Shroud Audiobook By Adrian Tchaikovsky cover art

Shroud

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Shroud

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
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About this listen

On a planet shrouded in darkness, a stranded crew must fight for survival. But, the darkness may have plans of its own in this wildly original story from Adrian Tchaikovsky, Hugo and Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of Children of Time.

They looked into the darkness and the darkness looked back . . .

New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists–and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is pitch black, but alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is anathema to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances should a human end up on Shroud’s inhospitable surface. Except a catastrophic accident sees Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne doing just that. Forced to stage an emergency landing, in a small, barely adequate vehicle, they are unable to contact their ship and are running out of time. What follows is a gruelling journey across land, sea and air. During this time, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s dominant species. It also begins to understand them . . .

©2025 Adrian Tchaikovsky (P)2025 Orbit
Adventure First Contact Science Fiction Space Opera Solar System
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Critic reviews

"The most inventive alien world I've ever encountered in SF... Pure Tchaikovsky. I swear the man is some kind of genius."—Peter Watts, author of Blindsight

"Adrian Tchaikovsky explores worlds where no one else would dare to go, and the unimaginable becomes believable... This is hard-edged science fiction that never loses its soul."—Sue Burke, author of Semiosis

"Crunchy, conceptual SF at its best...the best alien contact novel I've read since Peter Watts' Blindsight, and that is high praise indeed."—Richard Morgan, author of Altered Carbon
All stars
Most relevant  
But as a standalone book it was not my favorite.
It’s a “crash-land and don’t get eaten” survival story with an amorphous consciousness arising in the background. It portrays humans so cynically there were maybe ~1.5 people who I even cared if they survived, and their best hope was to return to being slaves of their awful space mining corporation.
The alien life was too abstract to really function as a character.
I don’t get it. Tchaikovsky *knows* how to do characters, even out of radically different forms of emergent consciousness.

Maybe the series gets better?

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Tchaikovsky’s writing style allows for easy listening while simultaneously building a world of visuals inside your head that keep you entertained throughout.

Engrossing Visuals

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Great delivery - highly recommend. The story plot is very interesting. well written. A good dystopian POV…I sure hope it never comes true.

Great delivery - highly recommend.

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I loved the world building and the characters. The ending made me want to go back to the first chapter and start it all over again

The best book I've read so far in 2025

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So excited to be starting a new series from one of SciFi’s masters! But Adrian, a cliffhanger? Really?

A little slower than most of his work, but fascinating and instantly engaging. I find this authors breadth of knowledge and his ability to communicate it to be astounding and I must admit somewhat intimidating… not enough to stop me from reading/listening mind you, just impressed.

If you have enjoyed any of this other work, you’re going to love it.

Another Win for Adrian Tchaikovsky!

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I’ve read most of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s books. Some I loved. Some I found too fantastical. Shroud stands alone as a stellar combination of all that I most enjoy.

Wonderful use of intelligent and expressive language. Rich world building while not hammering the reader with technical details of the world’s history. There is obviously the Shrouded, but the deft revelation of the human situation post-earth is deliciously creepy and slow to develop.

The pacing, the horror, the all too human humor in the face of corporate de-humanization and frighteningly obscure Shroud - the author is a virtuoso at the top of their craft. And then there’s the plot - at once so simple, and evolving into many streams, challenges, struggles internal and external - I won’t spoil anything beyond saying that I was continuously entertained throughout. I loved it.

Wow. In-depth world building, Insightful SF Horror. A+

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Tchaikovsky always does such a great job with the unknown that is space and with space’s inhabitants. Such a lovely writer and able to create truly new ideas about what it means to be an “alien” or a “human” for that matter! Loved it!

Typical Tchaikovsky in that there is nothing “typical” about it!

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I loved the pace of the story, the dichotomy of perspective, the characters and narration, and above, the brilliant depth of imagination.

Another superbly written piece of science fiction

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Of course for an Adrian Tchaikovsky story, it was truly thrilling and I absolutely love the Narrators voice! words are as fearless as the Cantankerous Catlady of the massive All-Chemical Seepage

Exciting Science-fiction!

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Just mind blown- on par with Children of Time and by God I hope the start of a trilogy. Adrian- I’ve been bedridden due to illness and you take me out to the stars and give me freedom from my body, through my mind, your imagination-a rocket ship that makes my day a joy. Read this if you enjoy his work- awesome

Freaking Awesome

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