Adrian Tchaikovsky has a new sci-fi novel due out in 2021: Shards of Earth! The first in the Final Architecture series (not sure if this will be a trilogy or more), it sounds bold and ambitious. Pitched as “an extraordinary new space opera about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man’s discovery will save or destroy us all”, I’m really looking forward to reading this.
The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery…
Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity’s heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.
After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared – and Idris and his kind became obsolete.
Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It’s clearly the work of the Architects – but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shards of Earth is due to be published by Orbit Books in North America (August 3rd) and Tor Books in the UK (May 27th).
Civilian Reader 