Elder Race

‘An Ursula Le Guin-like grace . . . Ten out of ten’

– New York Times

Science fiction meets fantasy in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Elder Race. A junior anthropologist on a distant planet must break all the rules to save the planet from an unbeatable foe.

Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way.

But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she’s an adult (albeit barely) and although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as long as her people have lived here (though none in living memory has approached it).

But Elder Nyr isn’t a sorcerer, and he is forbidden to help, for his knowledge of science tells him the threat cannot possibly be a demon . . .

* * *

Praise for Elder Race:

‘Immersive world-building with the sharp, dislocating bursts of high-concept science fiction’
– New York Times

‘Tchaikovsky wows with this inventive and empathetic story of courage, science and magic . . . This proves yet again why Tchaikovsky is a master of the genre mash-up’
– Publishers Weekly

‘Elder Race is a really fun novella, displaying Tchaikovsky’s trademark sharp prose and big ideas’
– GrimDark Magazine