Shortlisted, 2026 Hugo Award for Best NovelAfter two scientists crash on a hostile moon, they must use every tool at their disposal to survive. Shroud is a tense, atmospheric voyage into the unknown from sci-fi master and Arthur C. Clarke Award Winner Adrian Tchaikovsky.They looked into the darkness and the darkness looked back...New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists—and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is pitch black, but alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is anathema to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.Under no circumstances should a human end up on Shroud's inhospitable surface. Except a catastrophic accident sees Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne doing just that. Forced to stage an emergency landing, in a small, barely adequate vehicle, they are unable to contact their ship and are running out of time. What follows is a gruelling journey across land, sea and air. During this time, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud's dominant species. It also begins to understand them.If they escape Shroud, they'll face a crew only interested in profiteering from this extraordinary world. They'll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all.