Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

​Thus continues my wildly uneven experience with reading Tchaikovsky. It began so underwhelmingly, I’m surprised I continued and then got unpredictably, awesomely good. And now this book takes it back to the middle…at best.
It’s kind of difficult to rate, because I really liked the idea behind it and the execution…almost not at all.
The idea is essentially taking that old nugget about any technology advanced enough can pass for magic and stretching it into an intergalactic narrative of a culture meet/culture clash. An anthropologist comes to a distant planet. The locals think he’s a wizard and promptly recruit him to help them fight a demon.
The anthropologist, as a proper scientist, loathes to interfere with the subjects of his study, but eventually he can’t help but get involved.
Questions will be answered, and shared ties revealed, and that’s all one can say about that in a review without giving something away.
The execution…well, first off, it’s practically a fantasy novel and I do not like those. I mean, technically it’s a high fantasy/science fiction mash-up, but it’s heavily on the fantasy side.
Secondly, it’s heavily and densely narrated over, say, dialogue driven. It’s ok, because the book is so short, but it’s kind of a drag.
And yet, it’s so freaking clever that your inner anthropologist is sure to appreciate it. So, while it wasn’t an especially enjoyable reading experience. I’m going to round my rating up. Because cleverness should be rewarded wherever found, there’s a scarcity of it in the world.