My review: Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I read this on ebook back in like May 2026 but never wrote a review and now I’m panicking and trying to organize my thoughts before voting in the 2026 Hugo Awards.

This is a great sci-fi story with a classic feel. An alien planet so weird that it has to be explored. An alien species that defies all understanding and yet we try to connect with it. Human problems that are all too human. More than one sense of impending doom.

The novel has occasional interludes where the aliens explain themselves to the reader, holding our hands through early pre-historic evolution and through the modern threat. It’s a cool idea and fairly well done, providing nice pauses in the action. I don’t remember feeling that the interlude exposition was too heavy-handed or simplistic, but maybe we were spoon-fed a little. That’s okay – the author was having fun building and explaining their world! And the framing of it felt well-executed, for me. It’s definitely high on my list!

Look, this deserves a longer post but I gotta hurry up and vote! Short post shorter: yes you should read this!