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?
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.
I loved the idea of this story, the last remnants of the human race travelling across space looking for a new home because "surprise surprise" we managed to cock-up Earth. They discover a new home but not all is as expected. The story follows two groups, first there are the humans protecting their cargo and fighting amongst themselves and then you have the occupants of the planet watching them evolve and making similar mistakes to humans during their evolution.
Now for the bits that annoyed me, first the narrator, I couldn't get my head around if there was a narrator or we were hearing the thoughts of the beings on the planet, it seemed to jump between the two which was rather annoying, why would human words be used, for example there was a plague which was called....a plague. The technology was another issue for me, sometimes things would be …
I loved the idea of this story, the last remnants of the human race travelling across space looking for a new home because "surprise surprise" we managed to cock-up Earth. They discover a new home but not all is as expected. The story follows two groups, first there are the humans protecting their cargo and fighting amongst themselves and then you have the occupants of the planet watching them evolve and making similar mistakes to humans during their evolution.
Now for the bits that annoyed me, first the narrator, I couldn't get my head around if there was a narrator or we were hearing the thoughts of the beings on the planet, it seemed to jump between the two which was rather annoying, why would human words be used, for example there was a plague which was called....a plague. The technology was another issue for me, sometimes things would be explained and the ideas would be really inventive and then at other times you're just left hanging, I did stop reading the book for a few weeks when I got annoyed that the reader just had to accept that communication between the planet and an object in space was possible, yes I know I'm sad.
I wish I could have enjoyed this like so many others have but it just wasn't to be. I see there is a sequel and this book was good enough to have me intrigued to see what is next in this saga.
Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/09/17/children-of-time-by-adrian-tchaikovsky/
Es gibt hier zwei Handlungsstränge, die sich immer abwechseln und natürlich auch zusammenfinden. Für sich gesehen ist die Handlung um die Menschen auf der Gilgamesch mittelspannend. Was auf dem "grünen Planeten" mit Portia & Co passiert ist sehr interessant.
Man muss etwas über seinen eigenen Tellerrand hinausschauen um zu akzeptieren, dass hier intelligente, sprechende Spinnen am Werk sind, ohne dabei zu glauben man liest ein Kinderbuch. Evolutionär gesehen macht das in diesem Kontext alles Sinn; wenn man sich eine Verfilmung vornehmen wollen würde, dann könnte das ziemlich lächerlich wirken. Das kommt eben dadurch, dass wir Menschen uns als einzige (!) wirklich intelligente Spezies sehen und Tiere eben nur Tiere sind.
Werde den zweiten Band (Children of Ruin) auf jeden Fall lesen.
Is the human race worth preserving? I go back and forth on this one. When I read [b:The Three-Body Problem|20518872|The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #1)|Liu Cixin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1415428227l/20518872.SY75.jpg|25696480] I sided with the invading aliens. In this book, chapters alternate between sides and I sided with each alternately but I was not excited about how the humans turned out after centuries of humanness. Ms. Kern was probably right to wish a do over though I'm not clear how this nanovirus can do all the tricks claimed for it. Hard to see a virus as the good guys during a pandemic.
But if evolution is really just trial and error, I can't see how you can speed that up significantly. And then these viruses become some way of recognizing kinship, but the humans already had that when they started and you can see how they turned out.
So, some interesting …
Is the human race worth preserving? I go back and forth on this one. When I read [b:The Three-Body Problem|20518872|The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #1)|Liu Cixin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1415428227l/20518872.SY75.jpg|25696480] I sided with the invading aliens. In this book, chapters alternate between sides and I sided with each alternately but I was not excited about how the humans turned out after centuries of humanness. Ms. Kern was probably right to wish a do over though I'm not clear how this nanovirus can do all the tricks claimed for it. Hard to see a virus as the good guys during a pandemic.
But if evolution is really just trial and error, I can't see how you can speed that up significantly. And then these viruses become some way of recognizing kinship, but the humans already had that when they started and you can see how they turned out.
So, some interesting ideas with the ants and the chemicals and the alternate technologies but underneath the usual themes, even if done better than the average space opera.
The humans got to live a long time by sleeping through most of it, but the spiders, instead of living a long time just had the same names as their ancestors? And we readers just treat them as if they're the same spiders they're named after. It kinda worked but I think it's weird.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because it ended better than it could have (though it really was too long).
Although the plot looked interesting, the prose is dreadful. Florid sentences with as many clauses packed in as possible: "He listened and ran his encryptions and words began to leap out at him, in that formal, antique tongue of a vanished age of wonder and plenty, and an appalling capacity for destruction".
Presumably, "ran his encryptions" is an odd way of spelling decrypted.
To be honest "finished" doesn't mean I read it all, it meant I lost patience and couldn't read any more. Fortunately, it was a used book, so cheap.
No spoilers but - I did not see that coming. What a great ride, I'm looking forward to the sequel.
There´s something about good space stories that captivate your attention. That build step by step, and suddenly it becomes really hard to explain to someone else the plot without seeming crazy.
repetitive & boring
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (finished 12NOV2019)
Good, but ending felt 'deus ex machina', through there have been hints about it beforehand, and it's a logical conclusion. I like the exploration of complications caused by cryogenic sleep, where while suspended the aging and dreaming stops, and then when the person wakes up later on, not knowing how many decades, maybe centuries even have passed, he encounters someone who continued living and that other person is older now, and it's such a strange situation. I like how the novel shows how much psychological toll this would have on the person. /// How the novel uses time is also interesting. The scope is vast - thousands of years, and I like the idea of humanity losing knowledge of certain high-technologies which they later on would find and expend a lot of effort on decoding and actually using. /// The classicist is …
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (finished 12NOV2019)
Good, but ending felt 'deus ex machina', through there have been hints about it beforehand, and it's a logical conclusion. I like the exploration of complications caused by cryogenic sleep, where while suspended the aging and dreaming stops, and then when the person wakes up later on, not knowing how many decades, maybe centuries even have passed, he encounters someone who continued living and that other person is older now, and it's such a strange situation. I like how the novel shows how much psychological toll this would have on the person. /// How the novel uses time is also interesting. The scope is vast - thousands of years, and I like the idea of humanity losing knowledge of certain high-technologies which they later on would find and expend a lot of effort on decoding and actually using. /// The classicist is a mostly sympathetic character. I also like the more 'extreme' personalities like Dr. Avrana Kern, and the ship captain of the space ark Gilgamesh. /// The exploration of alternate technologies is interesting. The novel shows what would happen if a culture/society only has these limited things to work on because of physical-biological reasons. I like how it was described as 'space age - stone age' by one of the characters. Overall, an engaging story with great world-building and extrapolations. Has sympathetic characters, and interesting alternate technological possibilities.
One of the best science fiction books I've read. So many great characters, so many fascinating ideas. I cared about the outcome of the story so much that, for the very first time in my life, I was tempted to skip forward to the end to see what happens, and whether it all works out.
This would had been four stars if the build-up wasn't as long.
This would had been four stars if the build-up wasn't as long.
This was an outstanding novel. The author successfully and very interestingly explored the concepts of sentience, humanity, and family. Although thematically dystopian, the story line was exhilarating and intriguing. One of my best reads of the year.
This book bounces from the PoV of the spider civilization and the human remnant and it's a rare book that can convince an arachnophobe to cheer for the giant spiders over humanity.
I must say, I never expected to see from this perspective. This book was spectacular.
