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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
I just didn't care at all about what was happening or why. It was all heavily recycled themes that weren't combined in a particularly interesting way.
It's very rare that I am disappointed in an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel. He's one of my favorite authors, and his tie in to his Zoological background is always incredible to me. This book however, felt like one of those books that was one of an author's first works, that get bought after they become successful.
The pace felt slow, characters kinda lifeless (even their love stories), but I absolutely loved the concept. Looking at the evolution in parallel universes? There was so much potential......and just didn't stick the landing for me.
The pace felt slow, characters kinda lifeless (even their love stories), but I absolutely loved the concept. Looking at the evolution in parallel universes? There was so much potential......and just didn't stick the landing for me.
challenging
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is the most classic Adrian Tchaikovsky book I've ever read - if you like his work, you'll probably like this! It is, of course, stuffed full of speculative evolution and interspecies friendship. It was a bit of a slog for me, but I think I took too long to read it and started forgetting details so that is on me
Adrian Tchaikovsky continues to impress. Is there a genre he hasn’t tried yet? In The Doors of Eden he looks at parallel worlds coming together and the things that are coming through the cracks. Ever considered taking a deep dive into a multiverse of parallel Earths? If yes, don’t wait any longer and experience an insane interdimensional adventure.
Lee and Mal, two British girls fascinated by cryptozoology, are an item. During their hunt for a mysterious Birdman somewhere in Wales, they make a breakthrough discovery. Before they can share or document it, one of the girls gets lost. For years. As if she disappeared from the surface of the Earth.
Four years later, the missed girl contacts the other one through a phone call that leaves no record. From there, things go downhill quickly. The Doors of Eden combine a techno-thriller narrative with evolutionary biology and hard sci-fi. And it rocks. The book awes with mind-bending concepts such as moving between the worlds. Sometimes through walls and sometimes through “doors” that appear in most unexpected places, just for a second. The worlds we explore feel distinct and their inhabitants took biology in most unexpected directions. Among bizarre creatures introduced in the book, you’ll find, for example, fishes that upload their minds into ice-bound supercomputers or super-intelligent squids. We get a secret agent, trans mathematician, and intelligence analyst added to the mix. It tackles serious themes like Brexit, English nationalism, climate change but keeps them relevant to the story.
Tchaikovsky does an amazing job of fleshing out all the characters, bad guys included. The book introduces a lot of POV characters. Some get a lot of screen time, others a little. Things feel balanced, though. The multiverse itself is a marvel to behold. World-building rarely impresses me, but in The Doors of Eden, it left me speechless and awed. I found it bold, imaginative, with a sense of scale epic in scope, but not so large as to detract from the complex relationships between characters. To make things even more thrilling, Tchaikovsky throws in plenty of surprises. He makes his characters struggle as they fight to save one another, but also to change the world in unexpected ways.
The Doors of Eden explores big ideas and rewards patient readers. Despite a strong focus on evolutionary science and detailed world-building, it keeps a compelling character journey that heightens the emotional core of the novel. Not an easy read by any means, but it’s well worth the time.
ARC through NetGalley
Lee and Mal, two British girls fascinated by cryptozoology, are an item. During their hunt for a mysterious Birdman somewhere in Wales, they make a breakthrough discovery. Before they can share or document it, one of the girls gets lost. For years. As if she disappeared from the surface of the Earth.
Four years later, the missed girl contacts the other one through a phone call that leaves no record. From there, things go downhill quickly. The Doors of Eden combine a techno-thriller narrative with evolutionary biology and hard sci-fi. And it rocks. The book awes with mind-bending concepts such as moving between the worlds. Sometimes through walls and sometimes through “doors” that appear in most unexpected places, just for a second. The worlds we explore feel distinct and their inhabitants took biology in most unexpected directions. Among bizarre creatures introduced in the book, you’ll find, for example, fishes that upload their minds into ice-bound supercomputers or super-intelligent squids. We get a secret agent, trans mathematician, and intelligence analyst added to the mix. It tackles serious themes like Brexit, English nationalism, climate change but keeps them relevant to the story.
Tchaikovsky does an amazing job of fleshing out all the characters, bad guys included. The book introduces a lot of POV characters. Some get a lot of screen time, others a little. Things feel balanced, though. The multiverse itself is a marvel to behold. World-building rarely impresses me, but in The Doors of Eden, it left me speechless and awed. I found it bold, imaginative, with a sense of scale epic in scope, but not so large as to detract from the complex relationships between characters. To make things even more thrilling, Tchaikovsky throws in plenty of surprises. He makes his characters struggle as they fight to save one another, but also to change the world in unexpected ways.
The Doors of Eden explores big ideas and rewards patient readers. Despite a strong focus on evolutionary science and detailed world-building, it keeps a compelling character journey that heightens the emotional core of the novel. Not an easy read by any means, but it’s well worth the time.
ARC through NetGalley
Love AT, but this one fell a little flat for me. Favorite character: DR. RAT.
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Seguramente sea la novela más ambiciosa y más redonda de Adrian Tchaikovsky. Superior a nivel de ideas a Children of Time. Hasta la fecha, mi preferida del autor.
This review was originally published over at The Fantasy Hive.
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest is a triumph. A perfect jumping-on point for his body of work, The Doors of Eden convinced me I need to explore the author’s previous novels in due haste. Tchaikovsky exhibits formidable skill in every chapter of this 600-page masterpiece, and boundless imagination in every interlude punctuating the text.
The Doors of Eden takes a “big picture” view towards evolution, every interlude serving to develop a singularly gripping idea – what if, in Earths much like our own, the evolutionary lottery had fallen on a different sequence entirely? How about several sequences? Tchaikovsky not only asks, “What if intelligence evolved over the different geological periods of the history of Earth?” but he offers answers as well, with poise and mastery. Each ‘What if?’ scenario is more gripping than the next, every one a piece of the ambitious puzzle he has set out for you, Reader. On the first page before the Prelude, you will find a timeline of our planet’s geological timeline; keep an eye on it. Return to it after every interlude and watch as it all clicks to place.
I have, perhaps, began backward; not with the gist of the story, but with the gaps between its building blocks. But it is all connected, dear Reader, and in what a way! The main story — and if you’ve read the blurb, you’ll have picked up on this — has a lot of moving parts. Much of its first third (or even half) reads as an exceptional thriller would. Some mystery is at work, thinning the barriers between our world and others. It’s a mystery pocked at from several different perspectives. We are first introduced to Lee, who is contacted by her girlfriend Mal, missing now for four years. The second perspective is that of Julian Sabreur and his close colleague, analyst Alison, as they attempt to make sense of unseen forces trying to snatch. The third, follows Lucas, the career henchman to a ruthless billionaire who has his fingers in more than just one pie. He is written so well; though his actions are reprehensible and abhorrent, viewing events from his PoV is persuasive enough you can’t help but have a soft spot for a man who only cares about his own skin. And the forth? It’s scientist Kay Amala Khan herself, the absolute biggest smartass in history. Every time she opens her mouth, it’s like bloody fireworks go off!
Tons of supporting characters make for memorable clashes and encounters with each of our PoV characters – the absolute stand-outs are Sabreur’s boss, Leslie Hind, who is a cold-blooded badass, and Dr. Rat, a mad genius of the most entertaining variety.
I was well-impressed from the very start; the prose is lively, its tone thoroughly modern, its message one of inclusion and acceptance. No one to illustrate this better than Kay Amal Khan, the star physicist of a theoretical branch of physics so alien and new to the science that no more than three scientists in all the world can wrap their heads around it. Kay is trans, and her representation is on point throughout – her portrayal has inspired me, in fact, to write an essay on identity in the book, on the attempt of certain characters to muzzle who Kay is through force, and her retaking it. This is the kind of book The Doors of Eden is, a novel that inspires you to deconstruct and analyse in search of deeper understanding.
Few of the intelligences Tchaikovsky illustrates in the intervals between the chapters are like our own; some of them are as alien and unknowable as the very finest exemplars of science fiction (the AlienPrimes in Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga come to mind, though there is no place for comparison in terms of behaviour, only in strangeness, otherness).
Tchaikovsky strikes the right note in terms of humour, too, which goes a long way to help deal with (at times) tense and heavy subject matter. This novel contains within it the funniest example of a man really needing his phone. Beyond that, I admire that Tchaikovsky makes his political allegiance present and clear. It is the writer’s prerogative to illustrate his view of the world; authors of sci-fi, always with their eye to the future, are well-suited to the task.
I closed the covers of The Doors of Eden with the hugest smile plastered over my face. It’s a big book, and dense with ideas, and without doubt a modern classic of the science fiction genre. Peter F. Hamilton has the right of it: “Tchaikovsky has created a fantastic and highly imaginative new genre: evolution SF.” More impressive yet, he has found a way to fuse with the cold, rational idea of evolution something of the soul. And that, dear Reader, demands attention.
Published by: Tor
Genre: Science fiction
Pages: 597
Format: Hardcover
Review Copy: Sent to me by Tor.uk in exchange of an honest review.
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest is a triumph. A perfect jumping-on point for his body of work, The Doors of Eden convinced me I need to explore the author’s previous novels in due haste. Tchaikovsky exhibits formidable skill in every chapter of this 600-page masterpiece, and boundless imagination in every interlude punctuating the text.
The Doors of Eden takes a “big picture” view towards evolution, every interlude serving to develop a singularly gripping idea – what if, in Earths much like our own, the evolutionary lottery had fallen on a different sequence entirely? How about several sequences? Tchaikovsky not only asks, “What if intelligence evolved over the different geological periods of the history of Earth?” but he offers answers as well, with poise and mastery. Each ‘What if?’ scenario is more gripping than the next, every one a piece of the ambitious puzzle he has set out for you, Reader. On the first page before the Prelude, you will find a timeline of our planet’s geological timeline; keep an eye on it. Return to it after every interlude and watch as it all clicks to place.
I have, perhaps, began backward; not with the gist of the story, but with the gaps between its building blocks. But it is all connected, dear Reader, and in what a way! The main story — and if you’ve read the blurb, you’ll have picked up on this — has a lot of moving parts. Much of its first third (or even half) reads as an exceptional thriller would. Some mystery is at work, thinning the barriers between our world and others. It’s a mystery pocked at from several different perspectives. We are first introduced to Lee, who is contacted by her girlfriend Mal, missing now for four years. The second perspective is that of Julian Sabreur and his close colleague, analyst Alison, as they attempt to make sense of unseen forces trying to snatch. The third, follows Lucas, the career henchman to a ruthless billionaire who has his fingers in more than just one pie. He is written so well; though his actions are reprehensible and abhorrent, viewing events from his PoV is persuasive enough you can’t help but have a soft spot for a man who only cares about his own skin. And the forth? It’s scientist Kay Amala Khan herself, the absolute biggest smartass in history. Every time she opens her mouth, it’s like bloody fireworks go off!
Tons of supporting characters make for memorable clashes and encounters with each of our PoV characters – the absolute stand-outs are Sabreur’s boss, Leslie Hind, who is a cold-blooded badass, and Dr. Rat, a mad genius of the most entertaining variety.
I was well-impressed from the very start; the prose is lively, its tone thoroughly modern, its message one of inclusion and acceptance. No one to illustrate this better than Kay Amal Khan, the star physicist of a theoretical branch of physics so alien and new to the science that no more than three scientists in all the world can wrap their heads around it. Kay is trans, and her representation is on point throughout – her portrayal has inspired me, in fact, to write an essay on identity in the book, on the attempt of certain characters to muzzle who Kay is through force, and her retaking it. This is the kind of book The Doors of Eden is, a novel that inspires you to deconstruct and analyse in search of deeper understanding.
Few of the intelligences Tchaikovsky illustrates in the intervals between the chapters are like our own; some of them are as alien and unknowable as the very finest exemplars of science fiction (the AlienPrimes in Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga come to mind, though there is no place for comparison in terms of behaviour, only in strangeness, otherness).
Tchaikovsky strikes the right note in terms of humour, too, which goes a long way to help deal with (at times) tense and heavy subject matter. This novel contains within it the funniest example of a man really needing his phone. Beyond that, I admire that Tchaikovsky makes his political allegiance present and clear. It is the writer’s prerogative to illustrate his view of the world; authors of sci-fi, always with their eye to the future, are well-suited to the task.
I closed the covers of The Doors of Eden with the hugest smile plastered over my face. It’s a big book, and dense with ideas, and without doubt a modern classic of the science fiction genre. Peter F. Hamilton has the right of it: “Tchaikovsky has created a fantastic and highly imaginative new genre: evolution SF.” More impressive yet, he has found a way to fuse with the cold, rational idea of evolution something of the soul. And that, dear Reader, demands attention.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No