Sam rated Children of Ruin: 4 stars

Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adrian Tchaikovsky
The astonishing sequel to Children of Time, the award-winning novel of humanity’s battle for survival on a terraformed planet.
Thousands …
Cooperator and Atlantan, when not reading 📚 probably wants to be out backpacking ⛺🥾, climbing 🧗, or mountain biking 🚵.
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37% complete! Sam has read 9 of 24 books.
The astonishing sequel to Children of Time, the award-winning novel of humanity’s battle for survival on a terraformed planet.
Thousands …
Similar to a lot of the other reviews I'm reading this one just didn't grip me quite as much as the first two books. I liked the folk tale atmosphere and the fact that it uses the first two books being similar to trick you into thinking that this one would follow a similar path, but I didn't feel that the alien life forms were as well explored in this book. We got very little on the actual paired-mind of the corvids, with most of the focus being on the two individual parts of the mind, and the other mind that possibly exists in the book is only hinted at vaguely. I enjoyed the ending, but not as much as the first two since the big reveal at the end felt a bit obvious (albeit the details were all different from my own guesses).
Overall this felt like the middle …
Similar to a lot of the other reviews I'm reading this one just didn't grip me quite as much as the first two books. I liked the folk tale atmosphere and the fact that it uses the first two books being similar to trick you into thinking that this one would follow a similar path, but I didn't feel that the alien life forms were as well explored in this book. We got very little on the actual paired-mind of the corvids, with most of the focus being on the two individual parts of the mind, and the other mind that possibly exists in the book is only hinted at vaguely. I enjoyed the ending, but not as much as the first two since the big reveal at the end felt a bit obvious (albeit the details were all different from my own guesses).
Overall this felt like the middle could have been condensed and that this book was mostly just setting up a plot for a future book without having much of a satisfying story of its own. That being said, I still enjoyed it enough to give it 4 stars and would recommend it if you liked the first two books.
We think that it is better not to be sentient. Imagine how hard that would be, to actually have to think about things all the time.
— Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Page 446)
After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter—has finally …
@loppear@bookwyrm.social The Player of Games was definitely my favorite, but I have a weird fondness for the way this one does vignettes of war movie tropes, except everyone dies in stupid and pointless ways at the end of each one. The comedy value is just perfect even though all the actual text is pretty serious.
Consider Phlebas is perhaps one of the lesser-known, but nevertheless the first, of the revelationary late Iain M. Banks' science …
A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) …
A budding dark sorceress determined not to use her formidable powers uncovers yet more secrets about the workings of her …
The one thing you never talk about while you’re in the Scholomance is what you’ll do when you get out. …
The one thing you never talk about while you’re in the Scholomance is what you’ll do when you get out. …
"in the same way you know perfectly well you ought to stop reading and go to bed and you'll feel hideously groggy in the morning if you don't, and yet you keep going."
— The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik (Page 210)
I read this a bit after midnight and felt very seen.
Carolyn's not so different from the other human beings around her. She's sure of it. She likes guacamole and cigarettes …
We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept …