Made Things

Actual rating is a 3.75

Throughout the reading of this, I've had this nagging sensation of de ja vu that just won't leave me be. I've never read this book before, so why? Something about the the made things seems so familiar. I would read a couple pages then stop to do a search and type in :

Movie based on Made things...

No no...clear search, type again:

Made things based on movie...

Okay not that, maybe this:

Tv series inspired by Made Things...

And finally, type in this:

What inspired Adrian to write Made Things...

The google results did not subdue that feeling. So I read and read.

The characters, the setting the entire lore just scritching and scratching at me it was almost annoying in it's barrage of familiarity bloody dejavuing me. The show more Folded Lord, Shallis with its paper edges and nervous demeanor, Arc and his metal resolve and battered armor and Tefwith her intricate facial features delicately placed in wood - the not-real-people who did real things and lived real lives and had real human-sized stakes harrassed me with their familiarity .

Of course it would hit me days after I'd read the book. The made-monster/Ariel = real boy/real girl trope. This one is a strange mix of Pinocchio, and Dr Frankenstein's monster. They want autonomy, but have no interest in becoming real people. They desire a place to call their own, power or agency and to self-determine their existance. Ah yes, everything that makes a human well, human.

Plus. A good Heist. Who doesn't love a good heist.


By the by; I think Adrian wrote this while chilling with his dogs or got a dog around this time because I counted a heck of a lot of dog-related similies and metaphors. NO shade. My own dogs would feature heavily in my art if I were the "artsy" kind show less

On the upside, I can now spell ‘Tchaikovsky.’ Anything that isn’t spelled correctly is purely a typo. On the downside, the trouble with reading some of an author’s truly impressive works–in case you are wondering, Children of Time and Doors of Eden–is you just know when they aren’t really living up to their potential. Yes, I’m like that teacher in school who refuses to give the A to a perfectly acceptable paper because I know you can do better. Tchaikovsky can do better than this, so he gets an ambivalent C here, just like the programmers.

He draws a portrait of a city that seems to be divided between the desperately poor and the rich magical, and that’s about as fine-tuned as it got for me. But he keeps talking about show more the groups in those broad-brushed terms, rarely individual, so the city never comes alive for me. With even less physical detail than Robert Jackson Bennett’s Foundryside–a similarly book that suffered a similar disjointedness–Tchaikovsky relies mainly on asides and commentary to create this idea of division:

“He was religious in that particular way that meant he took a sanctimonious pride in the whippings he doled out for petty offences, such as being poor and not running away fast enough.”

“And with just enough starry-eyed awe, the gutter urchin confronted the magnificence of [redacted], because if the mighty craved one thing, it was validation, knowing in their heart of hearts that they were never so grand as they styled themselves; even when they were made of gold and gems.”

“because the woman had bought a map of the palace downstairs from some poor human who’d been a maidservant for the mage-lords before she’d grown too old for their eyes to find pleasing, and who’d then descended by misstep and misfortune to end up in the Barrio.”

I suppose really, it’s because it’s all tell. The worst part is that I feel like I’m missing out on being told all the really interesting stuff about the young narrator, Coppelia, and about the poppets, Teq and Arc. Their ideas of how to grow and protect their society are more than a little ominous (we all knew we should be scared of dolls, right?), and yet their ideas on gender and reproduction add a nice touch of humanity to them.

It’s a rather straightforward heist scenario. Although he manages his characteristic plot twist, I did not feel as amazed or surprised as in his other works.

Remember what I said about abilities? His writing is usually above average, but this felt a little too purplish for him. Perhaps he’s better suited to the more literal prose of sci-fi?

“The workshops of her mind were minting sincerity in unprecedented quantities, depressing the market for years to come with their adulterated coinage.”

Honestly, Tchai–get a better editor and some time to breathe between re-writes. Your work will be better for it.


It’s one continuous buddy read with my fabulous buddies, Nataliya and Stephen.
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Tchaikovsky, Adrian. Made Things. Made Things No. 1. Tor, 2019.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, who lately has been playing evolution games in deep space, here turns his attention to a preindustrial fantasy world. Set in Magic City, the world is populated by powerful mages and much less powerful half-mages, like our heroine Coppelia, a.k.a. Moppet. Operating in the shadows are their magical and half-magical creations—from tiny homunculi to huge metal golems. Coppelia is an artisan, a puppeteer, and a thief. She works with some homunculi who steal from the audience distracted by her puppet shows. Things go sideways when she attracts too much attention from the ruling mages. Behind it all is some subtle and not-so-subtle commentary on class show more struggle. There is always a little more than you expect from Tchaikovsky’s work. He is a little like Coppelia in that way. 4 stars. show less

A lovely little novella about an orphaned girl with good manual skills who makes a living crafting dolls in a city filled with magic. Then she's approached by two homiculae (whom she hasn't crafted) that are part of a tribe of magic imbued people. They have an arrangement - she crafts them new bodies, and they help her steal magic items.

It's all going well until the gangster lord of the area discovers a full sized 'doll' and wants some expert opinion...

I've enjoyed all of Aidan's work, and this is another fine example, slightly weird, mostly fun, with great characters and a wonderfully inventive world.

Made Things is a novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky whose books I have previously enjoyed. Children of LIght, Cage of Souls and Dogs of War are great novels in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, so I tucked into Made Things with great expectation. I had taken the precaution of reading the short story Precious Little Things in advance, which was a smart move as without it, the novel would have been quite confusing.
Made Things is set in the city of Loretz, which is ruled by an elite of mages, served by the Broadcaps who defend against the guilds of thieves that populate the less salubrious regions. Most of the folk of Loretz have a degree of magic talent, which needs to be enhanced by magical objects. The main character, Coppelia, is a thief/puppeteer show more who has encountered a group of homunculi who had been inadvertently created by a great magician many years before (which I would not have known if I hadn't read Precious Little Things). The homunculi are trying to establish a colony and require magical items to animate models that Coppelia makes, and Coppelia is just trying to evade the Broadcaps. The novel hinges around what happens when Coppelia is dragooned by a powerful gang of thieves to burgle the home of the Archmagister, with unexpected results.
Made Things was alright, but I wouldn't rave about it. Not one of Tchaikovsky's finest. show less

A brilliantly crafted dark fantasy novella. I loved the plot, the setting, and the characters. Magical homunculi, magical artificers, thieves and thief-lords, golems and corrupt mages. Great ingredients, right?

I hope that the author will come back to this universe some day. And I will definitely be reading a lot more Adrian Tchaikovsky :)

I have a feeling that Adrian Tchaikovsky is going to become one of my favorite authors. So far I've only read a novel, a short story and now this novella, but all of them got a solid 4 stars and the novel almost got 5.

The characters in this were great, the story was fun, and the world was cool. And then the showoff had to go ahead and do a great job of narrating his own story. Possibly a true renaissance man we're dealing with here. Next thing you know we'll find out he draws his own covers and has written the music for the first screen adaptation of his books!

Looking forward to reading much more from this master of his craft.