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thetruestsam 's review for:
Children of Time
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
A solid 95/100
I first read this several years ago and all I really remembered was the impressive worldbuilding and establishment of spider people.
This time around, I really did pay attention more to the other half of the story. The title of Children of Time most definitely applies to the spiders, where we get to see their entire progression from the spiders we know and love today to the spacefaring arachnids they could be (if genetically modified). However, the last of humanity has an entirely different relationship with time itself, like the eldest child to the younger sibling. Fighting time to their last breath as they search the stars in desperation for the survival of their species, racing against the clock as their own lives wear down and the longevity of their ship itself deteriorates. Ultimately I think that Kern too can be considered a Child of Time as well, as her humanity steadily wears down and her AI takes over and eventually buds off, creating a new computational species (is it any more artificial of a species than the spiders?). All three parties are cast off mistakes from the self-destruction of the human race many centuries before, whether it be a terraforming project gone wrong, helpless stragglers forced to inherit and doomed planet, or a deteriorating scientist driven insane through her effective immortality.
Overall, great story, it stays in my tops. I love the hard science displayed throughout, it's clear why the first people he thanks are his scientific advisors for it.
I do deduct a few points for the end of the book though. The implication that the conflict could be resolved by simply giving the humans a more advanced form of an empathy gene seems flawed to me for a couple reasons. First, the spiders have fought in their own wars (admittedly only one big intraspecies one but still) and until very recently it was common practice to kill and eat the males of the species, which to me indicates that there's a limit to their empathy. Secondly, while it's true that the humans fought within themselves, the main causes were (1) they fought back against being stranded on a desolate moon with little hope of survival (and then all died when they gave in, proving the fight was worth it), (2) a man driven a bit insane from the pressure of leading the entire human race to survival with very few paths to go down and choosing attempt immortality through the machine so he can continue to shepherd humanity after his body dies. And then finally they fought against the spiders, but in all three instances the leading motivation is desperation for the future of the entire species. Not something they can gamble with too much. So I feel like even if the advanced empathy gene was implanted, I think the pure desperation would still cause the humans not to back down. Especially since one of the things that literally makes humanity separate from many animals is our genetic predisposition towards community and empathy towards the other (though that delves into the Hobbes vs Rousseau debate). Instead, I feel like the climax should have resolved with Holsten convincing the other humans that she spiders truly were sentient and brokering a truce. Giving a McGuffin gene and suddenly removing any will to fight felt like a small copout.
HOWEVER, the fact that this books spurs on intricate internal debate about humanity's base drives means that it really got do me and made me think. Boy oh boy do I love to ponder.
This pairs really well with Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past series as both detail contact between species in different but very similar ways, however while his series is more on the interspecies conflict and communication, this is more on everything leading up to that. Both good, I think I like this one more though.
I first read this several years ago and all I really remembered was the impressive worldbuilding and establishment of spider people.
This time around, I really did pay attention more to the other half of the story. The title of Children of Time most definitely applies to the spiders, where we get to see their entire progression from the spiders we know and love today to the spacefaring arachnids they could be (if genetically modified). However, the last of humanity has an entirely different relationship with time itself, like the eldest child to the younger sibling. Fighting time to their last breath as they search the stars in desperation for the survival of their species, racing against the clock as their own lives wear down and the longevity of their ship itself deteriorates. Ultimately I think that Kern too can be considered a Child of Time as well, as her humanity steadily wears down and her AI takes over and eventually buds off, creating a new computational species (is it any more artificial of a species than the spiders?). All three parties are cast off mistakes from the self-destruction of the human race many centuries before, whether it be a terraforming project gone wrong, helpless stragglers forced to inherit and doomed planet, or a deteriorating scientist driven insane through her effective immortality.
Overall, great story, it stays in my tops. I love the hard science displayed throughout, it's clear why the first people he thanks are his scientific advisors for it.
I do deduct a few points for the end of the book though. The implication that the conflict could be resolved by simply giving the humans a more advanced form of an empathy gene seems flawed to me for a couple reasons. First, the spiders have fought in their own wars (admittedly only one big intraspecies one but still) and until very recently it was common practice to kill and eat the males of the species, which to me indicates that there's a limit to their empathy. Secondly, while it's true that the humans fought within themselves, the main causes were (1) they fought back against being stranded on a desolate moon with little hope of survival (and then all died when they gave in, proving the fight was worth it), (2) a man driven a bit insane from the pressure of leading the entire human race to survival with very few paths to go down and choosing attempt immortality through the machine so he can continue to shepherd humanity after his body dies. And then finally they fought against the spiders, but in all three instances the leading motivation is desperation for the future of the entire species. Not something they can gamble with too much. So I feel like even if the advanced empathy gene was implanted, I think the pure desperation would still cause the humans not to back down. Especially since one of the things that literally makes humanity separate from many animals is our genetic predisposition towards community and empathy towards the other (though that delves into the Hobbes vs Rousseau debate). Instead, I feel like the climax should have resolved with Holsten convincing the other humans that she spiders truly were sentient and brokering a truce. Giving a McGuffin gene and suddenly removing any will to fight felt like a small copout.
HOWEVER, the fact that this books spurs on intricate internal debate about humanity's base drives means that it really got do me and made me think. Boy oh boy do I love to ponder.
This pairs really well with Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past series as both detail contact between species in different but very similar ways, however while his series is more on the interspecies conflict and communication, this is more on everything leading up to that. Both good, I think I like this one more though.