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A review by llmacrae
Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky
4.0
My first Tchaikovsky!!
I own several books by him - either firsts in longer series or standalones - and one of my reading goals is to read them all, decide which ones I like best, and continue reading those. As Elder Race is a novella, I thought it would be a good place to start!
It is a sci-fi/fantasy blend, which isn’t always to my taste, but worked extremely well here. There are alternating POV chapters with our two main characters - one is firmly fantasy and the other is firmly sci fi, and I really loved the blend. From language and translation miscommunication, formalities, culture, meaning, emotion, all of it is brilliant!
The writing is sensational and I absolutely loved it. Certain parts became very dark, almost horror-adjacent, which made the stakes feel all the greater.
I loved the world-building, the clear nods to a bigger world/culture than the one we see for 200 pages, and how epic it feels.
My only gripe is the ending. While it is well-written, I found it a bit unsatisfactory with several questions still unanswered (and I was very much looking forward to these answers as I read as it was a big part of the mystery), however it was a very enjoyable read!
I own several books by him - either firsts in longer series or standalones - and one of my reading goals is to read them all, decide which ones I like best, and continue reading those. As Elder Race is a novella, I thought it would be a good place to start!
It is a sci-fi/fantasy blend, which isn’t always to my taste, but worked extremely well here. There are alternating POV chapters with our two main characters - one is firmly fantasy and the other is firmly sci fi, and I really loved the blend. From language and translation miscommunication, formalities, culture, meaning, emotion, all of it is brilliant!
The writing is sensational and I absolutely loved it. Certain parts became very dark, almost horror-adjacent, which made the stakes feel all the greater.
I loved the world-building, the clear nods to a bigger world/culture than the one we see for 200 pages, and how epic it feels.
My only gripe is the ending. While it is well-written, I found it a bit unsatisfactory with several questions still unanswered (and I was very much looking forward to these answers as I read as it was a big part of the mystery), however it was a very enjoyable read!