Next SFF Author: Sheri S. Tepper

Previous SFF Author: Laini Taylor

SFF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Tchaikovsky is a legal executive in England. Read an excerpt of his first novel here. Keep up with Mr Tchaikovsky at the Shadows of the Apt website.

CLICK HERE FORE MORE BOOKS BY ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY.

Empire in Black and Gold: Ought not to work

Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky

If all I had to go by was the cover art (Tor 2008 edition), the title of the book and the synopsis, I probably wouldn’t give Adrian Tchaikovsky’s debut a second glimpse. After all, the artwork fails to capture the eye, the book title is bland, and the summary makes the novel sound formulaic. I mean how many times have authors written about a powerful ‘Empire’ bent on conquering the world and the unlikely heroes determined to stop them? For that matter,

Robert Thompson, Justin Blazier, Terry Weyna and Kevin Wei´s rating: 4 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Dragonfly Falling: It’s weird, but it works

Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Between introducing the uniquely imaginative concept of ‘Insect-kinden’ and showcasing a well-rounded display of characterization, world-building, story, pacing and prose, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Empire in Black and Gold was not only an impressive debut, it was also a memorable start to an exciting new fantasy series. A direct continuation of Empire in Black and Gold, Dragonfly Falling is basically more of the same, just on a larger and more entertaining scale.

Robert Thompson, Justin Blazier, Terry Weyna and Kevin Wei | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Blood of the Mantis: A slower, more thoughtful sequel

Blood of the Mantis by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Things begin to slow down some in Blood of the Mantis (2009). The third book in the SHADOWS OF THE APT series is the smallest, and yet took the longest for me to read. Adrian Tchaikovsky maintains the same level of writing established in the first two, but seems to be struggling a bit with middle-book syndrome. The events in book 3 are too important to completely leave out of the story, it’s too long to be split between other books,

Justin Blazier and Kevin Wei´s rating: 3.5 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Salute the Dark: A total and utter world war

Salute the Dark by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Salute the Dark is the fourth book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s SHADOWS OF THE APT series. At this point, the world of the Apt and Inapt is in total war. The expansionist Wasp Empire is sweeping across the Lowlands and any outlying city that sparks a glint in Emperor Alvdan II’s eye. War Master Stenwold Maker’s agents are scattered everywhere in attempt to give the Lowlands any sort of advantage against the encroaching horde. Cities like Sarn and Myna are in open rebellion.

Pat Doherty´s rating: 5 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

Guns of the Dawn: Austen collides with muskets, warlocks and war-machines

Guns of the Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Guns of the Dawn, originally published in 2015 in hardback and ebook, with a paperback version due on November 1, 2016, is my favorite fantasy that I’ve read this year … and I read a lot of fantasy.

The story begins in media res, as gentlewoman Emily Marchwic fights her first battle in muggy, oppressive swamplands, as a new conscript in the Lascanne army. There’s a brief, inconclusive battle with their enemies, the Denlanders, who are almost impossible to see in the impenetrable murk until they are upon her and her friend Elise.

Children of Time: Too long but fascinating

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Children of Time (2015), the first book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s CHILDREN OF TIME series, is an expansive and visionary epic that speculates about the future of humanity.

In the first chapter, we meet a scientist who has managed to extend her life so that she can create her own world. Her plan is to drop monkeys on a terraformed planet, let loose a virus that will uplift them, wait until they evolve, and then introduce herself as their god.

Children of Ruin: Scary biological science fiction

Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Children of Ruin (2019) is the second book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s CHILDREN OF TIME series, following Children of Time, which you’ll want to read first.

Children of time, which I called “an expansive and visionary epic that speculates about the future of humanity,” was fascinating. In it we watched the evolution of a species of spider that was uplifted by a man-made virus.

The Tiger and the Wolf: Compelling shapeshifter lore in a Bronze Age world

The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Tiger and the Wolf (2016), just issued in trade paperback format, immerses you a Bronze Age/early Iron Age world, where every human is a shapeshifter. People divide into clans according to the animal they change into, which happens instantly and, for the most part, at will. Their shapeshifting animal informs their clan’s physical appearance as well as the nature of their society. It’s a brutal life, with the stronger tribes like Tigers and Wolves fighting for supremacy. Groups like these dominate the weaker clans like the Deer and Boars,

Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Bear and the Serpent: A battle for a throne; a war for survival

The Bear and the Serpent by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Bear and the Serpent (2017), an epic shapeshifter fantasy set in a Bronze Age type of era, is the sequel to 2016’s The Tiger and the Wolf. It follows the continuing adventures of a young woman named Maniye, who has an unusual dual heritage that allows her to instantly shapeshift into Wolf (her father’s people) and Tiger (her mother’s). Now Maniye has been gifted a third form by the gods, called a Champion: a massive wolf/tiger/bear hybrid creature that’s a serious threat in battle.

Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Ironclads: Searching for the missing Iron Man

Ironclads by Adrian Tchaikovsky

In Ironclads (2017), the gap between the haves and have-nots has become drastically wider in this near-future novella, especially in the military, where it’s become popular for rich young men, called Scions, to engage in war, battling foes in high-tech, weaponized and near-impenetrable suits of armor paid for by their wealthy family corporations. It’s a little like having Iron Man, Iron Patriot, and several of their friends in your military, though without, apparently, the flying ability. In contrast, the regular army “grunts” are underpaid and denied most of the high-tech protections available to the Scions,

Walking to Aldebaran: Literary musings in an alien cavern of horrors

Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I never know what to expect from Adrian Tchaikovsky, but he’s always entertaining. Walking to Aldebaran (2019) is unlike anything I’ve read from Tchaikovsky to date, a powerful, literary SF novella with an edgy, dark sense of humor and a strain of horror that gradually intensifies until its shocking ending.

British astronaut Gary Rendell is part of an international space team sent from Earth to explore a moon-sized, alien-made object ― officially called the Artefact,

Made Things: A whimsical magical fantasy with serious undertones

Made Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Tchaikovsky is an unusually versatile author. I never know what to expect from him — insect and shapeshifter fantasy, Iron Man-inspired science fiction, and Regency/Napoleonic historical fantasy are just a few examples — but I know it’s going to be imaginative and intelligently written. The last work I read by him, Walking to Aldebaran, was science fictional horror with an unusual literary streak. In a nearly 180 degree turn, Tchaikovsky now offers up the novella Made Things (2019),

The Doors of Eden: An intelligent, mind-bending epic

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Girlfriends Mal and Lee are cryptid hunters. They don’t believe in any of the monsters they hunt, of course, but it’s fun to follow the clues and debunk the myths for their blog. But on their last adventure, they saw some weird stuff and Mal disappeared.

That was four years ago. Now, suddenly, Lee runs into Mal on the street in London and she’s with a man who looks like a Neanderthal. Where has she been and why is she with that guy?

One Day All This Will Be Yours: How I learned to love the time travel bomb

One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky

What’s a grumpy, misanthropic time traveling warrior to do? Governments and factions have misused time travel machines, each using their time machines to remake the past in the way they want it to be, over and over again. Time travel machines really are the ultimate weapon: if you go back far enough you can change history enough that your enemy never has a chance. Except that your enemy’s time traveling agents are cut off from those changes, so they’re still around to try to change history in a different way that favors them.

City of Last Chances: An intellectual pleasure

City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

City of Last Chances (2022), by Adrian Tchaikovsky, is one of those novels that I completely admired all the way through but had a hard time connecting to many of the characters, so that while the reading experience was enjoyable, it was more an intellectual pleasure than an immersive, emotional one.

The novel is set in the titular city of Ilmar, suffering under the heavy boot of an occupation force left over from the city’s conquest three years earlier by the Palleseen,

Days of Shattered Faith: The best in the series so far

Days of Shattered Faith by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Days of Shattered Faith is the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s TYRANT PHILOSOPHERS series, continuing that series’ strong run of quality. While each book is meant to stand alone, and this one certainly can, reading the others will allow for a richer experience given the reappearance of multiple characters.

As with the other two books, Tchaikovsky shifts to a new setting in this universe and introduces a new group of characters (with some old ones as noted),

Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Magazine Monday: Grimdark Magazine, Issue 1

Grimdark Magazine seeks to fill a gap in the niche market for those who enjoy “grim stories told in a dark world by morally ambiguous protagonists,” according to the editorial in the first quarterly issue. The first issue is promising, if somewhat opaque to one who is not already immersed in this relatively new subgenre.

The first story is “Shadow Hunter: A Shadows of the Apt Story” by Adrian Tchaikovsky, set in his universe in which humanoids take on the characteristics of insects. The Wasp-kinden, for example,

Monstrous Little Voices: A strong collection

Monstrous Little Voices: New Tales from Shakespeare’s Fantasy World edited by Jonathan Oliver & David Moore

In Monstrous Little Voices, editors Jonathan Oliver and David Moore have collected five novellas all set in a greatly enlarged version of Shakespeare, with a host of characters spilling out of the pages of his dramas and comedies to interact with each other in ways good and ill, many of them showing us sides of their characters we never saw in the plays or offering up “what happened next” versions of their ongoing stories.

The Last Dangerous Visions: Disappointing

The Last Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison & J. Michael Straczynski

Short story collections by their nature are hit and miss. The classic, almost unavoidable go-to review is calling a collection a “mixed bag” or noting only “some of the stories hit.” Honestly, I wish I could go that far with The Last Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison (kind of) and J. Michael Straczynski (kind of), but the disappointing reality is that most of these stories rather than some “didn’t hit” for me,

Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | A.E. Van_Vogt, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Cory Doctorow, Dan Simmons, David Brin, Harlan Ellison, J. Michael Straczynski, James S.A. Corey, John Morressy, Max Brooks, P.C. Hodgell, Robert Sheckley, Ward Moore | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Next SFF Author: Sheri S. Tepper

Previous SFF Author: Laini Taylor

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David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
Bill Capossere on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
We’re in total agreement David!
David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.

SFF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Empire in Black and Gold: Ought not to work

Dragonfly Falling: It’s weird, but it works

Blood of the Mantis: A slower, more thoughtful sequel

Salute the Dark: A total and utter world war

Guns of the Dawn: Austen collides with muskets, warlocks and war-machines

Children of Time: Too long but fascinating

Children of Ruin: Scary biological science fiction

The Tiger and the Wolf: Compelling shapeshifter lore in a Bronze Age world

The Bear and the Serpent: A battle for a throne; a war for survival

Ironclads: Searching for the missing Iron Man

Walking to Aldebaran: Literary musings in an alien cavern of horrors

Made Things: A whimsical magical fantasy with serious undertones

The Doors of Eden: An intelligent, mind-bending epic

One Day All This Will Be Yours: How I learned to love the time travel bomb

City of Last Chances: An intellectual pleasure

Days of Shattered Faith: The best in the series so far

Magazine Monday: Grimdark Magazine, Issue 1

Monstrous Little Voices: A strong collection

The Last Dangerous Visions: Disappointing

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