Allies will grow to be enemies.
Enemies will grow to be allies.
And the Darkish Lord is ready.
Though Adrian has been writing for many years, it could maybe be true that his most well-known work up to now has been the Arthur C Clarke Award-winning novel Youngsters of Time, a science-fiction novel in a future the place alien spiders are nicer than people.
Spiderlight continues this curiosity in non-human species by having one among its predominant characters being – guess what? An clever spider!
At the start, Spiderlight reads as whether it is straight out of the Dungeons & Dragons rulebook. There’s a troop of characters – Dion, a priestess of Armes of the Mild, Penthos, a bad-tempered mage on the lookout for individuals to worth his efforts, Harathes, a gruff shieldsman and warrior who has the hots for Cyrene, a vicious ranger with expertise in archery. Lastly, there’s Lief, a rogue and thief.
It maybe goes with out saying that this band of oddities are all decided to fulfil a prophesy; to make use of the ability of Armes of the Mild to destroy Darkness – particularly the Darkish Lord Darvezian, the newest man-god slaughtering in his title and bringing evil to the world. (What else would a Darkish Lord do?)
The primary a part of the prophesy entails accumulating a spider’s fang. When doing this, they discover that they need to enlist the assistance of a large spider, named Nth (or Enth) who’s given the information of ‘the spider’s path’ to get to Darvezian’s fortress rapidly after which kill the Darkish Lord. Even with this assist, the journey wouldn’t be straightforward, particularly with one of many Creatures of Darkness (Nth) in tow. So, because of this Penthos makes use of magic to rework Nth into human kind, though he’s nonetheless moderately grotesque – numerous eyes, for one factor. The group then set off on their quest to dispatch Darvezian.
The complication to that is that though the group all have the identical purpose, they’re very totally different personalities. Which means that the assemblage is a massed rabble of ill-mannered, grumpy misfits, barely stored in management by Dion. A lot of their journey is characterised by them bickering amongst themselves at instances after which barely talking to one another at others.
As you may anticipate in a Tchaikovsky novel, Nth is essentially the most likeable character of the lot, regardless of his odd look. A few of the group see Nth as a monster, others as a instrument to get the job finished, and a few by the tip as a pal.
The ending is typical Tchaikovsky in that it’s maybe not what you anticipate. To say extra can be a significant spoiler, however suffice it to say that it’s wise and logical, making an allowance for what has occurred as much as that time.
There have been some good surprises with this e-book. Firstly, it’s one among Adrian’s shorter novels, though not missing thought and depth at instances, which makes it memorable. The journey described can also be unexpectedly direct, with sufficient element to hold the plot with out swamping it intimately. Equally, the characterisation is sufficient to make them fascinating with out overwhelming the plot with numerous again story.
After all, the e-book is greater than an homage to D&D and even Tolkien. Alongside the way in which there may be commentary about faith, conflict, the significance of sunshine and darkness, of loyalty, religion and friendship.
Regardless of this being an older Tchaikovsky novel, I used to be additionally happy that these strengths seen in Adrian’s more moderen work are additionally on show right here. Spiderlight nonetheless has these parts that make his more moderen books eminently readable – humour, nice characterisation, pleasing world constructing. If nothing else it jogs my memory that Adrian is simply as at dwelling writing Fantasy as he’s his now-better identified SF.
And if you happen to’ve not tried Adrian’s Fantasy writing earlier than, it is a great spot to begin. Really useful.
© 2025 Mark Yon
Hardback | Pan Macmillan / Tor
SPIDERLIGHT by Adrian Tchaikovsky
September 2025 | 288 pages
Spiderlight was first revealed in serial kind in Aethernet in 2013, then by 2016 by Tor within the US.
ISBN: 978 103 5071 579
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