Children of Time (Children of Time, 1)

About 15 years ago, after being disappointed by the ending of the Wachowskis' Matrix movies, it occurred to me that it would have been much more satisfying to learn that The Machines were not "machines" at all, but instead the engineered descendants of elite humans, whose will and consciousness they still embodied. That story could have been a powerful fable of the ways that people abuse and entrap each other into diseased social relations, and how true peace would have entailed a reunification of a species separated so long ago. Instead it was just a muddled and one-sided story of revolution against—what? Oppressive "systems" personified?

So, after getting past the first few ham-handed pages of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time, and the bodily antics of the weirdly juvenile, unbelievably flat, and deeply unlikable Avrana Kern—who plays better as a garbled piece of software than as a physical person—I was excited for the possibilities implied by the setup. "Did Tchaikovsky have the same response to the Matrix movies that I did, but more productively?" I wondered.

The book is extremely well-paced, with reasonably short chapters alternating between two narratives that are obviously racing toward each other. I mention the shortness of the chapters because, for me, there was hardly a likable character in the book, and the short chapters, alternating between such different stories, compensated for that. Of the spiders, the eccentric Bianca was probably the one I came closest to really liking. Among the humans, Holsten Mason, the "classicist," is about as likable as any of them got. But even he seems pretty drab, and not really believable as a classist, but seeming more as I suppose a scientist or an engineer might imagine a classicist.

And that, unfortunately, is too often a weakness in this genre; It is difficult to find well-written students of the humanities in science fiction. There are excellent exceptions, and I might be painting with too broad a brush. But while writers and readers of science fiction like to hold out the genre as a way to explore the implications of science and technology, it seems to me far better as a vehicle to explore the implications for human persons not just of possible technologies and possible scientific facts, but of the cultural and economic structures for knowing and authority, and for the creation of meaning and morality, as those things are shaped by scientific and technological mindsets and practices.

Which sets me on the path to unfolding the biggest disappointment of the book. But let me first qualify that the magnitude of the disappointment is directly proportional to the strength of Tchaikovsky's efforts—if I found the mountaintop lacking, it was only because he managed to scale the mountain. He clearly recognizes that science and technology only make sense when they are embedded in cultures, and has labored to create two distinct and contrasting cultures. The story of the nanovirus-infected spiders is brilliant, evocative, and stunningly well-imagined. I will come back to that.

The story of the people on the generation ship Gilgamesh is a little less inspired, but solid. I would have liked to see a more penetrating examination of how exactly a "crew" hierarchy would be maintained (or make any sense at all) in such extreme circumstances. There are bits and pieces in the background of ideas about cult-like devotion, but those are tied to somewhat flat and less-than-credible foreground figures, like Vrie Guyen, who seems to be designed solely for the author to push him around mechanically and drive the plot forward (which makes his ultimate fate a little too on-the-nose, even if delightfully horrifying as a set piece). And the cult of Isa Lain just seems to appear out of nowhere, without much depth or explanation, for no persuasive reason except that it needs to be there.

In other words, the parts of the book set on the Gilgamesh are standard fare for the genre, and not especially dazzling.

The story of the spiders, however, is downright scintillating. If it were not so alien, it might have made a brilliant book in its own right. But it probably would have been difficult to hold readers' attention. This is another reason that Tchaikovsky was wise to set up the story so that the spider chapters are interspersed among the Gilgamesh chapters. Unlikeable though the human characters may be, their more recognizable antics are a helpful respite from the alienness of the spiders, and that allows Tchaikovsky to serve up this far more creative side of the story in manageable doses. I loved it.

But for all their wonderful, web-like intelligence, and the communitarian ethic apparently instilled by the nanovirus (that somehow failed spectacularly to overcome rank sexism), all of which is vividly and persuasively imagined, the "religious" angle of their society is little more than a caricature. For all the sectarianism that happens mostly in the background (the way the cults happen mostly in the background on the Gilgamesh), I find it hard to believe that none of the spiders, in all their intricate wisdom, would have challenged the literalness of "God." Where were the spider mystics, in another words? Where the ones recognizing that, if ant colonies can be transformed into living machines, with the ability, even, to capture consciousness, and if there is such continuity in being that a "message" from beyond their world is even possible, that there must be some greater unity of existence? A "ground of being," perhaps?

Maybe that is too much to ask. Maybe it would have made the book a thousand pages long, instead of just six hundred. But I think it would have been more satisfying. And it could have enabled a much more interesting version of the conflict that plays out in the final chapters of the book—more interesting, at least, than the one driven by a silly, shunted-in conversation about the Prisoner's Dilemma. A clash of civilizations precipitated by a logic game? Really? Despite having set up so much great potential for these weird, religious cultures?

Just as I enjoyed but was disappointed by the Matrix movies, which could have been a piercing fable of class warfare and authentic humanity, I enjoyed but was disappointed by Children of Time, which could have been a far more interesting science fiction meditation on the "two greatest commandments"—love God, love your neighbor—and that old question, "And who is my neighbor?"

Children of Time comes tantalizingly close to being that kind of a book, that uses the imaginative freedom of science fiction to press into the heart of what it means to be human in a complex, community at odds, or at least potentially at odds, with other complex communities. But it never quite crosses that line. Even so, it is brilliant, unputdownable, and definitely something that you should read.

The story is too unrealistic. Basically it's about a race of spiders on another planet. These spiders evolve and develop the ability to travel in space and wear spider space suits. The space spiders defeat human invaders coming to colonize their spider world.

Very slow read. Underdeveloped characters and the chapters on the spider society were incredibly uninteresting to the point where I skimmed through most of those until I got half way through the book then realized I was not enjoying this read at all. Gave up a little more than halfway through after hoping things would pick up but decided my time is way too valuable to slog through any book I’m not enjoying.

Yeah I'm a sci-fi junky, and this was an absolute page turner and pleasure to read. It takes place over thousands of years, and if you think that would be feat to write well, then you're right, but Tchaikovsky does it very well. He must be some kind of genius. The world building is phenomenal, and I couldn't put it down. Fascinating story about two different ages of humanity, and the development of intelligent and highly evolved spiders. There's war, political conflict, space travel, science, and beautiful world building.
What more can you ask for? I am buying the sequel and will read it as soon as it gets here. Check this book out, you will not regret it. Tchaikovsky's writing style is different, but easy to read, and he somehow has a way of saying a lot with few words, which is a magic trick in itself. Glad I discovered him, and I will be checking out a few other series he's written, like the Final Architecture. :)

I got this book after seeing it won the Arthur C Clarke award (awarded to Station 11, which I love, and The Underground Railroad, which my wife loves). I sort of love the concept of "Children of Time." The novel is basically two concurrent stories: humans on an "ark" ship, wandering the galaxy and searching for a new home planet, and another story about genetically modified and hyper intelligent spiders. In the final 10% of the novel, the two plotlines collide in a very satisfying way.

The problem is the 500 pages preceding it. The human characters are difficult to relate to and did not captivate me. The spider storyline was certainly interesting but far too detailed (these portions take up abt 2/3 of the book). Since this portion is trying to explain the history of an entire species, almost every chapter is a huge generational time jump, meaning we never stay with the same character for long. As you can imagine it means you're reading a novel where 2/3 of the narrative is spent with a cast you're unfamiliar with. Props to the author for a taking a risk, but ultimately I think it fails.

If we encountered intelligent life on another planet, would we even be able to recognize it as such?

This question is really the driving force of the book.

This book explores a lot of big ideas and concepts, but that question is the one that is at the center of it all.
The book follows two story threads that happen over the course of thousands of years; a dying race floating through space, trying to find a new home, and another race rising into intelligence on a planet that was not originally meant for them. It tells this millennia spanning story through a series of connected vignettes that time jump with almost every chapter.

If you're looking for a very character driven story, this is not the book for you. The characters are well done, but they are not necessarily what the book is about. This book is about bigger things, things that can only be explored over the course of vast amounts of time.
And it is masterfully written. The prose was a little heavy for me at first, but a few chapters in I was hooked, and already beginning to love the prose.
This is definitely the kind of book that will leave you severely disappointed if you go in with the wrong expectations as to what kind of book it's going to be. If you're going into it expecting some big space opera full of interesting and very compelling characters, you will be disappointed.

Judging this book according to what kind of book it's meant to be, I would say it succeeds on almost every level. SPOILERS: it got me to see a race of spiders as more than "the other" for goodness sake!
And society and technological development of the spiders was extremely well executed, as well as very imaginative yet grounded in complete believability -- a hard balance to maintain.
It's a bit long, but I believe that length is very necessary for properly telling the story and exploring those concepts that it puts forth.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves great sci-fi that spans huge lengths of time and is very much about exploring certain questions, not necessarily about a group of characters doing stuff.

Children of Time is an incredibly creative work of fiction. The world building is meticulous and coherent, the characters are three dimensional and relatable, and the story is as compelling and ultimately heartwarming as I've ever read. I was particularly impressed with the way the author wrote the non-human perspective. I will absolutely read this book again, it has earned a place among my favorites.

Sadly, the book let me down. It's an exciting premise; an uplift project goes wrong as Earth dies, resulting in an intelligent race of spiders, but they aren't aliens. They think and act like humans with a few quirks thrown in. The author ignores all the possibilities of exploring how an uplifted non-primate brain would work or how the spiders' communication means would affect their culture in favor of making them humans in funny suits. So that part is a letdown.

The second story concerns a human ark ship that left Earth some 2,000 years after the start of the uplift project. The main POV character on the ship, a historian and linguist, has no agency whatsoever. He spends much of these sections of the novel as a hostage or simply witnessing the actions of others, and as for the alleged key crew. . . not a non-cardboard cutout in the lot of them. Their entire story is simply bad choices and bad writing.

So many issues with this book made me want to fling it across the room. At one point, it is revealed that conditions on the ark ship have reached the point where colonists have been revived and are reproducing. Generations of children. What the hell are they eating? Where is their water coming from? This ship was designed to transport people in stasis, not a generation ship. Little things like that fill this book and pull the reader out of the story.

The ending is a pathetic deus ex machina—a complete waste of my time. Robert L. Forward did it so much better in Dragon's Egg.

I'm very hard on sci-fi books because I know too much, but aside from the need to consciously suspend disbelief to get on with the story, this is a lot of fun. There's a lot of tension in the story too, but it does have a happy ending, I promise.

The biggest eyeroll: people are not monkeys! No, we are apes, just like chimps, gorillas, and orangutans. Monkeys have tails, apes do not.

Great book, and I recommend it.

This book sucked me in from the first chapter. Couldn't put it down once I started. The world-building is amazingly intricate & well thought-out.

Tchaikovsky creates a world so fascinating, you'll start empathizing with its spiders!

Must-Read for any sci-fi fan who appreciates biology.