If you take The Martian by Andy Weir, strip out the humor and replace it with horror, you'll know what to expect from Shroud. A fantastic story about humans trying to find their way off the most alien planet you can imagine. The aliens are creepy, the situations tense and exciting. Adrian Tchaikovsky has been on a roll lately!

This is possibly the best first contact novel I've ever read. It's the flip side of Tchaikovsky's Alien Clay, which was 70% depressing capitalist dystopia and 30% cool aliens. Shroud is 10% depressing capitalist dystopia and 90% cool aliens - or rather, 90% cool aliens+ humans interacting with cool aliens.

The ending is a little abrupt, but you can easily extrapolate what happens from there, and it's VERY satisfying.

I loved this book and can't wait for it to come out so I can hand-sell it to every science fiction fan who walks in my door.

While the premise was nice, the writing was... not what I expected. I wanted more from the characters because I felt that what was on the front cover and the front flap was not what we were given.