Elder Race

Taking a break from Brandon Sanderson and Stormlight Archive, I read Adrian Tchaichovsky’s novella Elder Race. It’s a fantastic read that also doesn’t require a massive time investment since it’s a standalone 200 pages.

One of the first things I noticed after reading so much Sanderson, is that the language itself is well crafted, even beautiful. For Sanderson, prose is a utility that lets him get his story out whereas Tchaichovksy’s prose is art in and of itself.

Without giving any spoilers, what I liked about the book is the exploration of a few themes:

• What is our relationship to technology that we don’t understand?
• Can we ever authentically communicate across cultural divides, and when we speak other languages are we just doing so on top the paradigm of our own language?
• How ethical is scientific observation?

Next up, I’m going to dive in on Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time,