Eyes of the Void

I very much enjoyed the first book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Final Architecture series, and bought the other two books as soon as they came out. But they are enormous, which is a bit off-putting when you have a lot of books to read. Thankfully the Best Series Hugo gave me the impetus I needed to get back into the saddle.

In Shards of Earth we are introduced to a future in which the universe is menaced by moon-sized entities called Architects who delight in refashioning planets in bizarre ways, seemingly uncaring about the deaths of everyone living on those planets. Their depredations were stopped 50 years ago when humanity learned to speak to them using specially talented and trained people called Intermediaries, but now they are back and as destructive as ever.

Our heroes in the story are the Intermediary, Idris Telemier, and the rag tag crew of the we’re-not-smugglers-honest ship, Vulture God. They are focused on trying to find out why the Architects have returned, and how they can be persuaded to stop. Meanwhile the various poltical power blocks in the galaxy are arguing amongst themselves. As Tchaikovsky has one of his characters think in Eyes of the Void:

It was as though, in the face of a threat as vast as the Architects, the human mind slid off sideways towards conflicts more winnable.

Replace “Architects” with “Climate Change” and the relevance of the story is immediately obvious.

In this book Idris and his friends follow the trail of the ancient civilization known as the Originators to try to find out more about the Architects. It seems that Architects are unwilling to attack planets that contain Originator remains, so this is obviously a giant clue. Along the way they are pursued by the Bond-like character, Havaer Mundy, who works for the Council of Human Interests (colloquially known as Hugh) and who has his own personal journey through the books.

First up on the tour is a planet called Arc Pallator which has the largest known collection of Originator remains. Archaeology happens, despite the bad behavior of various human and non-human power blocks. However, the expedition creates more questions that answers, and things go badly wrong.

Eventually the plot leads to a world called Cricceth’s Hell, which is a planet that is utterly inimical to life, or indeed any sort of biology. It is a masterpiece of ramping the science up to the max. The point here is that Cricceth’s Hell is such an awful place that no one in their right minds goes there. As a result of which it is home to an actual, functioning Originator settlement. Idris finds himself there as a prisoner of a group of renegades led by one of the giant aliens known as Naeromathi. This character calls himself Ahab due to his absolute obsession with destroying the Architects. The crew of the Vulture God are trying to rescue Idris, but are seriously hampered by a bunch of human oligarchs who think that the Architects are a perfect tool for their unique form of Disaster Capitalism. They have their own version of, “ignore Climate Change, we’ll just terraform Mars.”

It is not much of a spoiler to say that the unique nature of the ruins on Cricceth’s Hell provide Idris with a clue to solving the problem of the Architects. It provides, as the title suggests, eyes on the void of Unspace where the Architects live. The question is, will they be able to do anything about it, or will idiots amongst the human and alien powers get in the way. The final book in the series will presumably have the answer.

Title: Eyes of the Void
By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Tor
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
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