Shards of Earth is the first book in The Final Architecture series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It tells the story of Idris Tellemier, a man who is also something known as an intermediary. The intermediaries were a group of humans that were experimented on to gain extrasensory powers fifty years previous to help fight a war against a group known only as the architects. Now there are rumors they may have come back and Idris may just have the only major key to successfully fighting them. He is currently trying to hide from his past on a salvage ship known as the Vulture God when his old acquaintance Solace manages to track him down. Solace is from a different group of experimental humans known as the Partheni, a group of bioengineered women with superior combat capabilities. Together with the rest of the Vulture God’s crew they work on finding out the truth and what to do about it afterwards. As they do so they end up pursued through most of settled space by the human government, a group known as the Essiel who are moonlighting as something akin to the mob, and some various other rather disgruntled groups who do not want the truth to come out, or if they do only when they want it to.
This book was incredibly riveting but I think that was mostly because of the rather incredible plot twists that frequently popped up in addition to the absolutely fascinating characters. The plot twists were what really got my attention the further into the book I got as many of them were very unexpected. I don’t want to spoil too much but I will say that the book starts out being about one thing then gets pretty far off track before then circling back and when it does you end up rethinking a lot of things. Now this did not bother me, not in the least, but I was not expecting that going in as I was expecting more of a straightforward book about galactic warfare and intrepid group of reluctant heroes. It does include those things but not necessarily in the way you would think it would. The story was great and it did really draw me in the further I got in the book but what grabbed me from the beginning was the characters. Idris is the character that draws the eye the most, probably anyway, due to his unique role in the events. He is able to see and perceive things that others can’t due to his intermediary abilities. This allows him a lot of pretty unique insights but also potentially blinds him to others. As a counterpoint we get Solace who is also blinkered in some ways due to her position as a Partheni but she is more easily able to see the wider picture than Idris, even if she doesn’t always follow said picture. While these are two really intriguing characters the background gets filled in with any number of rather cool personalities. Characters like Havaer, Olli, and Kris help to really flesh out the story and make the entire story well-rounded. Definitely a good start to a good series and a book that gets 4.5 out of 5 stars from me.
This book is a great example of modern science-fiction and one that I happened to rather enjoy. If that is your preferred genre consider trying this one out, especially if you enjoy books about space travel, cyborgs, aliens and galactic politics and warfare. However, this book will probably hold limited appeal for readers who don’t enjoy any of those things. Considering the themes of intense galactic warfare this book is aimed primarily at adults, something which I mostly agree with. Outside of the occasional violence and bigotry there is little that would make this unsuitable for slightly younger readers. In my opinion, any readers over the age of about fifteen should be fine reading this. As always I hope you will consider trying it out and if you do consider sharing your thoughts in the comments.