Adrian Tchaikovsky
Novacon 47 Guest of Honour

Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Lincolnshire and studied zoology and psychology at Reading, before practising law in Leeds. He is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor and is trained in stage-fighting. His literary influences include Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, China Miéville, Mary Gentle, Steven Erikson, Naomi Novak, Scott Lynch and Alan Campbell.

His first novel, Empire of Black and Gold was published in 2008. Since then Tchaikovsky has published another nine books in the series known as Shadows of the Apt. He has also published several standalone novels and contributed to several series. In 2016 he won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Children of Time.

The Shadows of the Apt decalogy is set in a world where humans are divided into groups or “kinden” by certain insectile characteristics. The kinden are further divided into the “apt” or mechanistically able and the “inapt” or magic using. The first book opens seventeen years after the invasion of the Wasp Empire. Stenwold Maker, a Spymaster from the unconquered Lowlands, witnessed the invasion and strongly believes his city will be menaced one day soon. As no one else seems inclined to take this seriously he takes it upon himself to train four young kinden to resist the upcoming attack…

Children of Time is very different, being a chunky, eon-spanning, far future space opera. After an act of sabotage, terraforming scientist Avrana Kern, is forced to release a nanovirus onto the planet she was terraforming for human use. While she is protective cryosleep the virus “uplifts” unlikely creatures: the spiders. From there one strand of the story follows the spider civilisation while a second focusses on the human colonists who arrive in cryosleep, expecting a planet to be ready for colonisation.

Novacon 47 is delighted to welcome Adrian as our Guest of Honour in 2017

Adrian Tchaikovsky's website can be found at http://shadowsoftheapt.com/

Bibliography

Series

Shadows of the Apt

1. Empire in Black and Gold (2008)
2. Dragonfly Falling (2009)
3. Blood of the Mantis (2009)
4. Salute the Dark (2010)
5. The Scarab Path (2010)
6. The Sea Watch (2011)
7. Heirs of the Blade (2011)
8. The Air War (2012)
9. War Master's Gate (2013)
10. Seal of the Worm (2014

Tales of the Apt

1. Spoils of War (2016)

Echoes of the Fall

1. The Tiger and the Wolf (2016)
2. The Bear and the Serpent (2017)

Novels

• Guns of the Dawn (2015)
• Children of Time (2015)
• Spiderlight (2016)

Collections

• Dark Currents (2012) (with Nina Allan, Aliette de Bodard, Una McCormack, Sophia McDougall, Adam Nevill, Rod Rees, Tricia Sullivan and Lavie Tidhar)
• Hauntings (2012) (with Paul Kane, Tanith Lee, Alison Littlewood, Mark Morris, Marie O'Regan, Robert Shearman and Liz Williams)
• Feast and Famine (2013)
• Looking Landwards (2013) (with J E Bryant, Storm Constantine, Kim Lakin-Smith, Den Patrick, Steven Pirie and Jetse de Vries)
• The Girl at the End of the World Book 2 (2014) (with Kim Bannerman, Alec McQuay and Cheryl Morgan)
• The Private Life of Elder Things (2016) (with Adam Gauntlett and Keris McDonald)
• Ctrl Alt Delight: Digital Science Fiction Anthology (with Digital Fiction, G. Scott Huggins, Ian McHugh, Vincent L Scarsella, Martin L Shoemaker, Rosemary Claire Smith, David Steffen, J J Steinfeld and David Tallerman)
• Ctrl Alt Delight: Digital Science Fiction Anthology: Volume 7 (Short Story Collection) (2016)

Novellas

• Reading Between the Lines (2013) (with Janine Ashbless)

Series contributed to

Afterblight Chronicles

• The Bloody Deluge (2014)
• Journal of the Plague Year (omnibus) (2014) (with Malcolm Cross and CB Harvey)

Monstrous Little Voices

4. Even in the Cannon's Mouth (2016)  (with Jonathan Barnes, Kate Heartfield, Foz Meadows and Emma Newman)

Awards

• Arthur C. Clarke Award Best Book winner (2016) : Children of Time
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• British Fantasy Society Best Novel nominee (2016) : Guns of the Dawn