Alien Clay
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4.2 • 164 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"A staggering, alien vision of deepest solidarity." – Esquire, Best of the Year.
From Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky comes a far-future epic that confirms his place as a modern master of science fiction, in which a political prisoner must unlock the secrets of a strange and dangerous planet.
The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates, the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival, he discovers that Kiln has a secret. Humanity is not the first intelligent life to set foot there.
In the midst of a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem are the ruins of a civilization, but who were the vanished builders and where did they go? If he can survive both the harsh rule of the camp commandant and the alien horrors of the world around him, then Arton has a chance at making a discovery that might just transform not only Kiln, but distant Earth as well.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this exciting and cerebral first-contact science fiction novel, academic and political dissident Arton Daghdev has been condemned to a prison camp on Kiln, a planet burgeoning with alien life that seems eager to infect the newly arrived human inhabitants…with deadly consequences. As a xeno-ecologist, he has to figure out as much as he can about the vanished, seemingly intelligent race responsible for a series of mysterious ruins. And as a secret rebel, he must do everything he can to undermine the oppressive sadism of the camp’s warden and guards. Let’s just say that both missions start to intersect. We loved how author Adrian Tchaikovsky expertly strikes a balance between the strange and creepily detailed alien biosphere and the familiar tensions of professional, political, and social rivalry. This is a serious pageturner.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
Customer Reviews
See AllAnother magnificent journey from the mind of Tchaikovsky
Just open your mind and reach out. Then you might understand.
Hugo-bound captivating storytelling
A beautiful mulitvalent master class in big idea sci-fi, combining cutting edge speculative ecology with the fundamentals of human struggle for a more just society.
Interesting ideas but very repetitive
The book could have been cut down substantially. Many of the same ideas are repeated end endlessly but it is worth getting through to get to the ending