There is something about (Project Hail) Mary……

I am thankful to NetGalley, Tor, and the author for a review copy of the same. Below are my honest thoughts on Shroud

There is no escaping tropes, especially in SFF. In the hands of a good author, tropes serve a valuable purpose in ushering in a sense of comfort and familiarity, keeping a reader hooked on a book. In the hands (or more accurately in the minds) of a great author, tropes are a way of lulling the reader in before completely subverting the aforementioned trope moving the story in an exciting new direction. Shroud is a masterful work of contra-troping by a genius at work in the form of Adrian Tchaikovsky

“By that point the solar system itself was practically an automated factory. Every part of it that hadn’t been blown up or ferociously irradiated beyond even industrial use was being industriously stripped”

Shroud opens in an almost traditional sense – a crew of corporate planet strippers scouring new planets for resources discover a mysterious signal-emitting moon whom they christen the Shroud. Shroud is almost inhospitable to humans but is ripe for exploitation for resources. Almost predictably, the crew is forced to crash-land on Shroud and the survival story starts even as the crew is now being tracked across the landscape by a dominant alien life form that has designs of its own.

“We were going to spread ourselves across the near-side of the galaxy like a rash”

The beauty of what the author has wrought lies in its execution. The trope setting part in the initial parts of the book is done in a rather skilful manner. The obligatory crew introductions along with their mission are laced with commentary on the state of the world and how the crew’s usefulness on missions determines their resource allocation from a hungry and rapacious Corporation. There is an efficiency and an economy of words even as we count the beats for the actual event to take place – with not a single wasted word or phrase, it makes for a rather terse snide sarcastic, and cynical opening to the novel. There is also a sense of a digital epistolary in some of the exposition via drone footage that the crew captures on the Shroud before the drones are destroyed – all of which builds up the intrigue and the sense of danger when the inevitable happens

“It was almost as if Shroud was a terrible, terrible place for anything even vaguely associated with humanity”

Following a space mishap (in what reads like a Gravity-like sequence), Juna Ceelander and Mai Set Etienne are forced to be resourceful if they need to get back even as they crash-land on the Shroud in an exploration pod. Given the pod was designed for the Shroud, they are sheltered from the inhospitable environs but that offers them no succour from the dominant species that has begun to take an interest in them. This is where the author turns on the contra-trope and what is a survivor story becomes a story of sentience. The dominant life tracks the two of them with their own motivations and ideas on the boil. This takes up the best part of the book as the leads try to find a way out of their mess even as the danger levels escalate through some of their ignorant actions. It is rather raw and tense even as the pair almost discover things about each other amidst all the danger. This is also a portion of the book that had similarities to Project Hail Mary from a problem-solving perspective and the kind of unexpected accidental help that arrives

“Intelligent aliens might introduce a level of moral complexity that would compromise operational efficiency”

The last part of the book is yet another change of narrative with serious questions being contemplated by the leads on what they owe the Corporation. Even then, there are significant twists as things don’t go the way anyone, be it the leads or the Corporation expects, building up to a rather suspenseful and impactful climatic portion, while also being particularly satisfying

“The ramping up from defence to extermination. The way it was always going to go”

The structure of the book is what stayed with me as I finished it – it does delight in subverting expectations and flipping the narrative a fair bit, making it enjoyable. I also loved the atmospheric mood of the book. Once the major act of the book begins, some interludes cut in and add a very interesting dimension to the story. Those sequences stood out and painted quite a different picture of the story and narrative. In a way, what genuinely surprised me in this book was that underneath all the major themes of cynicism and corporate greed, there was still the tendril of hope shining through (but don’t ask who that hope is for) – There is also a major “heck yeah!!!!” moment of payback towards the end of the book that felt extremely satisfying and gratifying. Watching the characters evolve was another very well-done piece of this book as were the choices made at the end

“Built wrong, made from the wrong things, speaking a wrong way, alive yet unlike any previously encountered life”

The structure of the book however contributed to some of the pacing issues I had – the book slows down a bit as it enters into the main act and this is also a portion where I felt maybe things could have been crisper. This is a book that fairly does speed through but you can see some of the struggle even as the author keeps adding more layers of danger. It felt almost repetitive at some point and you almost wanted to make the “keep moving” finger signal

“This too shall pass: simultaneously the best and worst commentary on any moment of human experience”

Overall, I went with high expectations for Shroud and I am happy to say the author does even better by subverting those expectations. It is in turns atmospheric, thrilling, dangerous, reflective, and ruminative but entertaining and suspenseful all the time. Come for the tropes and stay for the contra-trope by a genius at work

4 Inhospitable Moons on 5

Shroud is available now – you can order your copy HERE