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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Some incredibly creative ideas here, but the plot itself dragged and jumped like a cat on a leash. The queer and specifically trans representation was well-intentioned but, in my opinion, clumsily executed.
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
The characters kept disappointing me, and in general the book just felt very white and very male.
adventurous
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:
Complicated
“How many times can you watch the world end, after all, even if it’s not your world?”It’s only natural - and very conceitedly tempting - to think of humanity as if not the pinnacle of evolution then at least the inevitable and logical result of its natural progression. From the unicellular organisms deciding that strength is in numbers to the ill-fated trilobites of the Cambrian explosion, to Devonian Age of Fishes, to the devastation of the Great Dying of the Permian extinction, to the ill-fated dinosaurs side-eyeing that mercilessly approaching asteroid, to mammalian dominance until finally, elbowing out of the way our less fortunate Neanderthal cousins we, humans, emerge onto the global scene as the ultimate lottery winners.
“The Earth tried to kill us in our cradle, but the timelines you have seen survived it, or at least bequeathed a relic of themselves to the future.
[…]
The lesson here is that the Earth doesn’t care; that bad things happen; that it could so easily have been us.”
But imagine - just imagine that this was only one possibility out of multitude of others. Imagine that life took different forms and shapes and paths. Imagine sentience awakening over and over and over again - but in different creatures altogether, on the Earths that are not ours (and don’t tell Peter Watts of [b:Blindsight|48484|Blindsight (Firefall, #1)|Peter Watts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386924412l/48484._SX50_.jpg|47428] fame about that). And these parallel timelines sometimes bleed into each other, to the delight of cryptid hunters and derision of the scientific minds — at least for a while. “You ever get the feeling there are cracks in the world?”
“What if—bear with me—a civilization of gigantic immortal spacefaring trilobites didn’t evolve? I know, it seems hardly credible, but imagine, if you will.”
And for every beginning there also usually is an ending. Seems natural — but a bit chilling when what you talking about is the universe.
“I mean, this is affecting the whole universe. There isn’t exactly a safe place to watch from.”
—————
Adrian Tchaikovsky is among my favorite science fiction writers, a prolific writer maintaining brainy inventive quality in all of his works, not afraid of venturing out into difficult concepts and making them fascinating. And his exceptional forte seems to be exploration of sentient life different from what we are used to, going past the humanoid bipedal relatable lifeforms and venturing into the worlds of spacefaring spiders and technologically advanced octopuses — and why not the worlds of spacefaring trilobites and frozen fish computers? Apparently, the man studied (not “read”, but studied
Spoiler
“Lee was studying zoology at Reading, Mal was reading English Lit at Oxford—an establishment so exclusive that they had a whole other verb for what you did there”“In this world, long ago, something awoke.”
His story here starts small and quickly works up to dizzying stakes. The more straightforward present-day Earth plot - weaved in itself out of many parallel story threads that eventually coalesce to create a very satisfying whole - are punctuated with interconnected stories of parallel evolution on Earths that are not ours, and all together it creates a truly epic tapestry that is just a pleasure to read. There is a sprinkle of hard science concepts, but Tchaikovsky still makes it a very accessible and easy read without dumbing it down much. He’s just got the skill for making stories flow while encompassing within all that stuff about evolution, science and psychology as well as a suspenseful adventure (partially playing out within a spacefaring trilobite. Seriously).
“When you told people they were the inheritors of the world, none of them imagined sharing.”
And cooperation. That is Tchaikovsky’s common theme, and it is done well. His societies tend to do better when stark individualism is put aside and a hand (or a tentacle, or a claw) is extended across the Us-Them divide, not holding a weapon but an offer of help, the acknowledgment of something common in us rather than what divides us. Because there are things much worse than a bit of an existential crisis at the whole “We’d lost our place at the centre of the universe” bit, that whole fear of the “other” overtaking the self-proclaimed great power of the universe.
“You are gullible. Surrounded by people you don’t know, with your leaders even less knowable, and you are gullible. Someone says a thing to you strongly enough, you believe them. You take confidence for truth.”
4.5 stars (docking half a star for a couple of very annoying humans out of a very large cast of characters), rounding up to 5 (because wonderful story makes up for that many times over). A science fiction classic, indeed.
“Everywhere, a garden of life arises—the very first Eden. But it doesn’t support life like ours, or even our ancestors’. This is life of another caste entirely. A world of quilt-bodied things that lie supine upon the sea floor, or inch slowly across the bacterial mats without limbs or muscles, feeding upon them without mouths. They are a global community of organisms alien to us, and they live without tooth or claw, without eyes, without organs.
Our world was like this once. Go back six hundred million years and you wouldn’t know the difference. But this is not our world.
In this world, something awoke.”
————
Buddy read with carol and Phil.
————
My reviews of other books by Adrian Tchaikovsky:
Children of Time
Children of Ruin
The Expert System’s Brother
Firewalkers
Walking to Aldebaran
One Day All This Will Be Yours
Shards of Earth
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Got a bit confused but still enjoyed it
Love the story, have issues with execution. Overall, a great read, on a scale that is very rare to see with one of the most satisfying endings I have seen.