Children of Time

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Narrated by: Mel Hudson

Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet.

Who will inherit this new Earth?

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?

©2016 Adrian Tchaikovsky (P)2017 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

" Children of Time is a joy from start to finish. Entertaining, smart, surprising and unexpectedly human." (Patrick Ness)

Thought provoking, timely and optimistic

Adrian Tchaikovsky is a busy author. Children of Time is the first book of his I have read and visits a familiar landscape in contemporary sci-fi: the Earth is becoming unlivable and great ships are being built to send stores of humans to far off worlds to begin new, terraformed colonies.  In this story there are some fascinating wrinkles.

The story opens with a ceremony marking the beginning of a terraforming project on one such far off world. The point of view is the narcissistic designer of this world drearily waiting through the formalities of her grand plan being put into effect. At the penultimate moment the pilot of the lead ship reveals himself to be a saboteur, a man whose personal convictions are that humans should not be imposing their view of the Universe on unsuspecting worlds. His efforts result in the grand plan mostly failing and the designer escaping death by placing herself in a hibernation chamber.

The plan for this project centered on a proto-virus that was introduced into the planetary ecosystem. The intent was for it to act as a catalyst and accelerator for evolutionary development of monkeys who were also to be introduced. The idea was to inoculate the planet with these elements, wait a few thousand years then descend a world pre-populated with humans at an early technological age and live as gods.

The monkeys did not make it and though the proto-virus had constraints to keep it from affecting every species, because only the monkeys were supposed to be affected, it turns out the native spider and ant populations were affected.

Meanwhile, time passes for the Earth. A lot of time. Time enough for the fall of the technological greatness allowing such project, an ice age, and a rebirth of technology eventually allowing for a new series of colony ships to be built and sent out.

Time is everywhere in this story. We watch the spiders evolve on their planet. The humans traveling in their colony ship have a stasis like sleep which can last for hundreds of years. They are periodically woken by the ship when their input or expertise is required to deal with issues and return to sleep. It's a fascinating plot device that allows for characters to age at different rates and wake to completely different realities within the confines of the same ship they start in.

The inevitable meeting of the two species, humans and spiders, in space is entertaining and exciting. I've written before about an author's ability to tell a story without breaking my suspension of disbelief and Tchaikovsky manages it well with his telling of the battle that ensues.

There is a fair amount of what I consider contemporary commentary of issues of the day like power, fairness, equality and the effects of technology on life.

Wonderful

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Very entertaining, creative and thought-provoking on the nature of our species.

Although it was written a few years ago it's particularly apt right now given the current political climate. It Is by no means inherently political but it's fantastical storylines lend themselves to interesting reflection about the nature of human behavior and the tension between our drives towards conflict and harmony.

The book was well-written, intelligent, and had some unique and intriguing elements.

Incredible

What a beautiful and complex illustration of what time, intelligence and knowledge might produce. This blew my mind. The narrator was amazing. Her interpretation of the text, her tone and the accents she did made the book so easy to listen to.

Thought-provoking sci fi story

This book definitely comes off as more deep and thought provoking than most sci fi stories. It deals with uplifting, war, peace, various psychological effects on the mind, what it means to he human, and how that all relates to a completely alien society and intelligence.

The story spans a pretty long time(I assume some several hundred years start to finish, but it's never specified) and shows the last bit of Humanity's survivor's trying to find a new homeworld. That's half the story. The other half revolves around spiders. Big spiders, but not just big. Intelligent spiders.

I personally found the human parts quite boring the vast majority of the time. I did not care for almost any of the human characters and I felt annoyed every time the perspective shifted back to them when I was just getting into a super interesting tidbit of spider society. But once we get into about 75% through the book and finally get to see the meaningful parts of the story kick in, it's finally a bit interesting, albeit still not nearly as much as the spiders side. My primary issue with the human part of the story in this book is the sheer lack of focus and purpose in it. Throughout the first three quarters or so of the book, we see various events that occur over a long time that do not alter or improve the base story in any way.

By the end of the book, one of the things I asked myself, is why did I have to spend 2 hours on fanatic terrorists trying to take over the ship? It had zero effect on the story and it was entirely uninteresting in comparison with everything else. I just feel like a lot of time was wasted on scenes like this. Scenes that seemed to serve no purpose within the story. As if they were there just to provide some action where it would otherwise be completely unnecessary.

Other than that, it was a fun book. I loved learning about the spider society. They're so very different from any kind of intelligent life we generally think about. Yet at the same time, it's explained in a way that it's very easy to understand. The way they communicate, the tech they use, how they view relationships, their hierarchy of society, etc. are all unique and different. It was explained so well I could picture it all in my head every time.

The narration is excellent. My only minor complaint and this would mostly be nitpicking, is I found it difficult to tell when a certain character was speaking or simply thinking, as there was some kind of mental issue thing going on with said character and the dialogue and tone didn't seem to really change.

Highly recommend if you like discovery/exploration sci fi stories. Kind of meh if you're looking for an interesting human centric story.

slow start, strong finish

I am downloading the next one at my write this review. it had strong echoes of non-dune Frank Herbert

Wonderfully original concept, skilfully executed

This book is based on a wonderfully original idea: viral terraforming produces a totally unforeseen outcome in the form of giant sentient spiders and other overgrown insects on an otherwise pristine world, which the occupants of an ark ship carrying the last known vestige of humanity had hoped to settle. Throw in the ancient and slightly deranged uploaded personality construct of one of the original science team, and this becomes a rich feast of ideas. This slightly chilling scenario is treated with remarkable skill by the author, who weaves an engrossing story of two cultures and their inevitable confrontation. The emerging spider society is fascinating and I found myself cheering for them in their struggles. Filled with exotic but entirely believeable events and evolutionary arcs, this book is the most inventive novel I have listened to this year. The narrator does a fine job. Her depiction of male voices is a bit off, but given the prominence of female protagonists in the story a female narrator was the right choice. A fresh, engaging and very satisfying novel. Highly recommended.

Five Stars, But Disgusting

This book reminds me of the song my Grand Mom used to sing “I Don’t Like Spiders And Snakes”. The storyline is intriguing, the narrator is first rate, but many of the characters are just creepy.

Do it, you won't regret it.

I read a small writeup about this book ages ago, and thought, intelligent spiders ruling a planet? What is this weird star trek crap, but it is so much better than I could have hoped for. The time jumps can be a bit jarring nat first, but it is 100% worth a listen. Highly recommend!

Eeeeek, Spiders

Fans of Clark and/or Brin shall enjoy... Fascinating take on societal/cultural declines and ascendance's... It's not true hard sf, but hardish... Some pretty complicated and layered concepts that'll encourage pausing and thinking on them as you go along... Great AI portrayal, and the nature of sentience, both natural and engineered... Human characters are on the thin side, but the intricacies of the arachnid civilization and its inhabitants more than make up... Absolutely stellar ending that very few will predict;). I really like the racial memory aspects, and the continuation of individual consciousnesses... Excellent narration...

Adrian loves his insects!

Well worth a listen as Adrian explores a twist on insect sentience. Enough unexpected plot developments right to the end to keep the interest.