Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Czajkowski (spelt as Adrian Tchaikovsky for his books; born June 1972) is a British fantasy and science fiction author. He is best known for his series Shadows of the Apt, and for his Hugo Award-winning Children of Time series.

Adrian Czajkowski
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Born	1972 (1972) (age 52) Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, England, United Kingdom
Occupation	Author and legal executive
Language	English
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University of Reading
Period	2008 – present
Genre	Fantasy and science fiction
Subject	Zoology and psychology
Notable works	Shadows of the Apt series Children of Time Dogs of War
Notable awards	Arthur C. Clarke Award (2016) Hugo Award for Best Series (2023)
Children	1
Website
www.adriantchaikovsky.com

Children of Time was awarded the 30th Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2016. Author James Lovegrove described it as "superior stuff, tackling big themes – gods, messiahs, artificial intelligence, alienness – with brio".

Biography

Adrian Czajkowski was born in Lincolnshire in Woodhall Spa in June 1972. He is of Polish descent. He cites the natural world as an early influence, along with naturalists such as Gerald Durrell and David Attenborough, and he was fascinated by the Natural History Museum. "From there", he says in interview, "wanting to understand the behaviour – the minds – of the nonhuman started to take precedence."

He studied zoology and psychology at the University of Reading, although he eventually became disillusioned with the content of the course. He then qualified as a legal executive. He was employed as a legal executive for the Commercial Dispute Department of Blacks, Solicitors, of Leeds until late 2018, when he became a full time writer.

Tchaikovsky's first foray into writing was in 1996, when he submitted several stories for publication in Xenos magazine. In the early 2000 he won Xenos's annual competition with the short story The Roar of the Crowd, only for the magazine to fold pre-publication.

In 2008, after Tchaikovsky had spent fifteen years trying to get published, his novel Empire in Black and Gold was finally published by Tor Books (UK) – an imprint of Pan Macmillan – in the United Kingdom. The series was later published in America by Pyr Books. Tchaikovsky expressed the desire that the Polish editions of his novels feature the original Polish spelling of his surname, but these too used "Tchaikovsky".

On 23 January 2019, Tchaikovsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts by the University of Lincoln.

He lives in Leeds with his wife and son.

Writing career

Tchaikovsky revealed the basis of Shadows of the Apt in an online essay entitled "Entering the Shadows" at Upcoming4.me.

Whilst studying at the University of Reading he managed a role-playing game named Bugworld. The game concerned the story of the insect-people of the Lowlands, threatened by the encroaching Wasp Empire. From this original scenario the entire series of books grew.

Tchaikovsky still uses role-playing games to help develop his stories, but now also uses live action role-playing, which assists in describing the numerous action and battle sequences in his books. He is currently involved with the LARP game Empire.

Tchaikovsky has regularly expressed his intention regarding the Shadows of the Apt series not to make science better than magic, or vice versa: "This is another key element, really: the magic/tech divide is a concept that turns up here and there in fantasy, but usually one side is good (mostly magic) and the other (dirty polluting tech) is bad. With the world of the kinden, they’re basically both as bad as the people who use them, whether it’s blood sacrifice in a Mantis-kinden grove or the Wasp Empire’s city-levelling weaponry."

Themes

Themes in Tchaikovsky's books include: "the frailties of human bureaucracy and the difficulty we have in seeing beyond the human perspective," and "the terrible things we do to each other and the dogged resistance offered by the victim-participants in the vile mills of misery that are totalizing governments and wars of aggression." Critics have commented positively on his "definitive" depiction of alien civilizations and his treatment of "huge themes about belief, artificial intelligence, legacy, discovery, alienness and much more." In an interview with Jon Sutton for the British Psychological Society, Tchaikovsky says that "Human perception of time is one of the biggest limitations of being human," and that this shortcoming lies behind many current problems, such as climate change.

Awards and nominations

Tchaikovsky has received the following literary awards and nominations:

Table key

§	Indicates a declined award

Year	Work	Award	Result	Ref.
2016	Children of Time	Arthur C. Clarke Award	Won
2017	The Tiger and the Wolf	British Fantasy Award for Best Fantasy Novel	Won
2019	Children of Ruin	BSFA Award for Best Novel	Won
2020	The Doors of Eden	Philip K. Dick Award	Nominated
		Sidewise Award for Alternate History for Long-form	Won
2021	Shards of Earth	BSFA Award for Best Novel	Won
2022	City of Last Chances	BSFA Award for Best Novel	Won
	Elder Race	Hugo Award for Best Novella	Nominated
2023	Ogres	Hugo Award for Best Novella	Nominated
	The Children of Time series	Hugo Award for Best Series	Won§
	And Put Away Childish Things	BSFA for Best Shorter Fiction	Won

Bibliography

Novels

Shadows of the Apt
Main novels

• Empire in Black and Gold (2008), ISBN 978-0-230-73646-7
• Dragonfly Falling (2009), ISBN 978-0-230-70415-2
• Blood of the Mantis (2009), ISBN 978-0-230-70416-9
• Salute the Dark (2010), ISBN 978-0-330-51144-5
• The Scarab Path (2010), ISBN 978-0-330-51145-2
• The Sea Watch (2011), ISBN 978-0-330-51146-9
• Heirs of the Blade (2011), ISBN 978-0-230-75699-1
• The Air War (2012), ISBN 978-0-230-75700-4
• War Master's Gate (2013), ISBN 978-0-230-75701-1
• Seal of the Worm (2014), ISBN 978-0-230-77001-0

Tales of the Apt (short story collections in the Apt universe)

• Spoils of War (2016), ISBN 978-1-910935-21-7
• A Time for Grief (2017), ISBN 978-1-910935-21-7
• For Love of Distant Shores (2018), ISBN 978-1-910935-71-2
• The Scent of Tears (2018), ISBN 978-1-910935-71-2

Children of Time

• Children of Time (2015), ISBN 978-1-4472-7328-8
• Children of Ruin (2019), ISBN 978-1-5098-6585-7
• Children of Memory (2022), ISBN 978-1-5290-8717-8

Echoes of the Fall

• The Tiger and the Wolf (2016), ISBN 978-0-230-77006-5
• The Bear and the Serpent (2017), ISBN 978-1-5098-3022-0
• The Hyena and the Hawk (2018), ISBN 978-1-5098-3026-8

Bioforms

• Dogs of War (Head of Zeus, 2017), ISBN 978-1-78669-388-4
• Bear Head (Head of Zeus, 2021), ISBN 978-1-80024-154-1

The Tyrant Philosophers

• City of Last Chances (2022), ISBN 978-1-80110-842-3
• House of Open Wounds (2023), ISBN 978-1-0359-0138-8
• Days of Shattered Faith (2024), ISBN 978-1-0359-0152-4

The Final Architecture

• Shards of Earth (Tor, 2021), ISBN 978-1-5290-5188-9
• Eyes of the Void (Tor, 2022), ISBN 978-1-5290-5193-3
• Lords of Uncreation (Tor, 2023), ISBN 978-1-5290-5198-8

Standalone novels

• Guns of the Dawn (2015), ISBN 978-0-230-77003-4
• Spiderlight (Tor.com, 2016), ISBN 978-0-7653-8836-0
• Cage of Souls (Head of Zeus, 2019), ISBN 978-1-78854-724-6
• The Doors of Eden (2020), ISBN 978-1-5098-6588-8
• Alien Clay (Orbit, 2024), ISBN 978-0-316-57896-7
• Service Model (Tor.com, 2024), ISBN 978-1-250-29028-1

After the War series

Redemption's Blade (Solaris Books, 2018), ISBN 978-1-78108-579-0, is the first book in a multi-author series. The series was continued with Salvation's Fire by Justina Robson and published on 4 September 2018.

Warhammer 40,000

Tchaikovsky's first Warhammer 40,000 novel Day of Ascension (2022), like his short story "Raised in Darkness" from Inferno! Volume 6 (2021), concerns the insidious Genestealer Cults.

• Day of Ascension (2022)

Novellas

• Ironclads (Solaris Books, 2017), ISBN 978-1781085684
• The Expert System's Brother (Tor.com, 2018), ISBN 9781250197566
• Walking to Aldebaran (Solaris Books, 2019), ISBN 9781781087060
• Made Things (Tor.com, 2019), ISBN 9781250232991
• Firewalkers (Solaris Books, 2020), ISBN 9781781088487
• The Expert System's Champion (Tor.com, 2021), ISBN 978-1250766397
• One Day All This Will Be Yours (Solaris Books, 2021), ISBN 978-1781088746
• Elder Race (Tor.com, 2021), ISBN 978-1250768728
• Ogres (Solaris Books, 2022), ISBN 978-1786185280
• And Put Away Childish Things (Solaris Books, 2023), ISBN 978-1786188793.
• Saturation Point (Solaris Books, 2023), ISBN 978-1837861743.

Short stories

• "The Final Conjuration" in Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets: An Anthology of Holmesian Tales Across Time and Space (Abaddon Books, 2014) ISBN 978-1781082225, a collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories
• "Where the Brass Band Plays" in Urban Mythic 2 (Alchemy Press, 2014), ISBN 978-0-9573489-9-8
• "Shadow Hunter" in Grimdark Magazine, issue #1

Other collections

• Feast and Famine (New Con Press, 2013), ISBN 978-1907069543. This collection contains the stories "Feast and Famine", "The Artificial Man", "The Roar of the Crowd", "Good Taste", "The Dissipation Club", "Rapture", "Care", "2144 and All That", "The God Shark" and "The Sun in the Morning".

• The Private Life of Elder Things (2016), ISBN 978-1911034025. Co-authored by Keris McDonald and Adam Gauntlett. A collection of new Lovecraftian fiction about confronting, discovering and living alongside the creatures of the Mythos.

• Terrible Worlds: Revolutions (Solaris, 2023), ISBN 978-1786188885. Collects three novellas: Ironclads, Firewalkers and Ogres.

Critical studies and reviews of Tchaikovsky's work

The Doors of Eden

• West, Michelle (July–August 2020). "Musing on Books". F&SF. 139 (1&2): 88‒94.

External links

• Adrian Tchaikovsky older website, still up
• official website
• Adrian Tchaikovsky at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database