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.
Interspecies communication is harder than it looks
5 stars
This was a fascinating book, probably even better than it's predecessor, Children of Time. There is a lot going on plot-wise, and we do need a few sections of exposition, but otherwise it paints an intriguing tale of contact between civilizations. These new aliens are even more alien than the uplifted spiders and it's very interesting to see the characters struggle through to communicate with them.
This is the sequel to Children of Memory. It's got some similar set up to the first book, in that it's got a dual perspective (historical development of Nod and Damascus, and then current time trip there with characters from the first book) and it's got some uplifted non-human creatures (octopuses!!). However, I think this book also has a huge new horror element to it that the first book didn't have that it pulls off very successfully and creepily.
This book suffers a little bit from second book syndrome in that the first book felt much more tightly crafted and the ending resonated in a satisfyingly foreshadowed way. Book two is doing a few too many similar things, and it doesn't quite all come together in the same way. I think for a book two of a (presumed?) trilogy, I was hoping for more indication of some larger planned arc …
This is the sequel to Children of Memory. It's got some similar set up to the first book, in that it's got a dual perspective (historical development of Nod and Damascus, and then current time trip there with characters from the first book) and it's got some uplifted non-human creatures (octopuses!!). However, I think this book also has a huge new horror element to it that the first book didn't have that it pulls off very successfully and creepily.
This book suffers a little bit from second book syndrome in that the first book felt much more tightly crafted and the ending resonated in a satisfyingly foreshadowed way. Book two is doing a few too many similar things, and it doesn't quite all come together in the same way. I think for a book two of a (presumed?) trilogy, I was hoping for more indication of some larger planned arc plot tying these books together, and without that this book feels more like a serial than part of a larger work.
Probably my biggest disappointment was really that most of the characters in book two felt very flat to me. I don't think the characterization in book one was particularly strong, but I did enjoy seeing various humans change through time as well as getting a window on different Portiid individuals as well. In this book, Senkovi certainly is a stand-out here as a wry scientist. The part I did really enjoy about the characters was in the spider/human relations. Fabian and Meshner supporting each other and Meshner understanding Fabian's social standing and Meshner having a good backstory for why he was interested in Fabian's research. Helena realizing that her peer relationship with Portia has a lot more of a unstated power and social dynamic than she thought previously.
I do really like the octopus psychology brought in here, in terms of reflecting the fact that an octopus's brain is split across its tentacles; that it imagines wanting something and then its tentacle brains just make it happen and appear. As with book one, I wish these octopuses also had real names that were not just repeated across multiple characters. This book tries to write in some reasoning for why this is happening here, but it still doesn't work for me as a reader, sorry. Given the fluid nature :drum: of octopus society too, I felt like the brief windows into octopus life were also not as effective for me as they were with the Portiids.
I have a few spoiler-y ending thoughts, which I'll leave in a separate comment.
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 alien development in Children of Ruin wasn't quite as good as the Portid chapters of "Children of Time", but the overall pacing of the book was much better with no boring human chapters to break up the palp-quivering goodness of the Portid and Cephalopod chapters. The ending of the book, despite sharing a similar flavor to the first book, still hits just as hard. These-of-We are looking forward to going on another adventure with the third book.
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
If Children of Time was about survival, book 2 - The Children of Ruin - is about discovery. And Tchaikovsky shows discovery can be awe-inspiring, strange, bloody difficult, downright terrifying and deadly both on a personal and species-wide level. The book is filled with amazing feats of imagination and scientific extrapolation and - as with book 1 - Tchaikovsky creates a credible, alien mentality (not with spiders this time, but with octopuses and... something else) as well as keeping up the humour, terror and wonder that made Children of Time so enjoyable.
