Adrian Tchaikovsky was born Adrian Czajkowski in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, in 1972, later adopting an anglicized spelling of his surname for publication to make his work more accessible to English-speaking readers. He studied zoology and psychology at the University of Reading, a dual disciplinary foundation that would come to define his fiction. Before becoming a full-time novelist, Tchaikovsky worked for many years as a legal executive in Leeds. He is also an accomplished amateur actor, tabletop gamer, and enthusiast of historical martial arts, interests that have informed the detailed worldbuilding of his fantasy series.

Tchaikovsky’s breakthrough came with the epic fantasy Shadows of the Apt, a 10-volume series published between 2008 and 2014 in which human cultures take on the characteristics of different insect species, from industrious beetle-kinden to predatory mantis-kinden. This early project already displayed his signature interest in speculative evolution, a subgenre of science fiction that creates hypothetical alternate evolutionary paths: Tchaikovsky’s work often imagines what it might mean to think, feel, and organize society as something other than a mammal. He has since become one of the most prolific and decorated authors in contemporary speculative fiction, moving fluidly between epic fantasy, space opera, and philosophical science fiction.