mode: Solace is a member of the Parthenon, a human faction that long ago left Earth establishing a society of parthenogenically created women-soldiers - she and her sisters fought valiantly against the Architects, but are now looked on with suspicion, not least because there is a great deal of misinformation about their civilization and goals. Solace is tasked with convincing Idris to help the Parthenon create their own Intermediaries, should they be needed with the possible return of the Architects, and when she joins the Vulture God she initially upsets the balance aboard the vessel, but as the days go on and a series of dramatic events plagues the crew, she feels torn between commitment to her duty and the growing sense of belonging that her adventures aboard the ship are bringing about.
As far as space opera goes, Shards of Earth is a perfect, quite engaging representative of the genre, and for this very reason I refrained from mentioning any detail from the fast-paced string of events at the core of this story. What I’m more than happy to share, however, is that the last 15-20% of the novel moves from a fast pace to a breakneck speed that had me turning the pages as quickly as I could, because the stakes were enormous and the various revelations beyond compelling. And the good news is that although this is the first volume in a series, it does not end in a cliffhanger: granted, we understand that the various pieces have just been set in motion on this galactic chessboard, but this segment of the story is tied up quite satisfactorily - although I would not mind reading the next book right now ;-)
If you are a fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky, I’m certain you will enjoy the depth and scope of his new work, and if you never read any of his books, this might very well be an amazing introduction. Either way, you will not be disappointed….
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LibraryThing member macha
the author has always been prolific, and his books are full of interesting ideas. but this one, first of a trilogy, is an action-oriented space opera, a whole new type for him, and a lot of fun for both writer and reader. it's the far future, and Earth has been swallowed by an anomaly, the unknown
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Architect, but a universe of earth-colonies and alien planets still exist. the aliens and alien cultures are fascinating, as you would expect from Tchaikovsky, the characters are lively, and their interactions are often surprising. it's all exactly the kind of thing i felt like reading, especially just as it seemed to me like i was getting a little behind on my Tchaikovsky. onward to Book #2. Show Less