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Children of Time (Children of Time, #1)

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Start date: April 1, 2025

Finish date: April 30, 2025

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Mockingbird (6/25): Finished Reading (Spoilers OK)
By Kathi , Moderator & Book Lover · 8 posts · 13 views

last updated Jun 28, 2025 02:11PM

Mockingbird (6/25): Roll Call *No Spoilers*
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last updated Jun 14, 2025 05:06PM

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What Members Thought

Nov 02, 2018 Cheryl rated it really liked it

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Great read for those patient enough for a doorstopper. Even for those who normally aren't, but, like me, who are particularly interested in some of the ideas, like truly alien aliens and world-building, and no villains. See the discussion above for more of my ideas and some others.
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Reread because now it's a fully published trilogy and now I want to read all three. Of course the others are intimidatingly huge too.

Lots of discussions and reviews and quotes ...more

13 likes · Like · see review

Oct 18, 2018 Tomislav rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, sff-2018-read-all-the-books

Adrian Tchaikovsky is the pen-name of British fantasy and science fiction writer Adrian Czajkowski, previously known for his Shadows of the Apt series (which I have not read). Children of Time is his first science fiction novel, and a sequel is set to be published next year. It won the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award for SF novel published in the UK. When I looked up the award’s history, I found the list of annual winners to contain many books I’ve read and which impressed me. Perhaps, beyond the sc Adrian Tchaikovsky is the pen-name of British fantasy and science fiction writer Adrian Czajkowski, previously known for his Shadows of the Apt series (which I have not read). Children of Time is his first science fiction novel, and a sequel is set to be published next year. It won the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award for SF novel published in the UK. When I looked up the award’s history, I found the list of annual winners to contain many books I’ve read and which impressed me. Perhaps, beyond the science fiction, we can find some literary trappings in this novel?

The structure of the novel is two alternating epic plot threads, one concerning humans and the other an intelligent species uplifted from terrestrial spiders. The human plot skips forward through time starting from the time of a scientific facility orbiting around a distant terraformed world, named in honor of science fiction writer David Brin who has previously worked with the uplift concept in his Startide Rising books. The familiar SF tropes of machine upload and cold suspension are used to move recurring human characters forward through time. After the collapse of that first wave of human expansion, the one and only human generation ship is forced to abandon an Earth no longer capable of sustaining life. The Gilgamesh encounters a world populated by the uplifted spiders and fiercely defended by a surviving human/machine hybrid.

But one of the difficulties in science fiction is the creation of realistic aliens with whom the human reader can identify, and thereby remain interested beyond the intellectual exercise of it. The easy solution chosen by some writers and most filmmakers is to make the aliens as if they are human beings in strange costumes. Even though Tchaikovsky’s spiders are evolved from an Earth life form by a human-designed retrovirus, their psychology and sociology diverge in interesting ways. Their Understandings (hand-wavey biochemically transferred and/or stored memories) enable the recurrence of Spider archetypal characters in the episodically told history of Spider evolution. After the exposition of the concepts, in spite of recurring spider personalities, my interest sagged during the spider chapters as Tchaikovsky moved them through cultural and technological evolution.

However, a significant turning point occurs during the build-up to the inevitable conflict between the humans and the spiders. (view spoiler)

I was particularly impressed with the chapter in which (view spoiler)

I am curious to know what the sequel will be, as I would have thought this conclusion was final. (view spoiler) ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Feb 11, 2018 Maggie K rated it really liked it

Shelves: sffbc-read-the-books, sffbc-tbr

This was so enjoyable!

I love sci-fi where the premise is plausible, makes sense, and sticks to its own story. Sometimes space faring/first contact stories end up kind of horrific, but the POVs here made both sides both credible and sympathetic.
HIghly recommend

8 likes · Like · see review