Paperback, 592 pages
English language
Published July 28, 2020 by Pan Macmillan.
The astonishing sequel to Children of Time, the award-winning novel of humanity’s battle for survival on a terraformed planet.
Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life — but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time.
Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth.
But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed.
Tchaikovsky's Children Of Series focuses on the lifeforms left behind by mankind's self-destruction. The sentient spiders from Children of Time are back, and are exploring a solar system caught in a civil war. One of science fiction's strengths is being able to imagine other beings, and Tchaikovsky's depictions of their life and thoughts are excellent here as well.
The way Tchaikovsky brings total alien intelligence to life is just spellbinding.
Decent read! Unexpectedly enjoyed having previously read one of the author's reference books (if you have gotten into Children of Ruin you might be able to guess which topic it concerns :) Less bombastic storyline than Children of Time, a larger focus on cognition in general
This is a big improvement over its predecessor, Children of Time. Here's why: Tchaikovsky wants to write about evolution, which, even with the accelerated mechanism he invents, takes a long time. This leaves a narrative difficulty - protagonists keep dying, often before there's time or reason to care about them. There's much less of this compared to the first volume and the contrast between the more conventional narratives highlights the problem. If you managed to get through Children of Time I think you will be pleasantly surprised by this sequel.
It might look like it took me a while to get through this but life has been funny recently. A very strong book and a good follow on to the previous. The same general structure was echoed but that did not detract from the storytelling. Whilst I can recommend highly, this was not in the top tier for me. It is difficult for me to put a finger on why, maybe the multiple points of view just didn't work for me. Still, very good.
