The Doors of Eden

Normally I am a big fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky, but this novel proved to be surprisingly hard going.

There are a lot of interesting ideas in here, and the ending works really well. But it did take long time to get there.

It's one of those Adrian Tchaikovsky novels that has alternatively-evolved sapient animals in it, but it also has an unexpected amount of queer characters. Tchaikovsky tends to be good at the former, and this book is not an exception; he also handles the latter well enough, though if you are not okay with bigotry exhibited by some of the more contemptible characters being part of the plot, you may want to skip this one.

The novel starts out kind of slow and takes a while to ramp up while you want to scream at the characters to figure it out already. In the middle, it may seem to be a bit predictable, although it does take some interesting twists in the last third, which subverts that impression a bit.

Overall, a fun parallel universe story, if you're into that sort of thing, even if not an exceptional one.

Wide-spanning and imaginative. If you're feeling sceptic in the beginning, give it until at least the second set of characters are introduced proper—I feel that's when the book was coming into its stride.

Consistently entertaining and engaging, I never felt like I was slogging through a chapter to reach the end. At times, a bit too many pop-cultural references, but within acceptable bounds given the YA bent of the novel.

I'd say this is recommended if you're a fan of other Tchaikovsky novels :)

A very strong 4 stars here. Tchaikovsky delivers yet again.
His familiar mix of biological speculation meets an alternate-worlds plot grounded in the modern day. If I have a criticism of this book is that I felt the biological 'what-if' essays were a tad overlong and I found myself skimming them a bit.
That being said, there is a still a cracker of a book here. Strong, relatable characters and a plot that never quite ends up where you think it is going.
Recommended.