Castellan the Black and his Wise Draconic Tips on Life #BrainfluffCastellanthe Black #WiseDraconicTipsonLife #PickyEaters

Reason #2 why you shouldn’t boast about your own exploits – it provides the wretches with far too much warning as to just how sneakily lethal you can be…

Castellan the Black, mighty dragon warrior, features in my short story Picky Eaters, written to provide a humorous escape from all the stuff that isn’t happening on Wyvern Peak… All proceeds for the duration of its publishing life are donated to mental health charities.

*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of NETGALLEY arc Shards of Earth – Book 1 of The Final Architects series by Adrian Tchaikovsky #BrainfluffNETGALLEYbookreview #ShardsofEarthbookreview

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes on my blog will know that I’m a huge fan of Tchaikovsky’s writing. I’m always impressed with his sheer range and creativity, as well as his dry humour and interesting characters. If you’d like a sense of his writing, check out my reviews of Children of Time, Children of Ruin, The Expert System’s Brother, Ironclads, Dogs of War, The Doors of Eden, Firewalkers, The Expert System’s Champion and Bear Head. Though if you put his name into the SEARCH box on the right, you’ll also find more reviews of his fantasy writing. So when I saw that he had an epic space opera adventure in the works – my favourite genre – I was delighted.

BLURB: Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity’s heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers. After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared – and Idris and his kind became obsolete.

Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It’s clearly the work of the Architects – but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.

REVIEW: Idris is a fascinating character – one of those so challenged by his previous experiences that he is difficult to relate to. I don’t normally enjoy these types of characters, but Tchaikovsky’s writing skill comes into play so even though I didn’t exactly warm to him, I could empathise with him. I also completely understood why those around him want to give him a wide berth…

This book hits many of the classic tropes within the genre – segments of humanity amongst the diaspora scattered throughout the galaxy, now separated by generations in different cultures and environments… an interesting mix of aliens… a great big nasty threat looming over everything else… But this being Tchaikovsky, he puts his own spin on these plot devices which sets this epic adventure apart, making it memorable. As well as poor old sleepless Idris, we have Solace, who is a vat-born warrior designed and raised in a female-only society in reaction to the atrocities carried out against women in a number of the differing societies emerging across different worlds. Needless to say, they aren’t universally welcomed or trusted by the Council of Human Interests, who govern the surviving human colonies after the fall of Earth.

While Tchaikovsky is very good at writing slow-burn, tension-filled stories, this isn’t one of them. There is plenty of rich characterisation and vivid and varied backdrops, and in addition we are treated to lots of action and battle scenes, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s always a blast to be able to visualise exactly what is happening to whom as it all kicks off. Especially as the Big Bad in this story is absolutely terrifying – huge moon-sized aliens who tear apart and sculpt planets, moons and space stations into entirely different shapes. Unfortunately the hapless creatures inhabiting those places don’t survive the process, as inevitably the shapes are complex. And the Architects only ever select planets, moons, asteroids, space station – even ships – if they contain life…

This was a fast-paced read covering a detailed, complicated galaxy so I had to pay attention and slow down, or I would have floundered. Tchaikovsky has provided an extensive character and species list at the back of the book, in addition to a fascinating timeline of events leading up to the action in the story. I wish I’d known about it at the start, as I would have liked to refer to it at times along the way. Presumably it will be in the final Contents page, which wasn’t available in the arc.

I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining, well written space opera adventure and look forward to reading the next book in the series. Highly recommended for fans of space opera on a grand scale. While I obtained an arc of Shards of Earth from Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
9/10