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A review by timinbc
Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2.0
Did Not Finish.
I can't explain my dislike of this book. I've read Brin's Uplift series and any number of books that explored a quite-alien-indeed society in some depth. I've had no problem with them.
I was OK with the spiders in book 1. I gave it an A.
For me, this one took a heavy punch to the solar plexus when the early colonists, who had a couple of interesting characters, I had trouble believing that any designer would build that into a non-military ship, and if they did, surely the only reason would be to keep it out of the hands of bad guys, in which case you'd make it a local and quick decision, not one that takes 31 years to implement if they get the signal, and you'd also make it one that blows everything to smithereens. AND you'd give the locals a chance to enter the "no,wait" code to stop it. It felt like "the guy crazy enough to take off his helmet is on the other ship, and I need a plot device to make this careful guy do it .... aha!"
Something about the writing style, I guess, requires me not to have been distracted by that punch.
Maybe I am used to ship AIs that are cool and funny, and I don't want to read about one that is what Kern is.
I do award almost a full point for naming Fabian's assistant ArtiFabian.
And I hope someone will do the physics of a half-kilometre jellyfish spitting rocks very, very accurately into space from a not-too-big moon. Full marks for stretching the envelope there! I wasn't reading closely enough to work out where the orbital mechanics came from. Perhaps the same system that lets 90% of dogs be really good at catching frisbees (and, amusingly, provides 10% klutzes for amusement).
I can't explain my dislike of this book. I've read Brin's Uplift series and any number of books that explored a quite-alien-indeed society in some depth. I've had no problem with them.
I was OK with the spiders in book 1. I gave it an A.
For me, this one took a heavy punch to the solar plexus when the early colonists, who had a couple of interesting characters,
Spoiler
received a message sent 31 years ago that shut down all systems.Something about the writing style, I guess, requires me not to have been distracted by that punch.
Maybe I am used to ship AIs that are cool and funny, and I don't want to read about one that is what Kern is.
I do award almost a full point for naming Fabian's assistant ArtiFabian.
And I hope someone will do the physics of a half-kilometre jellyfish spitting rocks very, very accurately into space from a not-too-big moon. Full marks for stretching the envelope there! I wasn't reading closely enough to work out where the orbital mechanics came from. Perhaps the same system that lets 90% of dogs be really good at catching frisbees (and, amusingly, provides 10% klutzes for amusement).