Alien Clay

I'm not a big fan of this book. In the past, I really enjoyed Tchaikovsky's prose, as in Made Things and Service Model. In fact, I thought the latter was brilliant. This book, however, was slog. The prose got in the way of the action and the dialogue. While not as pretentious as Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, the interruption of statements and conversations made for an immense lack of continuity. I often had to go back and read the sentences in quotes to remember what the conversation was about. The only good thing about it was that it reiterated facts about the planet on which it takes place so that I got an excellent sense of it. This book was nominated for 2025 Hugo and PDK awards. I would have thought a book like this would have been more likely a Nebula nominee considering how often prosy books are nominated. However, since the author has been generally ignored by the Hugos throughout his prolific career, I wouldn't be surprised if this won.

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