Published By: Ad Astra
Pages: 624
Released On: 03/12/2026
37 stories, more than 600 pages, the ultimate collection of Tchaikovsky’s short(er) fiction.
Delve within…
Hungry ants that want to reconstruct the world in their own image. Occult investigations into private clubs. A philosopher’s attachment to his beloved pet. A new definition of battlefield archaeology.
What the homunculi do when the wizard’s away. A trans-dimensional theatre troupe. Murder by flower-arrangement. The infectious consequences of a fairytale wedding.
A magician conjures Sherlock Holmes. What happens when the mining robots mine, but not for you. The ultimate polycule. What is the groppler and why does it gropple?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Ad Astra for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I own so many of Adrian’s books but for some reason have yet to read any. So what better to jump into than a collection of his work? 600+ pages (which is generally 300 pages longer than I like) of genius sci-fi glory. I’m generally not a sci-fi reader, more of a fantasy one, but I thought these were great.
Like all short story collections, there were some I liked more than others, and some that didn’t quite hit the mark for me. But overall I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the majority of them. Some were more fantastical than others, and some were far more real and relatable than I think we are comfortable with accepting.
One problem I had was that it wasn’t clear when one story ended and the next started. So often I was reading and thinking it was just a really long short story that I wasn’t understanding, only to realise that they were unrelated stories. So if there had been clearer divides then that would have made the reading easier.
I’d have preferred two volumes of 300 pages each. As it is now, it’s a hefty tome and some of the latter stories suffered for it.
He is clearly a man brimming with ideas. It’s a good starting point if you’ve not read any of his work before, but it’s also a great read if you’re a big fan because you get 600+ pages of his work.
I read it cover to cover like I would a novel but I don’t advise that. Because it’s so long, and it’s packed full of stories, it’s hard work at times to fully lose yourself in the next story. So perhaps it’s more a dipping-in king of book. But it’s definitely made me eager to read the books of his I do own.
