My Cultural Diet

Shortly after they discover a small moon that contains what might be galaxy’s most hostile environment, two survivors of a horrific accident find themselves stranded on its surface. With little hope of survival, they embark on a perilous journey across its surface — a journey that brings them into contact with a bizarre alien species. Never let it be said that Adrian Tchaikovsky lacks imagination. Shroud is packed with fantastical descriptions of its titular world, one that’s awash in darkness and a cacophony of electromagnetic signals. But the novel gets so bogged down in the endless descriptions of Shroud and its alien life that the actual storytelling suffers, and the novel becomes as arduous as our protagonists’ grueling trek. Basically, Tchaikovsky wrote two novels — one from the survivors’ perspective and the other from the aliens’ perspective — but they never quite gel. Shroud does pick up a bit near the end, but I suspect that many readers will have checked out by then.

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