skylerbunn 's review for:

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky

3.0

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Like Tchaikovsky’s excellent “the Final Architecture” and “Children” trilogies, this story also explores a wildly ambitious idea—it just doesn’t do it as well. It gets much better in the final 200 (out of ~600) pages, when the pieces come together, but the setup felt like a slog and the payoff was less potent because of it. Tchaikovsky excels at plunging head-first into big sci-fi ideas, but this book lacked the intellectual focus of the “Children” books and the character development of “the Final Architecture” books—which also explored a huge idea with surprising depth. “The Doors of Eden” has charm and fun ideas, but it tries to follow too many threads to be compelling.