Looking back at 2025; Looking ahead to 2026

Purely on a professional level, then, 2025 saw a great deal come into print. For novels, Shroud was the big standalone SF release, whilst Bee Speaker extended the Dogs of War series, and Starseer’s Ruin was my first full length offering for Black Library and the Warhammer setting (fantasy this time).

For novellas, we had the first shorter excursion in the Tyrant Philosophers series, Lives of Bitter Rain, a series of linked stories about Angilly, introduced in 2024’s Days of Shattered Faith. We also had the 8th Terrible Worlds novella, The Hungry Gods, which was also the first in the ‘Innovations’ set.

I’ve also had some more narration out this year, as I read around a third of the Bee Speaker audiobook, which was nominated for the inaugural Speakies awards.

‍Perhaps the biggest change was that I took to the vice of podcasting, as Emma Newman and I launched Starship Alexandria, a book (and other media) recommendation podcast, which has had a delightfully positive response. We’re two episodes off finishing our first series right now, and we’ve just finished our special Advent run of short episodes over December, which I hope you’ve enjoyed. Emma and I will be continuing the podcast, and our second season should follow fairly seamlessly on from the first.

So what’s up for next year? As usual I can’t talk about what I’m actually writing now (and it’s stuff that won’t be seen until 2027 or even later, so wildly irrelevant), but scheduled for a 2026 release are:

Salvation’s Child is my first ever graphic novel, set in the universe of the Final Architecture back when the original Architects war was at its height, with amazing art by Mike Collins, colours by Pippa Bowland and lettering by Simon Bowland.

Pretenders to the Throne of God (February UK) is the fourth main novel in the Tyrant Philosophers series, taking us to the brutal siege of the City on the Back of a Crab.

The Best of Adrian Tchaikovsky (March US) comes next. It's a limited edition hardback collection of most of my loose short fiction published by Subterranean Press.

Children of Strife (March UK) is book 4 in the Children series, including a hostile world, impossible plantlife and very punchy mantis shrimps.

Terrible Worlds: Destinations (May UK) is the omnibus collection including Walking to Aldebaran, One Day All This Will Be Yours and And Put Away Childish Things

(All dates are for the territory of initial release, other English language territories hopefully either at the same time or soon after)

Green City Wars (June US) is a standalone solarpunk noir detective novel starring a raccoon.

Preaching to the Choir (August UK) is the second Terrible Worlds: Transformations book, a gothic horror/SF set in the modern day. What is the Enderby family’s secret power and secret shame?

And finally, Engines of Reason (September US) is the sequel to Elder Race, what Nyr and Lyn did next and where their world went.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my work in 2025, and here’s hoping for the best in 2026.

Adrian talks to David Perrell about writing on the How I Write podcast.

If you wanted to know all about how Adrian does his writing, how he plans a novel, what makes a good idea for him, and his approaches to fantasy and science fiction writing, then have a look at his in-depth interview on writing with David Perrell.

David is a writer, teacher and well-known podcaster on the How I Write podcast. He has analysed and interviewed some of the greatest literary figures on how to write and teaches the Write of Passage course.

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