Alien Clay

Does anyone manage to keep up with Adrian Tchaikovsky? His output is staggering. These days it seems like he’s not just writing with four pairs of hands, he must have a whole nest full of baby spiders writing for him as well.

So no, there are many Tchaikovsky books that I have not read. But Alien Clay looked very interesting, so I made time to have a look at it. I am so glad that I did.

Like many of the best books, Alien Clay is many things at once. To start with, it is a fascinating piece of science fiction. Tchaikovsky (whose knowledge of biology is far better than mine) starts with ideas such as the theory that the mitochondria in our cells (which provide the energy for them to operate) were originally independent, single-cells creatures which chose to live inside other cells. There’s also the fact that our digestive system only works because our guts are home to large numbers of useful bacteria that do most of the digestive work for us. Tchaikovsky dials this up to the max.

On the planet Kiln, all life has evolved through symbiosis on a macro level. Thus every creature is made up of several other creatures. It is nightmare of an ecosystem to study, and also a hard place in which to survive. You might think you have killed the alien creature that was trying to eat you, but actually you only killed one of its component bodies. The others are still very much alive and awaiting their chance to get revenge.

But why, you may ask, are humans on Kiln anyway if it is such a weird and dangerous place? Well, most of them are not there by choice. Kiln is, in effect, a penal planet. Earth is ruled by an authoritarian government known as The Mandate. Dissenters are sent into space where they are put to use as fodder for the exploration of potential colony planets. Kiln, sadly, is the most promising candidate yet discovered.

Which brings us to the second thing about the book: the politics. We see an awful lot of dystopian novels these days. Alien Clay is the first one I have read in quite a while that sounds like the author has thought a lot about how such regimes work, and how hard it can be to rebel against them.

In this respect, Alien Clay is a descendent of 1984. Like Big Brother, The Mandate rules by fear. It succeeds in crushing rebellion because there is always someone in a revolutionary cell who is weak, and can be bullied or bribed into selling their comrades out. Given all the naïve nonsense we see on social media these days (no, baby anarchist, you should not be discussing your plans for revolution on Mastodon where anyone can read them), this is very refreshing, and frankly necessary.

Something else I like about The Mandate is that it has no need for truth. It has an ideology. All academic research must serve that ideology, whether the facts support it or not. Having ideas that challenge the ideology marks you out as a dangerous dissident, and tends to result in a one-way trip to somewhere like Kiln. Anyone who is following the anti-trans movement in the UK will know that Wes Streeting is only one step away from ordering anyone who disagrees with his beliefs to be disappeared.

The third thing about Alien Clay is that it is about the future of mankind. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but it seems to me that Tchaikovsky may have read Sheri Tepper’s Raising the Stones, a book that made me very angry indeed. Tepper, of course, grew to hate humans, and would probably have been happy to see most of them exterminated. Raising the Stones provides an alternative solution to her problem. Alien Clay sees Tchaikovsky consider the same question, and find a very different answer.

I note that Alien Clay is one of two Tchaikovsky books on this year’s Best Novel ballot in the Hugos. Looking at the rest of the field, I suspect I shall be giving it my first preference.

Title: Alien Clay
By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Tor
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
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