Adrian Tchaikovsky is a British science-fiction and fantasy writer known for a wide-variety of work. His The Tyrant Philosophers series was an immediate hit with the LoveReading team and all the books released so far sit in our Star Books category. Children of Time and its series has won the Arthur C. Clarke and BSFA awards, and his other works have won the British Fantasy, British Science Fiction and Sidewise Awards.

Released this month, Bee Speaker is the third book in the Dogs of War series, our Series of the Month for June. The series began with Dogs of War in 2017, with the sequel Bear Head released in 2021.

Bee Speaker is an absolute stunner of an immersive read, which sits as a fabulous standalone, but nudges perfection when joined to the Dogs of War series. Set in a future where genetically engineered "Bioforms" have inherited the Solar System, a call for help from Earth reaches a colonised and engineered Mars. A Martian work crew returns to the world of their ancestors, and it has all already gone horribly wrong.

As keen fans of Adrian Tchaikovsky we are thrilled we had the chance to put some questions to him about our Series of the Month, his writing and what else could be in store...

What are you waiting for? Read on. 

With the Dogs of War Series, there are parallels that run alongside the current exploits of humanity, has this been a conscious decision, or has it organically evolved? 

Like most SF, it’s a bit one, a bit the other. The books have always been a commentary on the modern day – which SF excels at far more than actually predicting the future! Treatment of minorities, political narcisism and the game/metagame analysis of society and human nature all obviously reflect real issues at work in the world today. At the same time, the series is also hopefully telling a compelling story about cyborg animals in a kind of alt-future-history. Honestly this is the sweet spot for SF that I’m usually aiming at. There’s serious matter, but the story stands on its own as well.

Your bioforms are magnificent, do you have a favourite, and are they as entertaining for you to write as they are for us to read?

Whilst I still think Rex is one of my best characters, I was ambushed by Irae in Bee Speaker. Irae was supposed to be a much smaller character in the original book but as soon as I reached a chapter with that point of view the character just took over. 

When writing about a future, do you have any rules that you abide by?

AT: Really it comes down to building out from current conditions, and from the core SF concept I want to explore, and keeping everything consistent and logical. It’s a thought experiment that creates the scaffolding that the story can take place in.

We also love The Tyrant Philosophers series, does your writing routine change depending on which series you're working on? 

Not the routine per se – that’s dictated by the constraints of the real world! But every series feels very different to write – the character of the setting inevitably bleeds into the writing experience. Honestly the Tyrant Philosophers is currently the series I’m enjoying writing the most.

Which kind of scenes flow most freely as you write them? And which are more challenging to write?

In general scenes that are stream of consciousness following a character’s thoughts tend to flow relatively easily. A scene with a lot of action often needs quite a bit of additional planning to ensure that everything happens that needs to, and in a comprehensible order.

What were your childhood must-reads? Was there one that inspired you to be an author?

The books that had the most impact on me were definitely by Diane Wynne Jones. I always feel she was writing books that were a whole level more complicated that most work aimed at that age range. There are some surprises and reversals in books like The Homeward Bounders and Power of Three that taught me a great deal about what you can do in a story.

Which sort of books do you like to read? What was the last book that you read and would recommend?

I tend to read almost entirely SFF, and I’m always on the lookout for a book that does something I’ve not seen before. This is often a really interesting setting, for example Noon & Beard’s Gogmagog/Ludluda dualogy is wildly inventive in its setting, or the way the gods are presented in Leckie’s The Raven Tower. 

What is next for you in terms of writing?

As far as actual writing goes, I’m a good two years ahead, so there’s been plenty written since Bee Speaker that I can’t particularly talk about. I do have more books to come in the Tyrant Philosopher series, and a fourth book in the Children of Time sequence out next year, but I’ve got a few standalone SF projects too, as well as some follow-ups to older work.

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Header image author photo credit: Tom Pepperdine