Reviews and Comments

Listened to the audiobook, narrated by Finty Williams, over the course of a couple of long summer road trips.

An interesting and engaging book! It applies the setting of a women's prison in England to a meditation on death, injustice, and our obligations to ourselves and each other. It has a strong supernatural element, but most of the characters and plot points are grounded in the 'real world'.

The only thing criticism that I have is that the main character undergoes a very dramatic change of perspective at the beginning of the book. She starts out as an unfocused and disengaged woman with serious drug addictions. Her transformation to a highly-principled protagonist feels like it warrants a bit more interrogation that it received here.

Still, recommended, particularly for fans of Carey's other works.

Listened to the audiobook, narrated by Finty Williams, over the course of a couple of long summer road trips.

An interesting and engaging book! It applies the setting of a women's prison in England to a meditation on death, injustice, and our obligations to ourselves and each other. It has a strong supernatural element, but most of the characters and plot points are grounded in the 'real world'.

The only thing criticism that I have is that the main character undergoes a very dramatic change of perspective at the beginning of the book. She starts out as an unfocused and disengaged woman with serious drug addictions. Her transformation to a highly-principled protagonist feels like it warrants a bit more interrogation that it received here.

Still, recommended, particularly for fans of Carey's other works.

Short and poignant. Lots of wishful thinking about the value of human communities and building reciprocal relationships. Undermined by forcing ecological communities into service as strained metaphors for human social systems.

A fun, light read. Steampunk set in a Cairo inhabited by supernatural djinn and clockwork angels. Action adventure with a colourful cast.

The sequel to Children of Time carries on with the same tone and atmosphere, building out the time-, space-, and biology-spanning ideas established in the first volume. This is Big Idea scifi, but with the well-crafted characters that are often the weak point of such works.

The world building in both Children books is superb. It succeeds in providing the narrative tools to establish continuity across vast stretches of time and distance. And that continuity creates a very compelling story that grapples with ideas of communication and collaboration among truly alien species. All anchored by relatable characters seeking solutions to Life-altering encounters. And sometimes finding them.

Highly recommended!

The sequel to Children of Time carries on with the same tone and atmosphere, building out the time-, space-, and biology-spanning ideas established in the first volume. This is Big Idea scifi, but with the well-crafted characters that are often the weak point of such works.

The world building in both Children books is superb. It succeeds in providing the narrative tools to establish continuity across vast stretches of time and distance. And that continuity creates a very compelling story that grapples with ideas of communication and collaboration among truly alien species. All anchored by relatable characters seeking solutions to Life-altering encounters. And sometimes finding them.

Highly recommended!