Shroud

An utterly gripping story of alien encounter and survival from Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Children of Time. They looked into the darkness and the darkness looked back . . . New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is pitch black, but alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is anathema to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud. Under no circumstances should a human end up on Shrouds inhospitable surface. Except a catastrophic accident sees Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne doing just that. Forced to stage an emergency landing, in a small, barely adequate vehicle, they are unable to contact their ship and are running out of time. What follows is a gruelling journey across land, sea and air. During this time, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shrouds dominant species. It also begins to understand them . . . If they escape Shroud, theyll face a crew only interested in profiteering from this extraordinary world. Theyll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all. Praise for Adrian Tchaikovsky The smartest evolutionary worldbuilding youll ever read Peter F. Hamilton, author of Salvation on Children of Time Compelling on human and cosmic levels, and unputdownable Stephen Baxter, author of Proxima on Alien Clay Heart-in-the-mouth fantastic New Scientist on Alien Clay