explorer / books · 2026
Shroud
Published 2025 by Tor Books · 460 pages
Hugo · 2026
FinalistOn the ballot with
This book is recorded on the Hugo ballot only. Each row shows the full Best Novel ballot for that award and ceremony year. Winners appear first.
Adrian Tchaikovsky on these ballots
3 award entries · 3 books · 0 wins · 2025–2026
Synopsis
A commercial deep-space mission discovers a moon that is pitch black yet alive with radio activity: a high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen world anathema to human life but ripe for exploitation, which they name Shroud. When a catastrophic accident forces workers Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne into an emergency landing in a small, barely adequate vehicle, cut off from their ship and running out of time, they must undertake a gruelling journey across Shroud's land, sea and air. As they travel, they slowly begin to understand the moon's dominant species, which is beginning, in turn, to understand them.
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