This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Shroud was released on June 3, 2025.

I’ve read a lot of Adrian Tchaikovsky over the past few years, though in light of his shockingly prolific output, it’s still only a tiny fraction of his published work. I’d experienced some diminishing returns lately, with my favorites being the first things I read and the later ones mostly falling into the “solid four stars” bucket, but Shroud had an intriguing enough premise that I decided to go back to the well and see if it would recapture the magic from my first few reads. And friends, it did. 

Shroud takes place in a world in which people are repeatedly placed in long-term cryosleep, only to be woken when there’s an opportunity for them to create economic value. In this case, a team of six is scouting the large moon nicknamed “Shroud,” attempting to determine how best to extract resources from a world whose dense atmosphere keeps it in perpetual darkness and whose electromagnetic cacophony consistently foils remote survey drones. But when an accident sends the lead and a compatriot crashing to the surface, their aim shifts from resource-extraction to mere survival on a hostile moon populated by bizarre and terrifying creatures. 

Anyone familiar with Tchaikovsky’s oeuvre will be unsurprised at the prominence of xenobiology in Shroud. It was central to the Clarke Award-winning Children of Time that put him on the map and has continued as a major theme through much of his other work, most recently the Hugo Award finalist Alien Clay. Shroud only continues the theme, featuring creatures with all the strangeness of those in Alien Clay but with less overall focus on the human politics and more on the xenobiology. Make no mistake, the human politics lurking behind the whole narrative will never be completely put to the side, but this is not a story of revolution; instead, it’s a classic, hard sci-fi survival story with a slow-building first contact plot and a few moments that dip into horror. 

Putting the focus squarely on surviving a strange, alien world feels like a return to Tchaikovsky’s wheelhouse; even if he’s not necessarily exploring new themes, he’s combining them in a way that gives more power to each element. For instance, Tchaikovsky’s protagonists tend toward a cynicism about the world that can make it difficult to invest in their stories, but while there’s plenty of opportunity for cynicism in the setup of Shroud, the struggle for survival dominates the lead’s attention in a way that relegates that cynicism to the background while giving the reader an easy hook into the story. And when the human politics do come back into play, they’re inextricably linked with a first contact plot, rather than feeling like a retread of yet another capitalist dystopian plot. Make no mistake, it’s still dystopian, but the combination with the xenofiction breathes new life into the story. 

The parts of the story taking place on the surface of Shroud—which constitute the bulk of the novel—can fall into a structure that feels a bit like a classic quest story, but again, the alienness of the setting infuses new life into the plot. There’s certainly plenty of journeying to a new part of the land, encountering new obstacles, and finding ways to overcome them, but instead of seemingly random, disconnected dangers, each encounter adds another piece to the puzzle as to the nature of life on Shroud. Furthermore, as the story progresses, the reader sees larger and larger glimpses into the POV of Shroud’s native life, invariably providing fascinating contrast to the human attempts to puzzle out the behavior of the local fauna. It’s very much a two-sided first contact story, with both sides debating at length about whether the other is even sentient, let alone able to communicate. 

Ultimately, this is a story for fans of xenobiology and hard sci-fi survival tales. Anyone who isn’t compelled by the descriptions of an alien environment and the slow revelations about the nature of the native species probably won’t find much to catch their attention. But those who come for the xenofiction will be treated to a tense and fascinating survival narrative, and can then stay for a tremendous finish that loops the human politics back in a way that delivers some powerful and sobering commentary without ever distracting from the first contact plot. It comes together wonderfully and is easily my favorite Tchaikovsky novel of the last several years. 

Recommended if you like: survival/exploration sci-fi, first contact.

Can I use it for Bingo? It’s hard mode for Book in Parts and is also Published in 2025, featuring Strangers in a Strange Land, and Biopunk.

Overall rating: 18 of Tar Vol’s 20. Five stars on Goodreads.