Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)
The latest novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shroud, examines the question of whether, faced with an alien intelligence, we would actually perceive it as intelligent. That and whether the aliens would recognise us as anything above pond life.
The setting is the far future and a foray by a commercial vessel into a new star system. The ship鈥檚 culture is cruel, petty and highly corporate 鈥� that is, entirely recognisable to humans alive today. The crew are unfrozen, used as needed, then summarily refrozen. Everyone has an awful manager and a long job title. Our main character, Juna Ceelander (special projects, adminstrator), is a personal assistant to a middle manager, her main role being to oil the wheels between the ship鈥檚 competing departments.
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The crew discover a high-gravity, zero-oxygen, pitch-black moon that is alive with frenetic radio activity. They name it Shroud. The moon appears to be ripe for commercial exploitation, but it proves hard to study from a distance. All the same, no one wants to go to the surface (if it even has one) to study it up close. After all, what might be lurking down there in the very noisy dark?
A devastating accident on board results in Juna and her colleague Mai Ste Etienne (special projects, macro engineer) obliged to answer that question themselves. Marooned on Shroud in a tiny exploration pod, the two women turn on their pod鈥檚 lamps and peer out鈥� and Shroud peers right back.
The ship's culture is cruel, petty and highly corporate 鈥� that is, entirely recognisable to humans alive today
With no way of communicating with their spaceship, and no understanding of the creatures surrounding them, our heroes decide that their only chance of survival is to make a huge voyage across Shroud to the one place from which they think they might be able to send an SOS. Cue a long, awkward, very slow, sometimes horrifying, but also sometimes very funny road trip (minus the road) across an alien world.
There is a lovely scene where our heroes, trapped in their pod, try to run through the Fibonacci sequence with the aliens, hoping for meaningful communication. They blast out the sequence up to 13. The alien creatures (or perhaps creature) merely parrot it back. The humans wait to see if the alien(s) will come up with the next in the sequence, but get nothing back. They conclude the creatures don鈥檛 have maths and therefore cannot be intelligent.
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The alien(s), meanwhile, decide the creature they are dealing with is simple-minded indeed. Why does it keep shouting numbers? What is its problem? When the humans stop at 13 blasts, the alien(s) concludes that perhaps the Stranger doesn鈥檛 know of the existence of any higher numbers.
In the end, the two sides are reduced to communicating by issuing three blasts in a row, to be replied to with three blasts in a row: 鈥淪till here, still hearing you,鈥� but nothing more. Fortunately, this isn鈥檛 the first time Juna has had to deal with extremely difficult colleagues鈥�
This novel makes an interesting companion piece to Tchaikovsky鈥檚 Alien Clay, published last year. That very different novel also examined alien intelligence and how it might interact with humans with potentially devastating consequences. As I wrote in my review, Tchaikovsky is writing at the very peak of his powers and he is fizzing with more interesting ideas than any one human has a right to. I look forward to whatever he does next.
Emily also recommends鈥�
The Murderbot Diaries
Martha Wells )
It鈥檚 fair to say that Shroud (see main review) is an ideas-based novel. The Murderbot books are firmly character based, and the character in question is, of course, the delightful Murderbot. These smash hits have been republished in omnibus form in time for the release of the , starring Alexander Skarsg氓rd as Murderbot. So if you haven鈥檛 read them, now is the time. You will find they slip down very easily indeed: Murderbot is a wonderful creation.
Emily H. Wilson is a former editor of 快猫短视频 and聽the author of the Sumerians trilogy, set in ancient Mesopotamia. The聽second book in the series, Gilgamesh, is out now.聽You can find her at emilyhwilson.com, or follow her on X @emilyhwilson and Instagram @emilyhwilson1
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