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| title | subtitle | summary | type | date | emoji | topics | tags | syndications | ||||||
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| Alien Clay | A book by Adrian Tchaikovsky | 'Alien Clay' by Adrian Tchaikovsky was an excellent read/listen! Compelling & full of thoughtful moments, I can't recommend it enough. | review | 2024-06-20T11:24:33.125Z | 🧱 |
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{{< book "9780316578974" >}}
I really enjoyed this book! I've read quite a few of Adrian Tchaikovsky's books, and they've always engaged me thoroughly with their astute science and focus on the psychology of the protagonists (even when they're not human). Alien Clay is similarly compelling, thrilling even, full of existential questions set in a dystopian human future that reminded me of 1984 much more than what you might envision from a "Sci-Fi" book.
Our protagonist is highly educated, and I feel like this was partially so that Tchaikovsky could really lean into the highly intelligent dry humour that comes with academic territory. I loved it.
This book is very smart, especially in how the camaraderie between the characters is paired with narrative device; like the occasional non-linear timeline, first-person story telling, and plenty of nods to the alert reader (listening to an audiobook it took me a beat to get why "they're only a letter a way" is a grin-inducing reason for our protagonist to miss a gun being shot while someone else is shouting!) — but I never found it inaccessible, nor was there any technobabble my (admittedly rusty) physics and chemistry could spot. It was an absolute page-turner for me.
{{% spoiler "isbn:9780316578974" %}} I adored slowly realising how much our narrator-protagonist had been 'taken over' by the Kiln ecology in the time-shifted central part of the plot. Slowly deciding that Professor Daghdev had been infected 'enough' to be an unreliable narrator for the previous chapter was a thrill; almost as much as having to walk back that assumption when I learned that, as much as Kiln changes people, it also doesn't really change them at all — only neutralising the basic human conflict between needing a sense of self but without an overpowering ego. Especially with the highly egotistical world of academia, and the suppression of the ego in an authoritarian culture, as backdrops to the entire story. {{%/ spoiler %}}
If you're one for a bit of escapism with a very real world undertone, lots of smart writing that doesn't get in the way, and a satisfying plot then I can't recommend this enough!