Hugo Ballot Review: Alien Clay, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
by Rich Horton
Alien Clay is also pretty impressive. Tchaikovsky is fascinated by unusual biology -- that certainly was central to Children of Time, and it's central here. The narrator, Arton Daghdev, is a scientist -- a biologist with great interest in ecology, but he has been exiled to a work camp on the exoplanet Kiln. It seems Earth is now dominated by an authoritative government called the Mandate, which among other things tightly regulates science -- only science that supports the Mandate's view of the universe is allowed. Daghdev was as outspoken as he could get away with, until he crossed a line and got sent to Kiln. He was also a real revolutionary, but hadn't been caught at that.
On Kiln he is assigned to Dig analysis, and is also contacted by the head of the camp, Commandant Teloran, who is reasonably well-educated, thought still a tool of the Mandate, and who wants Daghdev to participate in the effort to find the missing "Builders" -- the species that supposedly left a series of structures behind that seem the result of intelligence, especially since there are symbols written on the structures that seem an alphabet of sorts. Daghdev is well aware that any appearance of collaboration with the Commandant will result in ill treatment from his fellow prisoners, so he doesn't directly help him, but he is fascinated by the scientific question.
Soon he realizes that Kilnish life is very differently organized than Earth life, and almost every creature they find is a composite species, with several different individuals cooperating to survive. This sort of thing is very much not approved by Mandate science -- but it's also clearly the key to unlocking the secrets of the planet and the "builders". Daghdev gets in trouble eventually for two reasons -- one, he openly mocks the absurd attempts of the leading scientist on Kiln to manipulate the data they show Teloran in order to fit the Commandant's prejudices, and, two, he joins a resistance movement among the other workers at the camp, who aim to oust the Commandant and steal a spaceship to return to Earth. And thus Daghdev, with several of his allies, is demoted to "Excursions" -- a very dangerous group, as these are the people who make field visits to Kilnish sites, with purposely substandard equipment. Kiln is a very scary environment -- but ... this is also a way to actually study Kiln up close.
I've left a lot out for spoiler avoidance. But it's a very enjoyable novel. It's a bit of a slow burn -- the first half or so is spent on rather overdone descriptions of how terrible the Mandate is, and how bad things are on Kiln, etc. etc. I think this could have been somewhat cut -- but also it's fair to say that Tchaikovsky has developed an appealing voice, or prose style -- rather sarcastic, full of quite clever images, and fun to read. His prose doesn't sing -- but it does maintain an effective "patter", if you will. So I was never bored -- and once Daghdev joins "Excursions" the book picks up dramatically -- his final expedition is tremendously exciting, and the promised revelations about Kiln and the "builders" and all are science-fictionally fascinating (though I did figure out the general shape of things pretty quickly -- which isn't really a bad thing, some books of this nature are puzzles in a way, and are satisfying to solve.)
Quite a good SF novel, and real SF too -- as of now (but I have three novels to go) it is second on my Hugo Ballot.
I haven’t taken the Hugo's seriously since I found out you paid to vote. The demographics are interesting, though. Gender is in Tchaikovsky’s favour (a male author hasn’t won since 2015) plus nationality (Tesh won last year and is English, but was the first non-American to do so in eight years) which brings us to the third consideration; publisher. This has been a two-horse race since 2012, but Tor has won on the last six occasions, so maybe Orbit deserves a chance? Here’s the thing: Tchaikovsky is published by both.
ReplyDelete@AP Fallon. Valid comments. But I didn't think Alien Clay was his best work by a long way. I didn't enjoy Children of Time, but I recognised it's pace, style and historical structure made it a strong nominee. Not so much with Alien Clay.
ReplyDeleteI read Elder Race - somebody gave it to me as a Christmas present - and enjoyed it, but wouldn’t be familiar with his other work. I guess my point is that the merits or demerits of a particular nominee are largely academic, given the Hugo selection process - so Tchaikovsky may win, regardless of whether this is his best work or not (and in fairness, might get the award based on his body of work as a whole).
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