The Church of Armes of the Light has battled the forces of Darkness for as long as anyone can remember. The great prophecy has foretold that a band of misfits, led by a high priestess will defeat the Dark Lord Darvezian, armed with their wits, the blessing of the Light and an artifact stolen from the merciless Spider Queen.

Their journey will be long, hard and fraught with danger. Allies will become enemies; enemies will become allies. And the Dark Lord will be waiting, always waiting…

Spiderlight is an exhilarating fantasy quest from Adrian Tchaikovsky, the author of Guns at Dawn and the Shadows of the Apt series.

As always Tchaikovsky has delivered a narrative that is amusingly inventive, sharply observed and still able to leave you with some serious ‘thoughts’.

On first appearance, Spiderlight feels like a novelized depiction of an AD&D Campaign with a a typically mismatched party of five on a quest to save the world. We have the uptight priestess Dion, the pyromaniac mage Penthos who is burning not so much a candle – as a fricking bonfire for the conflicted cleric. There is the brawny holy warrior Harathes, similarly smitten by the bow wielding ranger Cyrene. And there is Lief the light fingered thief, conscripted to this holy mission when an attempt to rob a high-ranking prelate went awry. I haven’t met such a fun group of constantly bickering allies since J. Zachary Pike’s Orconomics.

The party’s world is very black and white, with geography and allegiances divided between the dark and the light. There is a Dark Lord – Darvezian – who must be overthrown and, with elements that appear like a homage to Tolkien – this is not the first Dark Lord the world has known. But for Tchaikovsky it is not simply a Morgoth-to-Sauron transition but a sequence of nemeses that the Church of Armes has had to confront over a millenia or so. In another Tolkienesque echo the doughty heroes must find a secret way into the Dark Lord’s domain, circumventing the armies that protect him so they can bring him to single mortal combat and end his reign of terror. It is not so much a matter of Hobbit-esque Raven-guided backdoor into Smaug’s lair, as a long-forgotten ‘spider path’ not unlike Shelob’s home on the path around Minas Morgul.

Which is why we first meet the cheerful band, a long way from Darvezian’s tower, burning their way through a Mirkwood-ian tangle of webs and progressively more giant spiders. This phase of their mission is to confront an ancient spider queen who once lived in the spider path and – so the prophecy says (there is always a prophecy, sometimes more than one) – will be able to give them a map or directions to fulfil their destiny.

Only it’s not that simple.

As Tchaikovsky elegantly showed in Children of Time, spider-human communication, let alone negotiation, is far from straightforward. The thrumming of thread vibrations cannot be readily turned into words. There is no map that can be drawn, nor words that can be spoken – the best the Spider Queen can do is instill her memory of the place in one of her children who will act as the party’s in-person guide. Which is where Nth (sometimes called Enth) joins the party and finds he has volunteered for more horror than he ever imagined. Our heroes of the light are scarcely less horrified to find they have the embarrassing presence of a giant scuttling arachnid creature unequivocally of the dark.

Here Tchaikovsky draws on a motif from Dogs of War with Penthos transforming the unfortunate Nth into something more bipedal form that wears its skeleton on the inside,  though the eyes, the skin and the size are still not ‘right’ and even walking is initially a challenge. Mentally too, Nth has been made into a hybrid, bound to obedience by Penthos’ magic, yet condemned to assimilate and learn something of human concepts and behaviour – not least language, but also beer. Nth likes beer. But it is fascinating to see Nth coming to terms with his hated hybrid form.

Another resonance is with the TV version of Martha Wells’ Murderbot series. Enth’s arms-length (antennae’s length?!) relationship with his travelling companions and his uncertain navigation of human thoughts and emotion, is not unlike Secunit’s faltering interactions with the Preservation Alliance team. While Dion’s self-righteous team are initially even more hostile and suspicious than Mensah’s, there is also perhaps a parallel to be drawn between the love-lorn augmented human Gurathin and the inflammatory mage Penthos, both men desperate for even a glance of recognition from their respective leaders.    

As always with Tchaikovsky’s writing there are lots of sharp observations and eye-catching lines.

The unprepossessing first stop for our new formed band

Shogg’s Ford had more inns and taverns than most places twice its size. It was somewhere to pass through, not somewhere to live.

Enth’s initial interactions with the group.

“Dion said you had to look after it,” Penthos told him smugly.

Human emotions were a new and unpleasant book to Nth, but Penthos had enough smug that even a spider was able to recognize it.

Enth’s perspective on money

Lief addressed the vast woman and made some request of her, sliding over some pieces of metal—no coins, came the unwanted knowledge. This was commerce, there the metal served as a memory for past services in some way.

When Harathes struggles to be gallant

“Lust? It is not lust!” He was on his feet again, kicking to get free of the wreckage of the chair. “I love you, woman!” And there he was, the big, bluff, handsome knight, broad as a barn door and shallow as a puddle. So consumed by lust that there was virtually a heat haze coming off him.

Or Penthos – like a poor cross-gartered Malvolio, pining for Olivia – as Dion tries to gently knock him back.

“That’s very kind.” She could read him far too well. He was sieving her words and stance for signs of hope, trying to work out if she was encouraging him, but of all the lore he was master of, that language he had never learned.

She saw him framing arguments in his mind, each one swimming up close enough for it to move his lips, his hands, and then sink away unspoken.

Places as well as people get the sharply perceptive nib of Tchaikovsky’s pen, as the party head out on the last stage of their quest.

They passed out of Cad Nereg at dusk, that blind hour when the shadows hid more than plain darkness ever could.

The plot throws up some delightful surprises as Dion takes a diversion back to the capital city of Armesion, hoping to recharge the shaken certainties of her faith through an audience with a pope like potentate. The head of her church proves to be more of a practical minded, rather frazzled bureaucrat than a pulpit thumping zealot. The quest throws up plenty of surprises and indeed the final twist is so deliciously inventive that it practically reframed my whole reading experience.

But there are deeper levels within the narrative. Enth’s whole experience reminded me of the Tierra del Fuegian Jemmy Button who Captain Robert Fitzroy took from their native land in 1831. He brought them to England in the hope of educating them so they could return as missionaries of civilization, the plan was somewhat impeded by the fact that Jemmy had some difficulty recalling his own people’s language and customs. Nth faces that same dilemma on meeting some spiders. While Penthos’s reforging of Nth is more literal than Fitzroy’s reinvention (and renaming) of Jemmy Button but Tchaikovsky conveys not just sorrow for Enth’s loss, but the arrogance and injustice in his unwished for transformation.

Religion permeates the story, posing questions about how its certainties are used to divide the worthy and the unworthy. The Ghant may not be human, but as Tchaikovsky points out in a couple of poignant places that is no need to dehumanize them. The weary but pragmatic commander of Cad Nereg (A Minas Tirith if you will to the Minas Morgul of Darvezian’s Cad Usgath), has been fending off the enemy at the sharp end of faith for years and knows to take her allies where she can find them. Enth fires a dark truth at the party after they have killed some Ghantish kitchen staff but spared a couple of human dark mages, swotting aside the excuse that “They told us where Darvezian was” Enth says

“And if the Ghant had told you, they would have saved themselves?” There was a tremor building up in the creature. “No,” it said. “No. It is because these were Men. Dark Men, Evil Men. But Men. So you save them.”

It feels particularly poignant when populist politicians rail against the idea of our country treating sick children from Gaza, yet have no such problem with similar mercy services offered to Ukraine.

Tchaikovsky takes Tolkien’s reductive certainties of good and evil and reimagines those black and white concepts in many varied shades of grey. Along the way his compelling characters are wonderfully challenged and changed by the inventive plot and notions of religion and faith are delightfully upended.

Tor UK’s publication of Spiderlight is due for release 11th September 2025, you can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org