Shroud
{5/5} “I suspected that ‘appropriate attitudes’ included extreme expendability. The dregs of the Garveneer’s slumbering human cargo, not woken yet because nobody had any use for them. People desperate enough to earn some basic wage-worth that they’d volunteer for something as mad as going down to Shroud. A monstrous project which, I can only stress, no sane person would ever consider.”
Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky, published in 2025
The Special Projects team’s module was separated from the rest of the Garveneer and sent to investigate a moon orbiting a gas giant in system Prospector413. The mysterious radio traffic could mean life. After weeks and 13 drones that disappeared one came back. The drone only had 12 seconds of interpretable video — that showed something moving in the darkness of Shroud.
This novel is about what happens when you have to use limited resources and limited time in which to make the bosses happy. It’s about how difficult it would be to understand the actions and motivations of a truly alien species.
If you want to read about alien aliens, this is the book for you. The sections from the alien’s point of view are astonishing.
Like some of Tchaikovsky’s other novels, the characters are in a pretty dire situation.
I’ve read 9 books by Tchaikovsky. I previously reviewed The Expert System’s Champion.