Alien Clay
A mind-bending journey into the unknown from this acclaimed Arthur C. Clarke Award winner
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Pan Macmillan
Published:28th Mar '24
£22.00
Available for immediate dispatch.
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback - Signed First Edition£22.00(9781035013746-SF)
When xeno-biologist Arton Daghdev is exiled to an alien planet, he journeys through a dangerous and hostile wilderness. Yet on his expedition, he uncovers lost alien ruins - and the mysterious builders who abandoned them. Alien Clay is a page-turning standalone adventure from master of sci-fi Adrian Tchaikovsky.
When xeno-biologist Arton Daghdev is exiled to an alien planet, he journeys through a dangerous and hostile wilderness. Yet on his expedition, he uncovers lost alien ruins – and the mysterious builders who abandoned them. Alien Clay is a page-turning standalone adventure from master of sci-fi Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Alien Clay is a thrilling far-future adventure by acclaimed Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky.
‘An intriguing puzzle with plenty of thrills’ – The Guardian
They travelled into the unknown and left themselves behind . . .
On the distant world of Kiln lie the ruins of an alien civilization. It’s the greatest discovery in humanity’s spacefaring history – yet who were its builders and where did they go?
Professor Arton Daghdev had always wanted to study alien life up close. Then his wishes become a reality in the worst way. His political activism sees him exiled from Earth to Kiln’s extrasolar labour camp. There, he’s condemned to work under an alien sky until he dies.
Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem like nothing seen on Earth. The monstrous alien life interacts in surprising, sometimes shocking ways with the human body, so Arton will risk death on a daily basis. However, the camp’s oppressive regime might just kill him first. If Arton can somehow escape both fates, the world of Kiln holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it, and might just set him free . . .
‘A warning for a future we don’t want . . . Highly recommended’ – Tade Thompson
‘Unputdownable. Adrian Tchaikovsky is fast becoming the voice of his generation in British SF’ – Stephen Baxter
‘One of our finest writers of SF right now . . . an excellent story told with Adrian's trademark skill and flair’ – James Oswald
An interplanetary-scale, hyper-Orwellian stew of malignant academia . . . The regularity with which Tchaikovsky delivers great books is astounding. Highly recommended -- Tade Thompson, author of Rosewater
Alien Clay is convincing, compelling on human and cosmic levels, and unputdownable. With work like this, Adrian Tchaikovsky is fast becoming the voice of his generation in British SF -- Stephen Baxter, author of Proxima
The central concept unravels itself in a manner that is both deeply satisfying and not at all predictable. He truly is one of our finest writers of SF right now. The whole was an excellent story told with Adrian's trademark skill and flair -- James Oswald, author of the Inspector McLean series
A hell prison on a hell planet with a thrilling, important message: only connect. Adrian's firing on all cylinders in this one -- Ian McDonald, author of New Moon
Is Tchaikovsky propping up the science fiction industry single-handedly? He is so prolific and reliably excellent that I think he might be * New Scientist *
Restlessly brainy and utterly involving, Alien Clay is as morally engaged as 1984 and as immersive as Avatar * Daily Mail *
[Adrian Tchaikovsky] has created a wonderfully strange new world as the basis for an intriguing puzzle with plenty of thrills * Guardian *
Imaginative, horrifying and always amusing, it's the perfect gateway into what makes Tchaikovsky great. * SciFiNow *
[A] brilliant, gripping standalone novel, which reconstitutes numerous familiar SF tropes to create something thought-provoking, unexpected and at times unsettlingly weird * SFX Magazine, 5* Review *
Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky is another revolutionary adventure on an exoplanet with its own rules and paradigms * British Fantasy Society *
ISBN: 9781035013746
Dimensions: 243mm x 164mm x 35mm
Weight: 614g
400 pages