A review by noisydeadlines
Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes

5.0

 This book starts like the previous ones: a ship travelling the universe investigating what became of planets that were meant to be terraformed and settled by humans. At the start of the book, the focus is more on the failing human colony at Imir, describing their day-to-day struggles through the lens of a little girl, Liff, who was born in that colony. But we also jump to another planet, Rourke, where another group of human colonizers are trying to settle in and where we see the origins of uplifted intelligent corvids. The exploration ship is composed of characters of the previous books: the AI Kern, Portia, Paul, Fabian and the newcomer Miranda (from Nod). It’s hard to talk more about this book without spoilers, but the whole point of the story is discussing the question: “What is sentience?”. And it is a delicious discussion when we get to Part 12. I was a bit disappointed with the big reveal at around 80% but then it pays off beautifully in the last chapters. This is why I read sci-fi: to experience these mind-bending thoughts one in a while. Also, the corvids Gethli and Gothli are awesome, I want to be friends with them! This is my favorite of this series.