Z’s Reviews > Shroud > Status Update

5*, An interesting and creative science-backed hellscape of a dour ride for our twosome w a bittersweet ending told in a dryer tone that still highlights some of humanity's best and worst traits

+evolutionary and biome evidence for Shroud's environment and fauna
+cool af creatures (nightmare fuel)
+Shrouded chapters were awesome
+capitalism sucks! don't shelve me!
+bittersweet ending depending on how you look at it, from an individual it sucks but from a collective, yay a new member!
+despite the dryer tone, the anxiety WAS there
-a little dry
-could have used a little trimming in the middle

“Then it begins, that familiar voice of a woman lost to the worst of all possible worlds.” Juna along with her thoughts/knowledge is now an Otherlike, part of the Shrouded and as an individual is “lost” but she is not dead (though she won’t survive on this planet as of now, but who’s to say cuz the colonies are coming so maybe she lives??) Does this mean they know they are about to be mined to filth and colonized?

I liked meeting different creatures and the two-person crew acting as one trying to finagle their way out of a completely foreign situation each and every time. One or two of them could have been either summarized or just removed altogether, but either way I was engaged the entire time and wondered what would happen when they went back to the ship with 20% still left! And the ending line… GAGGED

It did make a point to note the value of empathy, working together (as one) and while each character didn’t have chapters worth of backstory I did understand them by the end. At this point, even I am scared of being shelved from my uselessness.

And having two sapient intelligent species each thinking the other is not b/c they cannot comprehend any of their motivations was chef’s kiss

I do think it needs to be said, that from a science fiction standpoint, that while it is heavy on the science and still having so much humanity interwoven, it is on the dry side. This did not at all detract form my enjoyment of the book, but it is not for everyone, sure

The Me vs You, Us vs Them, All vs One is so prevalent, the women knowing what humans as a whole will do (tho they are not One) and are learning what the Shrouded do as a whole. The plot of humans being aggressive, greedy and for-profit is nothing novel but set in this hellscape does the trick

The Shrouded’s POV was so cool! I loved to see how diff it and the pod viewed the scenario, 2 creatures from diff worlds rly wouldn’t be on the same page about things. As it progresses the Shrouded devolves, losing memories and intelligence, becoming more baseline animal than high-processing being. And thus, the humans evolve, learning more and more, raking in data. There is a kind of evolution happening here as well

I originally went in thinking this would be more explicitly horrific but it ended up being more implicitly, as one of the characters state themself, that humans can find a face in the clouds. A lot of the fear comes from not knowing what’s happening, limited senses, and then filling in the blanks with our own imaginations.

I can tell the author made an effort to research the biome of this planet and added explanations for the things that happen on Shroud including evolutionary history, weather patterns, gravity, chemical components etc. It was quite refreshing that they cared so much to make it feel real

And I see the author has an interest in entomology, we can tell! Nightmare fuel of kaiju bugs