Engines of Reason (Elder Race #2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, science fantasy, science fiction
Series: Elder Race #2
Pages: 192
Published by Tordotcom on September 1, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
Visit a world where sorcery intertwines with science by multiple Hugo nominee Adrian Tchaikovsky in this highly-anticipated sequel to his hugely popular Elder Race.
On a planet where stories govern identity, where science and magic are a merely point of view, a fallen princess, a reluctant wizard, and a precocious child must unravel the past to shape the future.
Betrayal, ancient myths, and the clash of worlds converge in this spellbinding tale of courage, friendship, and self-discovery.
A profound exploration of identity, memory, and discovery from one of science fiction’s most compelling voices.
My Review:
I want to say this is a story about what happens after the “and they lived happily ever after” but that’s not the kind of story that Elder Race was in the first place. It IS a bit of a “no good deed goes unpunished” kind of story. But mostly, it’s a story like Peter S. Beagle’s “Sooz” in The Way Home and Premee Mohamed’s The Butcher of the Forest. It’s the kind of story where, after the monster has been defeated, life goes on, and then someone has to do it all over again. Because there’s always another monster – or another villain – or something like both – coming over the horizon and somebody’s going to have to deal with it.
Whether they want to or not.
At the same time, this is a story about, well, the power of story. The power of a persistent narrative to push, pull and if necessary force characters to fit into tropes and archetypes – even if they’re just people who happen to be in its way. Much like Alix E. Harrow’s Fractured Fables series, where every world in the multiverse is shoehorning some poor girl into filling the role of Sleeping Beauty whether any of them want to or not.
This is Sophos IV, a lost human colony that long ago forgot the technology that brought their ancestors to a world that could never support the industry that brought them there. But a world where old social structures and even older stories wrapped themselves around their descendants.
Most of all, this is the world where a disregarded princess followed a myth to the tower of a legendary sorcerer so that he could save her people from a demon. And because it actually worked once, someone expects it to work again – with the same cast of characters.
Even though the sorcerer can’t really do magic, the demon wasn’t really a demon, and the princess isn’t a princess any longer. But the danger is real, and Elder Nyrgoth and his former apprentice Lynesse are going to have to get over themselves and everything they ever fought over so they can fight together once more.
This time for good. Or at least, hopefully, for enough good to make a difference.
Escape Rating A-: I picked this up because I enjoyed the previous book, Elder Race. I have to admit that I was not expecting a sequel – so this was a delightful surprise to see. And also to read.
The first book was such a fascinating take on several SFnal concepts. This is a lost colony story, so Lynesse’s people are our descendants – but they’ve forgotten where they came from. Nyr’s people, on the other hand, are also our descendants, but from a later diaspora. His people are scholars, who came to study Lynesse’s people and how they adapted to their world. Nyr is the only one of those scholars left. (Nyr’s situation is similar to the Archaeologist’s mission in The Mulai and that part of their respective assignments have each gone about as well as the other. In other words, not very.)
They’re both misfits. They need each other but can’t communicate well because the gap between their perspectives is SO vast. Which is where the whole power of stories comes in. Her people can only conceive of Nyr as a wizard or sorcerer. And there’s a place in their legends for that even though he knows he’s a fraud. She’s his apprentice, but she’s also, honestly, his only friend and connection to the living. Which he screws up royally (literally) because there’s also a narrative about a mentor being unwilling to share their apprentice’s time and attention. (There’s no romance, there’s no hint, it’s not even the point. But any relationship can go wrong and theirs definitely did.)
But the narrative still needs them. It has places for a wizard, it has places for a demon, it has places for court mages and rebellious princesses, and that’s the story they’re stuck in. Because there is an enemy, and there is a rapacious tyrant, and there is a need for someone to reset the board. And they’re the only ones who are outsiders enough to do it.
What makes the story work isn’t the quest, exactly, this time around. It’s the characters and the relationships and the shared history – which is repeating – and the insider/outsider perspectives on all of it.
This is a story where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s also a story that doesn’t stand alone – it needs the story that came before it, Elder Race, in order for the Engines of Reason – which aren’t precisely engines and often don’t have nearly as much reason as would be helpful – to make sense and have resonance.
But it’s all DEFINITELY worth a read.
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