Horror Tree Q&A: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Czajkowski (spelt as Adrian Tchaikovsky for his books; born June 1972) is a British fantasy and science fiction author. Heavily influenced by the natural world, his books frequently deal with themes of artificial intelligence and alienness, often in the context of non-human characters. He is best known for his series Shadows of the Apt, and for his Hugo Award-winning Children of Time series. Tchaikovsky has received numerous awards for his work. Children of Time was awarded the 30th Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2016.

You can read our interview below:

PSM: From The Wind in the Willows to Watership Down, Britain has a tradition of anthropomorphic fiction. Where do you think Green City Wars – and your oeuvre as a whole – fits in this tradition (if it does)

Tchaikovsky: I think Wind in the Willows is certainly in GCW’s DNA – although the animals are driven by science and genetic engineering rather than whimsy. GCW even has an anarchist toad 😊. There’s certainly a divide in the tradition you mention, and on one side you have the more overtly anthropomorphism of Willows and much of my work, whereas Watership Down, Duncton Wood etc. are more concerned with depicting animals doing animal things rather than human things.

PSM: If interstitial fiction is a thing, what is your evaluation of it? How do you feel about your own work being cl***ed as interstitial?

Tchaikovsky: So I write all over the speculative fiction genre so if interstitial fiction’s a thing then I’ve probably perpetrated it at some point 😊 It’s not necessarily a category I’m comfortable with as it seems to fall into that territory where people are writing SF or fantasy but feel a bit sheepish about it, whereas I’ve never claimed to be doing anything else. GCW is certainly SF, in that the world it presents at least purports to have a scientific basis. However the thing about SF and fantasy is that, whilst they give you the keys to the dragons-and-spaceships cupboard they’re not actually locking you out of anywhere else so you can tell any sort of story within those bounds. A SF story doesn’t have to focus on the application of a technology and indeed is likely more concerned about human society in all its many facets.

PSM: Anthropomorphic fiction usually involves attribution of human emotions to non-human beings. How do you approach the issues of non-human psychology?

Tchaikovsky: Every instance of a non-human character is a thought experiment where you start with what you know about that creature’s environment, senses and history, and then think through how that would shape a mind, what priorities it would have, how it would solve problems, devise technologies or interact with its environment. It’s an integral part of any book’s creation process for me.

PSM: Your bibliography is now impressively vast. Would you consider slowing down any time soon, and if so, for what reasons?

Tchaikovsky: At some point I will probably die, at which point I expect my output to slow somewhat.

• About the Author
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Paul StJohn Mackintosh is a Scottish author, poet, journalist, historian, games writer, and media professional. Born in 1961, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, has lived and worked in Asia and Central Europe, and currently lives in France.

Paul’s first collection of short stories, Black Propaganda, appeared from H. Harksen Productions in 2016. His second story collection, The Echo of The Sea & other Strange War Stories, was published by Egaeus Press in 2017. His short novel The Three Books was published by Black Shuck Books in 2018. His short story “The People of the Island,” in Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales, from H. Harksen Productions, received an Honorable Mention from Ellen Datlow in her Best Horror of the Year Volume Two list for 2009 and his story “The First Circus of the New Year” received the same in 2016. His historical novel Begin the Beguine and his semi-autobiographical novel Death of a Doppelgänger were both published in 2023. He has written several books of French wartime history. His latest horror work is his apocalyptic novel Theogasm (2024).

Paul’s acclaimed first poetry collection, The Golden Age, was published by Bellew Publishing in 1997, and reissued on Kindle in 2013. His second poetry collection, The Musical Box of Wonders, was published by H. Harksen Productions in 2011. His sonnet cycle The Great Arcana: Sonnets for the 22 Trumps of the Tarot, and his ballad cycle Black Ballads, based on traditional Scottish myths and legends, were both published in 2022. 

Paul’s Lovecraftian and dark fiction, and criticism, has appeared in numerous formats and journals worldwide, including Occult Detective Magazine, Weirdbook, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Strange Horizons, the Financial Times, the UK Independent, the Times Literary Supplement, Arts of Asia, Strange Horizons, A Broad Scot, and elsewhere. His co-translations from the Japanese, done with Maki Sugiyama, include The Poems of Nakahara Chuya (1993) and Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (1995) by the 1994 Nobel Prize-winner Kenzaburo Oe, which won a Japan Festival Award. He also co-translated Superstrings (2007) by Dinu Flamand from Romanian with Olga Dunca. Paul is a former Executive Committee member of the Translators Association of the Society of Authors of Great Britain. He was rated #1 of “The 12 Publishing Shakers You Should Be Following” by The Independent Publishing Magazine. He is also the official clan poet of Clan Mackintosh.