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?
Best sci-fi I have read in years. This will stay in my head for a while.
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.
One of the best scifi and books I have ever read. Can't wait to read the next one.
Frustratingly well executed but somewhat irritating. Tchaikovsky weaves two tales together, one about a post-apocalyptic ark ship that outlives its expected lifetime and another about a civilization of spiders infected with a magic virus that makes them evolve quickly and be more empathetic. All of this is interesting, well structured, makes good use of contrast and variation on themes, is everything you could expect of modern sci-fi.
My complaints are a bunch of annoyances that take the shine off the whole thing. Chief among them is the main human PoV character who is a humanities professor surrounded by STEM and executive types who blunders his way from one catastrophe to another apparently knowing better than the rest of the cast but doing precious little with his wisdom over the course of Portal millennia. The human cast are a bunch of bad stereotypes and you could have cut half that half …
Frustratingly well executed but somewhat irritating. Tchaikovsky weaves two tales together, one about a post-apocalyptic ark ship that outlives its expected lifetime and another about a civilization of spiders infected with a magic virus that makes them evolve quickly and be more empathetic. All of this is interesting, well structured, makes good use of contrast and variation on themes, is everything you could expect of modern sci-fi.
My complaints are a bunch of annoyances that take the shine off the whole thing. Chief among them is the main human PoV character who is a humanities professor surrounded by STEM and executive types who blunders his way from one catastrophe to another apparently knowing better than the rest of the cast but doing precious little with his wisdom over the course of Portal millennia. The human cast are a bunch of bad stereotypes and you could have cut half that half of the book and had something far less frustrating.
The spider's history is far more compelling but beyond a few analogies for (mostly Western European) history I didn't really feel like the cultural or political implications of the society he outlines were explored at any depth. I don't mind the conclusion but there is no real questioning of whether the use of the nanovirus could be immoral or misused. Reducing your crisis between two civilisations to a straw man philosophical model between two parties then resolving it with a macguffin seems like it cheapens your narrative and the philosophy you were shoe horning in there.
I can see why this is well regarded, there is a lot that's good in here, and if you like a more classical style of science fiction this may tickle your fancy, but I don't feel it's quite as clever as it wants to seem. It's also hard to avoid the takeaway being that maybe eugenics would be good.
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!
I tried, I really did. It had some interesting concepts but I felt it's pacing was all wrong from the kind of story it was trying to tell and as such became a chore to read.
Una storia di scienza e tecnologia da una prospettiva completamente inaspettata. Un ragionamento molto interessante sul linguaggio e sulla terraformazione.
this book has changed how i look at our primate bodies and the way we interact with the world around us. never before has a book shown me a totally different way of -being-
I'd have given this book the fifth star if I'd actually cared about a single one of the humans in it, even the tiniest bit. I was rooting for the other team (no spoilers) the whole way through. Pretty impressed that the author made me care so much about the other team, though!
Not the ending I was expecting, but I'll be happy to read the sequel!
This was extremely good. Dunno why it took me a really long time to read... i kinda stalled out really hard halfway through but I suspect it was unrelated to the book itself and more just me. The end was really fun. I wasn't planning to read the sequel but I think I will now?
Humanity sometimes sucks, but does it deserve to become extinct? Very creative world building and plot. Loved the writing. Was a bit freaked out by the spiders. But in the end I loved this book.
Schwer zu bewerten. Es gibt zwei parallele Handlungen von denen die Eine - die Menschen - gar nichts taugt. Derartiges gab's schon zig mal in den letzten 60 Jahren Sci-Fi - und davon viele auch deutlich durchdachter. Bleibt die Geschichte der Spinnen - Im Großen und Ganzen auch recht vorhersehbar, aber es gibt da einen Aspekt der wieder für Vieles entschädigt: Die Spinnen-Technologie.
I was, and still am, extremely ambivalent about this piece of literature. I'll list its minuses first.
'Children of Time' is a book written like an anecdote out of Max Fisher's Capitalist Realism. Tchaikovsky view of humans is that we're living on - to borrow Murray Bookchin's terminology - a 'stingy' planet (or rather, a stingy universe!), that we're all naturely extremely destructive, sheeple fighting each other mindlessly, and that humanity will only be saved by benevolent genius nerds (aka tech daddies). It's really sci-fi that's reflective of current mainstream ideology. It doesn't help us imagine any new future. But - that is not to say this book has no merits. It's a very well-written book. It's fun to read. It has tons of suspence, and it's hard to lay down. I enjoyed it, but I didn't enjoy enjoying it. In conclusion: decent book, fun, but also depressing and annoying.
I listened to this one. I'd walk my dog and put this on and be transported almost exactly like those Audible commercials. Some characterizations felt a bit stiff here and there but a thoroughly enjoyable book. It's the first time I've ever empathized with smart spiders.
