First U.S. trade paperback edition, 640 pages
English language
Published Dec. 10, 2018 by Orbit.
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age--a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
Spiders undergo enhanced evolution, building an extraordinary new civilisation. Meanwhile the last of humanity searches for a new home, bringing its destructive tendencies with it. Impressive & audacious vision, but lacks engaging characters.
Reading time 6 days, 100 pages/day
Content warning Discussion of the ending
For most of this book I didn't expect to continue with the rest of the series. I very much enjoyed the spider scenes and seeing their culture, values, and technology evolve over time, but I didn't much care for any of the human scenes until right at the end.
One aspect that I particularly liked is that, ironically, the spiders are effectively Humanist at the end while the humans take on the place of the un-evolved animals who think of the spiders in a predator/prey relationship. The spiders then turn the tables and uplift the humans in the same way (and using the same mechanism) that the humans originally uplifted their civilization (except by bootstrapping empathy instead of sentience). It brought the whole thing to a nice conclusion in a circular way and made me decide to try the second book as well.
What a great book. I'm so happy I went back to it, and I'm looking forward to starting the second book in the trilogy, probably in the new year.
I would highly recommend this to any and all sci fi fans.
Content warning too many legs
What a cool ride. I did not expect to have the giant spiders to end up as the bosses at the end!
Una storia di scienza e tecnologia da una prospettiva completamente inaspettata. Un ragionamento molto interessante sul linguaggio e sulla terraformazione.
A very decent read. Even though the point of view from the 'alien' species gave me the squick. There are two storylines going on here. One about the remains of humanity scrabbling about in the remains of their civlisation. One James Michener like tale of the development of an alien species also created by that human civilisation and the first contact thereof. I am maybe not totally raving about it because I did feel the ending was a little too twee and it seemed against the nature of the alien species to me (sorry, avoiding spoilers). I would still recommend though as Tchaikovsky is a major talent and I do plan to continue with this series.
