Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Publisher - Tor

Published - Out now

Price - £20 hardback £8.99 ebook

Allies will become enemies.

Enemies will become allies.

And the Dark Lord is waiting.

The church of Armes of the Light has long fought the forces of Darkness. And its great prophecy dictates that Dark Lord Darvezian will fall to a band of misfits armed with their wits and the Light’s blessing, and led by a priestess. But to reach the Dark Lord via the ‘spider’s path’, as the prophecy states, they’ll need a spider. They’ll discover that not even the power of sorcery can disguise the grotesque creature’s true and appalling nature, nor its unwillingness to be part of their quest.

As priestess, mage, knight, ranger, and rogue squabble their way through a journey fraught with peril, they question whether the creature called Nth is a monster, a tool or a friend. And ahead lies a mighty confrontation. If they can survive it, it will change all their worlds forever.

The above introduction in some ways sounds as one that could apply to one of ooh say a zillion fantasy novels post Tolkien it even has Dark Lord capitalised but I urge you to stay a little while and note that that this is a tale from author Adrian Tchaikovsky who is never boring; always innovative and hopefully you will find here a novella well worth taking your time to read and challenges the binary nature of fantasy that was so common in the good old days.  

On a simple level the plot is one we know and love. A Priestess, two warriors, a thief and a wizard have finally found out a way to defeat the latest Dark Lord to take over the world and bring the Light back to the people of the world.  There is of course a quest and a journey (no map included) but our band of heroes find their certainty over so much when they come across Giant Spiders.

In particular for this scheme to work they need to form a an alliance with one of the oldest Spider tribes and because people may look with suspicion on a group of travellers with a Giant Spider in tow (could happen) the wizard has a brilliant idea to transform the ‘volunteer’ into a humanoid Spider.  The party has Enth who looks human if you don’t count his eyes and can ignore his fangs.

Enth is a brilliant way for us to get to know the characters and the world we then move around in.  He is a person who does not now belong to either world and looks at everything afresh.  Initially all of the wandering group view him as a tool and one with a considerable amount of suspicion as Spiders firmly belong to the Dark. But each member of the team has to then start to ask themselves why exactly is he hated?  This is very much a tale of moral certainty in fantasy being questioned.  Should we not challenge things because that is what history tells us and just because the evil things are done for a good cause does that make the ‘Light’ actually right?

The novella does a very good job of quickly getting us to know our central squad of characters.  We have Dion the Priestess – although armed with mighty power she constantly does not feel she is up to the task.  Alongside her Harathes one of the Armes’ greatest priests who sees all in black and white who fights alongside Cyrene  who wants to atone for past misdeeds  (and is getting fed up of being objectified by most men she meets).  The team are aided by Penthos a mighty wizard who has many motives for helping the troupe and Lief the cunning thief forced to help rather than a willing volunteer.  Each of these characters will find Enth challenges their preconceptions and how they react and then interact with the wider groupchange.  It’s a very modern look at morality and works really well.  

Readers too will find their reactions questioned.  Two battles with monsters bookend the story and how you may react to one with triumphyou may find feeling less enthusiastic as you start to see how Enth sees the world.  The story is not saying good = evil but it does recognise that lives are on the line and our own biases may shape those decisions.  For me a good story is one that makes you think long afterwards and how you may read books in the future; this is one of those tales as Tchaikovsky has looked at the traditional quest story and again given it a modern overhaul to make it a very engaging read and highly recommended!