Review by Booklist Review
Contracted scientists and guards arrive on research labor camp Imno 27g--30 years away from Earth--in a starship. Political prisoners, on the other hand, arrive in a craft that self-destructs after breaking through the atmosphere and hope their parachutes open. To rebel against the Mandate is a one-way ticket to toil under this alien sky, where ruins must be uncovered by Excursion crews, revealing what appear to be signs of intelligence. Dig Support then retrieves what they can to study under the strictures of the dome where everyone lives. The planet's surface is teeming with life, which is a strange lab of organic components that intermix to form useful symbiotic relationships. They haven't quite worked out how humans fit in, but they're working on it. The men and women on the planet they call Kiln will soon learn how aptly they named their new home. Written in a gritty, first-person style, Tchaikovsky's latest (after Service Model, 2024) reveals that the clash is more than just between human and alien but between ideologies that can blind one from harsh realities.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Imprisoned dissident scientists struggle to understand alien ecology in this mind-expanding planetary romp from Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Tchaikovsky (Service Model). Arton Daghdev, captured by the totalitarian Earth government called the Mandate after a year in hiding, lands on the prison planet Kiln, where he is assigned to support archeological digs into the beehive-shaped mounds left by a vanished civilization. Caught between fellow prisoners planning a rebellion and a warden who espouses the Mandate party line--that the Universe was designed to produce humanity as its pinnacle achievement--Daghdev forges his own path into the heart of Kiln's vitally different life-forms. ("Know thyself is the Earth adage, but here on Kiln it's Know one another," he muses of their strikingly different culture.) Tchaikovsky's philosophical musings about identity and the individual against the collective will feel familiar to science fiction readers, but his resolution will surprise even longtime genre fans. Tchaikovsky continues to impress. Agent: Simon Kavanagh, Mic Cheetham Agency. (Sept.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Professor Daghdev is a revolutionary advocate for knowledge and reason who turns up his nose at the orthodoxy of the Mandate. The Mandate corrupts the creed of science, so Daghdev is proud of his role as a political delinquent, right up until he's deported and shipped off to the labor camp on the remote planet of Kiln. Once there, he encounters signs of extrasolar life, and he collaborates with the other dissident expendables to unravel the mystery behind Kiln's vanished civilization. Tchaikovsky (Lords of Uncreation) is a maestro of grim and claustrophobic science fiction, and his imagination knows no bounds. This is a prison drama set in a creepy alien world, with a dash of body horror and several parasitical nightmares. Daghdev is a flippant narrator who endures an endless gauntlet of extreme scenarios, and the disturbing imagery enriches the worldbuilding. His role as a free thinker also allows for a novel exploration of xenoscience, symbiotic relationships, and divergent evolution. VERDICT This engaging book is perfect for those who enjoyed Tchaikovsky's Cage of Souls and for fans of Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.--Andrea Dyba
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
