Alien Clay
An incredible science fiction tale of first contact with the unknown, shortlisted for Best Novel at the 2025 Hugo Awards
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3.3 • 12 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
They travelled into the unknown and left themselves behind . . .
Alien Clay is a thrilling tale of alien encounter – from the acclaimed Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner Adrian Tchaikovsky.
‘Unputdownable’ – Stephen Baxter, author of Proxima
Professor Arton Daghdev has always wanted to study alien life in person. But when his political activism sees him exiled to the planet Kiln, condemned to work under an unfamiliar sky until he dies, his idealistic wish becomes a terrible reality.
Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem. Its monstrous alien life means Arton will risk death on a daily basis – if the camp’s oppressive regime doesn’t kill him first. But, if he survives, Kiln’s lost civilization holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it – and might just set him free.
‘Heart-in-the-mouth fantastic’ – New Scientist
‘Restlessly brainy and utterly involving’ – Daily Mail
‘The perfect gateway into what makes Tchaikovsky great’ – SciFiNow
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.
