Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

9 reviews

araebird's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

At first I found it difficult to get behind a main character that's also a spider, let alone entire spider colonies. But Tchaikovsky makes it so easy to root for them, and by the end of the book Portia and Bianca were my favourite characters. The units of time are so immense that at times it's difficult to comprehend, but I loved being able to see the evolution fo the spiders over thousands of years. 

Listening to the audiobook alongside the physical book helped make sense of Dr Kern's predicament

while her sanity declines and merges with a computer

. While there are some science-y elements in this book, it's not at all hard to follow, and if you don't understand them you'll still be able to follow the plot. If you're normally a high-fantasy reader who wants to get into sci-fi, this is a good book to start with since it follows multiple perspectives throughout.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror

DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE AFRAID OF SPIDERS! <3

jillysmith's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

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

5.0

It's strange to say that a book which follows generations of people across millennia is character driven, but this is a glorious book. I could never conceive of writing something like this but I loved the experience. Children of Time follows two civilisations across millennia as they evolve and plot a collision course with one another. They find, confront, and replace their gods and build cities and yet it is an incredibly intimate story of romance and family 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, and Body horror

Arachnophobia

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

adventurous tense slow-paced

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

3.0

maybe just the mood I'm in but it never quite clicked for me :( the spiders were cool though

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror

Moderate: Gun violence, Violence, Xenophobia, Death, Murder, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Sexism, Animal death, Cannibalism, and Terminal illness

Minor: Ableism

Spiders, insects. Passing use of cr*pple/d, single use of the R slur.

toopunkrockforshul's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Really loved this book, such an interesting premise and it really explores the full depths of everything that it sets up. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, Medical content, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, Dementia, Violence, Grief, Cannibalism, and Body horror

micheala's review against another edition

This book has a really cool premise, in terms of post apocalyptic SciFi. The set up is that humans had started terraforming the galaxy before a nuclear war destroyed all humans living off planet, and threw Earth into an ice age. 

We then get a ship with a few thousand of the remaining humans centuries later, travelling through space (in stais) in the hopes of finding a new home. 

The planet they do eventually arrive at was supposed to be an experiment to "speed run" evolution and create new humans from monkeys + an engineered virus. However, those monkeys died being sent to the planet, and giant senteant  insects evolve instead. 

Cool right? I had a few quibbles with the spider sections (they don't know what humans/earth is, and they don't know about the virus let alone how it functions, so stop talking about it in the narrative portions of their sections; and I was kinda disappointed that their society also was fundamentally sexist and pretty much a 1:1 of humans in the medial ages in terms of society) 

The humans finally get onto the planet, and we get drop kicked into full on horror, specifically graphic body horror. So I noped out of a story I was otherwise enjoying at 37%

If you're cool with horror, I'm guessing this book is going to continue to play with some really interesting ideas, however as someone who cannot deal with horror, it's a DNF for me.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Death, Genocide, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Colonisation, Gun violence, Blood, Body horror, Murder, and Sexism

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

saltycoffee's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Panic attacks/disorders, Xenophobia, Colonisation, Genocide, and War

gilchrist's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, and Slavery

Moderate: Body horror

manicpixl's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

Warning: If you have a phobia of

spiders

, be very careful approaching this book (I wrapped the object of the phobia in spoiler brackets, even though it becomes apparent very early on in the book, but if you prefer to go in completely blind, I don't want to spoil that for you).
That said, I have a pretty major case of exactly that phobia, and I managed perfectly fine until one scene towards the end, when

the spiders actually meet and engage in battle with the humans

. The detachement created by the books setting and tone worked very well for me, but please be aware that this might not be the case for you.
And I'm so glad that I took the risk, knowing about the content, and was able to read this book, because it was absolutely worth it!
It wove the science and the fiction together into a very engaging story, and I enjoyed the writing style very much.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Death

Moderate: Body horror and Gore

Very large spiders as protagonists