Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

8 reviews

maddie_can_read's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

I had a super difficult time getting into this book but I'm glad I powered through because I ended up really enjoying it towards the end. I did find it a bit slow and a bit plodding throughout.

I had a difficult time vibing with the writing style at first. I think it was a combination of it being written in third person but then also being kind omniscient narrator (like they knew everything about past humanity -

like comparing the spider pandemic to the black plague

. 

And I just could not connect with any of the characters until almost the half way point. I don't think the author is great at characterization.

I kept going because I liked the premise and I read all these reviews talking about how weird (in a good way) the book was and just thought I'd keep going and give it some more time. 

And wow, I loved it when things got weird! Having the structure of the book set up the way it is

spanning multiple generations

made it so some really interesting things could occur. Really liked how the two story-lines came to a head. 

Lots of wtf moments

really was not expecting Arvana to turn away the last of humanity, the mutiny, the spiders holding a human captivity for decades, spider sexism, the captain wanting to become the ship and being kept alive by machines, the captain letting people out of some pods and them having generations of children that followed him like a cult leader, really loved the love story between the humans (how it was impacted by one of them staying out of their cold sleep for longer) and then the one between two of the spiders towards the end where the male sacrifices himself, and loved the twist/ fake-out at the end!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Cursing, Religious bigotry, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, and Sexism

Moderate: Confinement, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Blood

Minor: Suicide, Sexual content, Excrement, and Slavery

SPIDERS, insects

chelsea_nailpolishlover's review against another edition

challenging mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Dnf’d at page 350. 

Listen I tried.. I really did. What sucks for me the most is I didn’t listen to my gut when I read the sample of this book before outright buying it and wasting my money of this trivial piece of work. 

The actions against humans and animals and the way they are thought about in this book is quite frankly racists, ablest and annoyingly ageist. Ageist is the least of its problems though. 

At first when the mfc was thinking disgusting thoughts and hints of racist thoughts about people, calling them animals and monkeys (and no I don’t mean the actual monkeys, saying they were less than etc. Incredibly speciesist, even against their own species. The egoistical aspersions of the person etc I thought I could look past it as a villain origin story, of a sociopathic individual and that it wouldn’t be a huge continuing aspect in the writing. Boy was I wrong. 

Even the god damn spiders had the same thinking. The author (a man) really loved to pound out the grossest most stereotypical feminist propaganda imaginable. (And I’m a feminist). It was like they wanted to make a joke of women. 

The crew part was the most interesting part of this book. But the writing was all over the place. You had no idea half the time of how much time had passed. Where they were currently. What they were actually doing. And it would jump from different POV’s almost every chapter. And then you would get back and generations had passed?!?!? How the fuck is anyone supposed to keep up with the story, the timeline, or learn about literally anything when we get 5 minute snippets of bullshit plot. 

Let’s not even get to the impossibilities of the science fiction aspects of this book. Clearly the author has no idea how science works. Infecting a whole planet instead of injecting the monkeys? Let’s not forget the crystal 💀 and sending signals plz. I just couldn’t fkin do it anymore. 

One of my last straws honestly was one of the characters calling people ret^rded. Along with the spiders becoming religious and basically becoming a cult for this god and wanting to destroy others if they didn’t believe the same. 👎🏻🙅🏻‍♀️ 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Animal death, Cursing, Racism, Death, Abandonment, Classism, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Ableism, War, Slavery, Murder, Animal cruelty, Blood, Confinement, Genocide, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism and Racism

euphemiajo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Xenophobia, Animal death, Colonisation, Death of parent, Violence, War, Animal cruelty, Ableism, Death, Abandonment, Gun violence, Medical content, Mental illness, and Pregnancy

thecheryl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Just go read it! Right now!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Cursing

Moderate: Gun violence

valjeanval's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book was a real surprise. The word “epic” gets thrown around a lot, but this is the actual definition of epic. It’s a sweeping, perspective-bending epic that anyone could enjoy except perhaps arachnophobes.

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Animal death, War, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, Classism, Violence, Sexism, Death, Cursing, and Blood

iono's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism and Cannibalism

Moderate: Murder, Confinement, Death, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Slavery, Violence, and Colonisation

Minor: Genocide, Cursing, and War

cookiecat73's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, War, Xenophobia, Animal cruelty, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Abandonment, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gore, Slavery, Abortion, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Classism, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, and Terminal illness

Minor: Child death, Excrement, Incest, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

rachel1's review against another edition

adventurous challenging inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is what sci-fi should be about. Someone using their expertise to create the most in-depth worldbuilding. I didn't expect the author's zoology degree to be relevant, boy was I wrong. The human parts were good but it was the spider parts I was really invested in. I would tell my twin sister everything about how the spiders' society and biology are evolving. I didn't tell her much about the humans. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Sexism, Xenophobia, Gun violence, Genocide, War, and Cannibalism

Minor: Animal death

The book contains a lot of giant spiders.