Children of Time

Children of Time is an incredible epic spanning thousands of years, tracking two concurrent storylines: the desperate remnants of humanity searching for a new home on a terraformed world, and the unintended evolution of a spider species on that very planet. SPOILER ALERT: Detailed thoughts and plot points follow below. This was a solid 5 star read for me, primarily because of how Tchaikovsky handles the "monsters." The way he describes the spiders - the Portiids - is done with such genuine affection and care. It would have been easy to make them grotesque, calculating beats, but instead, you find yourself rooting for them. I actually learned a quite a bit about spider anatomy along the way (I had no idea what "book lungs" were before this). The religious evolution of the spiders was arguably the most brilliant part of the book. Watching a primitive species turn a relatively insignificant event - the mathematical signal from the satellite probe - into the foundation of their theology was fascinating. Character-wise, the human side had its highlights too. Lain’s romantic relationship was perfectly written; it captured her pragmatic character but remained very sweet. The detail of her holding onto Holston’s named ship suit after all that time was a touching anchor in a story that spans millennia. I also have to mention Chapter 4.1. It felt like a total reimagining of the specific dread of being a preteen in the early internet era, exposed to violent footage of war in the Middle East -only here, it’s space footage and astronaut explorers. It hit a very specific, visceral note for me. I did have a few minor gripes, though they didn't ruin the experience: * I found the first chapter confusing and a bit hard to buy into. I’m not sure I believe a corporation would fund such a massive experiment and virus research just to create fancy monkey slave labor. * The author really likes the word "abortive." Overall, a masterclass in world building with empathy at the hearth of that world.

I am currently reviewing a selection of highly-regarded Hard Science Fiction novels, including "Project Hail Mary," "Bobiverse," and "Children of Time." I've observed that "Children of Time" shares a thematic similarity with "Bobiverse" due to its focus on an AI probe, specifically Kern. However, Kern's character lacks the comedic elements present in Bob. This particular work offers a very serious exploration of space exploration and terraforming, though it features less emphasis on detailed physics or hard science compared to the other titles. It proves to be an engaging read for those who appreciate extensive world-buildinge. I would not categorize this as Hard Science Fiction; it leans more towards a fantasy aesthetic. Focusing a lot on philosophy, psychology instead of physics or engineering. The narrative itself is quite compelling, blending elements reminiscent of "Planet of the Apes," the "Upload" series, and "Bobiverse." My primary reservation concerns the climax, which I found to be underwhelming. Despite excellent build-up to the scenario, its execution felt like an afterthought, with minimal reaction or commentary. The conclusion also appeared somewhat rushed. I believe the book's length of 600 pages was unnecessary, as it contained a considerable amount of repetitive phrasing. Nevertheless, I am currently engaged with the second book in the series, which, after 230 pages, has demonstrated a more action-oriented approach.

If we encountered intelligent life on another planet, would we even be able to recognize it as such? This question is really the driving force of the book. This book explores a lot of big ideas and concepts, but that question is the one that is at the center of it all. The book follows two story threads that happen over the course of thousands of years; a dying race floating through space, trying to find a new home, and another race rising into intelligence on a planet that was not originally meant for them. It tells this millennia spanning story through a series of connected vignettes that time jump with almost every chapter. If you're looking for a very character driven story, this is not the book for you. The characters are well done, but they are not necessarily what the book is about. This book is about bigger things, things that can only be explored over the course of vast amounts of time. And it is masterfully written. The prose was a little heavy for me at first, but a few chapters in I was hooked, and already beginning to love the prose. This is definitely the kind of book that will leave you severely disappointed if you go in with the wrong expectations as to what kind of book it's going to be. If you're going into it expecting some big space opera full of interesting and very compelling characters, you will be disappointed. Judging this book according to what kind of book it's meant to be, I would say it succeeds on almost every level. SPOILERS: it got me to see a race of spiders as more than "the other" for goodness sake! And society and technological development of the spiders was extremely well executed, as well as very imaginative yet grounded in complete believability -- a hard balance to maintain. It's a bit long, but I believe that length is very necessary for properly telling the story and exploring those concepts that it puts forth. Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves great sci-fi that spans huge lengths of time and is very much about exploring certain questions, not necessarily about a group of characters doing stuff.

I’m always a bit apprehensive about starting on a new author. To paraphrase Forrest Gump: it’s like a box of chocolate. It could be anything beneath the thin layer of chocolate, and I hate it when I can’t finish a book because the author felt it was necessary for the reader to know his or her political standpoint. A good example is Stephen King’s hatred for a certain former POTUS, which has ruined many a book. Also, many sci-fi novelists don’t even bother doing proper research, and that ruins it for me. Adrian Tchaikovsky did none of these mistakes, and I’m very happy I chose him. When I ran out of books to read by my established favorites: Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher, et al., I bought Children of Time as a Kindle book. And it was awesome! Old Earth is no longer habitable. It’s gripped by an ice age, and to survive humanity goes deeper into space and starts terraforming planets. One of these planets is Kern’s World, the object of a scientific experiment that involves apes and a retrovirus. Except the apes don’t make it, and … I won’t spoil anything, but I can assure you that this is definitely not a Planet of the Apes rip-off! In fact the voyage of starship Gilgamesh reminds me a lot about my own debut novel that came out in 2014, and I read the whole 600 page brick in just three weeks! Everything is great! The science is sound, and space stations work the way they would in reality, with artificial gravity through spinning sections. Tchaikovsky has a keen mind, and he writes well. The characters seem so real, and it never gets boring. The Kindle book is beautifully formatted, with a straight margin on both sides. There are almost no errors, and I could only spot two: «flammable» and «fossil fuels». The first should be written «inflammable» (check out Elements of Style by William Strunk jr. for the complete explanation) and the second «oil». It’s very doubtful that people in the future will use Rockefeller’s marketing term for oil (and gas) since we already today know that oil and gas is an abiotic renewable resource made deep inside the Earth and also exists elsewhere in the Solar System, like on Titan. The term was invented to create an illusion of scarcity, as was the global warming scare and fearmongering about nuclear power plants, all ploys to maintain the artificially high price on oil. The correct word here would of course be «hydrocarbons». I loved this book and will rate it five stars, while also recommending it to everyone who loves sci-fi. Furthermore I’ll be sure to pick up the sequel to Children of Time. This review ends with my favorite sentence from the book: «He had half expected them to be dressed in hides and skins, a doubly unpleasant thought given that the Gilgamesh had only one animal in abundance.»

About 15 years ago, after being disappointed by the ending of the Wachowskis' Matrix movies, it occurred to me that it would have been much more satisfying to learn that The Machines were not "machines" at all, but instead the engineered descendants of elite humans, whose will and consciousness they still embodied. That story could have been a powerful fable of the ways that people abuse and entrap each other into diseased social relations, and how true peace would have entailed a reunification of a species separated so long ago. Instead it was just a muddled and one-sided story of revolution against—what? Oppressive "systems" personified? So, after getting past the first few ham-handed pages of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time, and the bodily antics of the weirdly juvenile, unbelievably flat, and deeply unlikable Avrana Kern—who plays better as a garbled piece of software than as a physical person—I was excited for the possibilities implied by the setup. "Did Tchaikovsky have the same response to the Matrix movies that I did, but more productively?" I wondered. The book is extremely well-paced, with reasonably short chapters alternating between two narratives that are obviously racing toward each other. I mention the shortness of the chapters because, for me, there was hardly a likable character in the book, and the short chapters, alternating between such different stories, compensated for that. Of the spiders, the eccentric Bianca was probably the one I came closest to really liking. Among the humans, Holsten Mason, the "classicist," is about as likable as any of them got. But even he seems pretty drab, and not really believable as a classist, but seeming more as I suppose a scientist or an engineer might imagine a classicist. And that, unfortunately, is too often a weakness in this genre; It is difficult to find well-written students of the humanities in science fiction. There are excellent exceptions, and I might be painting with too broad a brush. But while writers and readers of science fiction like to hold out the genre as a way to explore the implications of science and technology, it seems to me far better as a vehicle to explore the implications for human persons not just of possible technologies and possible scientific facts, but of the cultural and economic structures for knowing and authority, and for the creation of meaning and morality, as those things are shaped by scientific and technological mindsets and practices. Which sets me on the path to unfolding the biggest disappointment of the book. But let me first qualify that the magnitude of the disappointment is directly proportional to the strength of Tchaikovsky's efforts—if I found the mountaintop lacking, it was only because he managed to scale the mountain. He clearly recognizes that science and technology only make sense when they are embedded in cultures, and has labored to create two distinct and contrasting cultures. The story of the nanovirus-infected spiders is brilliant, evocative, and stunningly well-imagined. I will come back to that. The story of the people on the generation ship Gilgamesh is a little less inspired, but solid. I would have liked to see a more penetrating examination of how exactly a "crew" hierarchy would be maintained (or make any sense at all) in such extreme circumstances. There are bits and pieces in the background of ideas about cult-like devotion, but those are tied to somewhat flat and less-than-credible foreground figures, like Vrie Guyen, who seems to be designed solely for the author to push him around mechanically and drive the plot forward (which makes his ultimate fate a little too on-the-nose, even if delightfully horrifying as a set piece). And the cult of Isa Lain just seems to appear out of nowhere, without much depth or explanation, for no persuasive reason except that it needs to be there. In other words, the parts of the book set on the Gilgamesh are standard fare for the genre, and not especially dazzling. The story of the spiders, however, is downright scintillating. If it were not so alien, it might have made a brilliant book in its own right. But it probably would have been difficult to hold readers' attention. This is another reason that Tchaikovsky was wise to set up the story so that the spider chapters are interspersed among the Gilgamesh chapters. Unlikeable though the human characters may be, their more recognizable antics are a helpful respite from the alienness of the spiders, and that allows Tchaikovsky to serve up this far more creative side of the story in manageable doses. I loved it. But for all their wonderful, web-like intelligence, and the communitarian ethic apparently instilled by the nanovirus (that somehow failed spectacularly to overcome rank sexism), all of which is vividly and persuasively imagined, the "religious" angle of their society is little more than a caricature. For all the sectarianism that happens mostly in the background (the way the cults happen mostly in the background on the Gilgamesh), I find it hard to believe that none of the spiders, in all their intricate wisdom, would have challenged the literalness of "God." Where were the spider mystics, in another words? Where the ones recognizing that, if ant colonies can be transformed into living machines, with the ability, even, to capture consciousness, and if there is such continuity in being that a "message" from beyond their world is even possible, that there must be some greater unity of existence? A "ground of being," perhaps? Maybe that is too much to ask. Maybe it would have made the book a thousand pages long, instead of just six hundred. But I think it would have been more satisfying. And it could have enabled a much more interesting version of the conflict that plays out in the final chapters of the book—more interesting, at least, than the one driven by a silly, shunted-in conversation about the Prisoner's Dilemma. A clash of civilizations precipitated by a logic game? Really? Despite having set up so much great potential for these weird, religious cultures? Just as I enjoyed but was disappointed by the Matrix movies, which could have been a piercing fable of class warfare and authentic humanity, I enjoyed but was disappointed by Children of Time, which could have been a far more interesting science fiction meditation on the "two greatest commandments"—love God, love your neighbor—and that old question, "And who is my neighbor?" Children of Time comes tantalizingly close to being that kind of a book, that uses the imaginative freedom of science fiction to press into the heart of what it means to be human in a complex, community at odds, or at least potentially at odds, with other complex communities. But it never quite crosses that line. Even so, it is brilliant, unputdownable, and definitely something that you should read.

"Children of Time" is not just a novel; it's a grand tapestry that weaves together the essence of evolution, intelligence, and survival across the cosmos. In this masterpiece of the new world, Adrian Tchaikovsky presents a narrative that is as profound as it is innovative, taking readers on a journey that spans millennia, exploring the development of civilization in the most unexpected of forms. At the heart of this epic tale is the concept of terraforming a new world, where a planet intended for human habitation instead becomes the cradle for a new form of intelligence. The author skillfully juxtaposes the destinies of humans, struggling to find a new home after the desolation of Earth, with that of a rapidly evolving species of spiders uplifted by the remnants of human technology. This setup provides a rich ground for exploring themes of intelligence, culture, and the very nature of civilization itself. What makes "Children of Time" a masterpiece is not just its ambitious scope but how Tchaikovsky manages to infuse deep scientific concepts with a sense of wonder and empathy. The evolution of the spider civilization is detailed with such meticulous care and imagination, making their society as real and as relatable as any human culture. The author challenges our anthropocentric views, inviting us to consider what intelligence and culture might look like in a form vastly different from our own. The human characters, with their flaws, hopes, and fears, provide a stark contrast to the spider society, offering a reflection on humanity's own struggles with cooperation, ambition, and the search for meaning. The narrative effortlessly shifts between these two worlds, building towards a climax that is both inevitable and utterly surprising. "Children of Time" is a masterpiece that does more than entertain; it enlightens, asking poignant questions about evolution, coexistence, and the future of intelligence. Tchaikovsky's writing is a beacon for the new world of science fiction, showing how space operas can explore the depths of both the universe and the human condition. This novel is a triumph of imagination, a celebration of life's endless forms and potentials, making it a must-read for anyone who looks to the stars and wonders what might be.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5. The "disastrous fruit" from the book blurb are sentient spiders, ok? Let's get that out of the way right now otherwise this review becomes difficult to write. And this book has been out for five years, so the spoiler window has long been smashed. There are two storylines here: the spiders and their struggle to evolve from their animalistic origins—thanks to a genetically engineered nanovirus—to building a civilization and human refugees fleeing an ecologically ruined Earth. When telling the story of the spiders, Tchaikovsky adopts the voice of nature documentary narrator as he highlights pivotal moments in spider evolution, biological and cultural. The spiders get names, although these are recycled. Once they're capable of communication, the narration takes a back seat to their conversations. While never abandoning their spiderness, Tchaikovsky imbues the spiders with individual identities, making for reasonably sympathetic characters regardless of one's level of arachnophobia. Tchaikovsky isn't the first author to craft a sentient spider civilization. One previous story that I've read was "A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge. I read it 15 years ago and don't have a review to refer back to so the details are a bit fuzzy. It was a different first contact story, the spider civilization being something that evolved on its own and the humans visiting their world were there as traders, not colonists. In that book, you saw the spider civilization through their eyes, and it seemed to me like the characters were a bit too humanized with their speech. However, I enjoyed their storyline over the humans. Much like this book. The human storyline is told through Mason Holsten, the ark ship's "classicist", something of a historian/linguist. He seems disdained by most of the "key crew" as being useless until his skills are needed, and even then he fails to gain much favor, save some grudging respect from the ship's chief engineer, Isa Lain—their relationship was the highlight of the human storyline. The humans spend most of their time in cryosleep as crawling across the galaxy at roughly 1% the speed of light takes a while. Holsten goes in and out of cryosleep over the ship's millennia of travel and witnesses dramatic changes in the ship's personnel with each waking. We're forced to share his disorientation while he gets up to speed. I had some difficulty with him being the protagonist of the human storyline. While I didn't need him to be heroic, I needed a little more moral backbone from him. And maybe some common sense too. He could really be befuddled at times. But while he wasn't the protagonist I wanted, maybe he was the protagonist the human storyline needed. The "hard choices" that the humans make throughout their storyline really had me rooting for the spiders. I think that was Tchaikovsky's intent. Root for the creepy crawly things because maybe they'll make the right choices because humans really don't seem to know how to do it as they keep making the same mistakes over and over. There are times when Tchaikovsky really drives home this point, offering us a warning that we are really screwing up the planet and ourselves with our behavior. Initially, I was suspicious of how the ending came together, but after re-reading the points the author made in the narrative through one of the spiders, it made sense. There was a pattern to how the spiders conducted themselves in times of conflict. The final battle between spiders and humans was no different really. That consistency of behavior made it work for me. I think it's hard for us as human beings, the fallible creatures that we are, to accept such an outcome from creatures that we too easily view as monsters. But since we view our own kind as monsters, is it really that surprising? "If there had been some tiny bead present in the brain of all humans, that had told each other, They are like you; that had drawn some thin silk thread of empathy, person-to-person, in a planet-wide net—what might have happened?"

I can understand why so many people like "Children of Time." Tchaikovsky has crafted a scale of epic proportions, a yarn that encompasses a tale of human history and future, culminating in the hope of a truly empathetic society down the road. But in order to get there, we have to wade through literally millions of years of evolution. Which wouldn't be so bad if there was some good action along the way; something compelling that kept you vested during the long chapters of world building. I could usually only read a chapter at a time, at least until chapter 7, which is where things start to really come together. But that's literally at the 78% mark of the book. Too long, in my opinion. And of course, we also have to endure the tired old sci-fi trope that religion is bad, is only used to control the masses, and is a necessary evil until science comes along and saves the day with its true enlightenment. But, there is real talent at play here. Stepping back after the book was finished, you can appreciate what Tchaikovsky has accomplished. I just wish it had been more interesting along the way. --------------- I noticed Amazon and Goodreads have a slightly different meanings to their 5-point scale. I thought it was odd to have a different rating for the same book on two different sites, so I came up with my own scale below. For the record, it is fairly close to Amazon's scale, but allows me to be consistent between the two sites. 5 - Fantastic. Life-altering. Maybe only 30 in a lifetime. 4 - Very good. 3 - Worth your time. 2 - Not very good. 1 - Atrocious.

Tchaikovsky wie man ihn kennt: innovative Idee, spannend, ansprechend und Hard-SciFi mäßig umgesetzt! Sehr zu empfehlen! Man darf gespannt sein, wie es in der Serie weitergeht.

Le epopee spaziali, le opere che guardano a un futuro lontanissimo con la Terra ormai distrutta e l'umanità persa nello spazio, in lotta per la propria sopravvivenza durante archi di tempo lunghissimi, mi hanno sempre intimorito. Perché solitamente il risultato o è un capolavoro, o è un mattone indigeribile farcito di filosofia, politica, psicologia e quanto altro, noioso e infinito. Beh, questo libro ricade senza dubbio nella prima categoria. Ti cattura, ti costringe a procedere nella lettura, ti fa domandare di continuo quanto tempo passerà tra una parte e l'altra, quante generazioni saranno saltate, cosa sarà successo sul mondo di Kern e cosa sarà accaduto agli abitanti della Gilgamesh. Perché si, la Terra alla fine ha alzato bandiera bianca di fronte alla stupidità umana, e ormai è stata avvelenata oltre il punto di non ritorno. Fortunatamente però in passato l'umanità, all'apice del proprio splendore, aveva conquistato lo spazio e la genetica, iniziando missioni di terraformazione di molti lontani pianeti. Su uno di questi, la dotteressa Kern aveva preparato anche un nanovirus in grado di far evolvere rapidamente delle scimmie accellerandone il naturale sviluppo, così da poter avere in breve tempo una nuova specie di umani, che avrebbero potuto accogliere coloni terrestri. Poi le guerre, e sopratutto una sorta di guerra santa portata contro questi scienziati colpevoli di sovvertire l'ordine naturale delle cose, avevano rovinato tutto e precipitato l'umanità indietro di secoli. Fino alla sua fine. O quasi. Perché l'umanità è in qualche modo sopravvissuta, e ora i figli della vecchia umanità devono lottare per la sopravvivenza. L'unico problema è che i figli sono due. Il primo figlio è a bordo della nave stellare Gilgamesh, un'Arca contenente migliaia di umani in stasi, con un equipaggio pronto a essere risvegliato in caso di necessità, diretta verso mete lontane secoli, i sistemi dove un tempo gli antichi umani avevano preparato mondi dove spostarsi, prima che la guerra annientasse questi geniali scienziati. Qui troviamo il comandante in capo, il capo della sicurezza, gli ingegnieri esperti di sistemi informatici, l'umanista esperto di antichi linguaggi e di storia antica. Tutti a lottare per salvare la propria specie e la propria storia, alla ricerca di un pianeta abitabile dove risvegliare il proprio "cargo". Il secondo figlio invece è sul mondo della dottoressa Kern. Che non ha mai potuto portare a termine il proprio esperimento a causa di un sabotaggio, con le scimmie morte prima di arrivare al suolo, ma col nanovirus efficacemente sparso sul pianeta. Con un effetto imprevedibile, una volta entrato in circolo negli organismi che ha potuto trovare. Ragni senzienti in grado di ricordare il passato dei propri antenati e di accumulare conoscenze, formiche che operano con una grande mente collettiva. Insetti evoluti in grado di elaborare operazioni matematiche e concetti complessi, ma anche di usare la chimica e la fisica. E noi assistiamo prima alla morte della Terra, poi al viaggio della Gilgamesh e all'evoluzione della vita senziente sul mondo di Kern. Due figli della Terra, due specie totalmente differenti e incompatibili tra loro. Due forze destinate a incontrarsi, e a scontrarsi. Scritto benissimo, mantiene sempre vivo l'interesse (da una parte abbiamo lo stupore per la civiltà dei ragni e per le loro conquiste, dall'altro l'empatia per gli esuli terrestri e per le sfide che si ritrovano a fronteggiare) ed è emozionante. E in più, fino all'ultimo può finire in ogni modo. Spettacolare.

What makes a "good book" is a very subjective thing. What makes a "great" book you could argue is even more subjective. Though others might try to distill the qualities of a great book down to highbrow facts as they try to intellectualise their emotional reaction, for me it is, "does it make me want to keep turning the pages?" Do I want to forgo sleep so I can feed the insatiable appetite of needing to know what happens next? Am I eager to sneak away on my lunch break so I can slip back into a world I so reluctantly had to abandon at the office door. This is fundamentally what tells me whether a book is good or not. But what makes me keep turning those pages... ah, now that is a very subjective matter. Children of Time is one of those books that you really don't want to give too much (if anything) away about the plot when speaking about it. Particularly if you want others to read it and get the same emotional experience as you did. I first heard about the book when doom scrolling through other peoples top 10 sci-fi books and saw this one kept popping up. So after over indulging in too many retro 90s detective books I decided a palate cleanser was in order. Without too much second guessing, I lept in and found myself entangled in a web of future imaginings and temporal sky hopping, that was nearly impossible to get out of. Now when reading other reviews you will hear people say that this book has "great evolutionary world building", is "massive in scope and ideas", and that it poses some deep human philosophical questions of the ages. And in fairness to those reviewers I agree, it does all that, it does all that and more! But for me it was the incredible story told through the many eyes of the incredible main characters. Following their stories and their emotional evolution, is what made me want to keep turning those pages and keep burning that midnight oil. I found myself leapfrogging alternate chapters as I was keen to know how certain characters' stories played out and could not bear the tension built up by the alternating chapter approach the author took to his storytelling. Of course I immediately went back to pick up the other story threads and found myself equally invested in what I had earlier pushed out of the way. That is how good the storytelling is, and how engaging his characters are. Now you will find you gravitate more to one set of characters in this book than another, as Adrian Tchaikovsky's skillfully uses them to carry forward different philosophical arcs, but he never lets that overwhelm his incredible ability to tell a very dramatic, emotional story. And it really was this that made me turn those pages. And ok, if I am being honest I did fall in love with 3 of the most delicately written characters that moved me to tears on so many occasions. And for me, particularly with this book, it was the emotional wranglings of the author that kept me hooked. The way chapters would end on a cliff hanger or with a dramatic reveal, that kept me saying "just one more chapter before I go to bed". The way he knew how to tug at the heart strings just as much as he knew how to spike those adrenaline levels. He knew what buttons to press and how best to calm those fraying nerves. Now if you are not a sci-fi reader, or are considering this book as a way to help alleviate the effects of a recent book hangover, then can I just say please give it a go. The science is accessible and the emotional storytelling is universal, no matter which characters you follow. You will find yourself challenged as well as entertained. It will make you think about our own evolution and how present our own world is in the future Adrian Tchaikovsky's writes about. And most important of all, it will stay with you long after you finish the final chapter... and that is for me what tips this book over from being "good" to being "great".

I love techno thrillers and historical fiction and I just wanted to try science fiction cause i loved science fiction movies as a kid. I found a lot of science fiction to be dated, so after a long search ( It was recommended on the internet) I found this book read its blurb and then bought it. This book is as contemporary as it gets and it is as scientific fiction as it can get and yet does not feel like science fantasy ( fantasy is not my cup of tea or coffee or juice). The story that the author says and the world he builds is actually mind boggling, imaginative, informative and most importantly interesting and entertaining ( that's why i read books) Its like chaos theory, its like Jurassic park ( the book not the movie , not that i don't like the movie) where the author sets the pieces /characters and they just react in a chaotic and wonderful way, this book has it all, in fact the chaotic actions begin much earlier the Jurassic park. the characters mentioned in the book have been well written and each have their motives, strengths, weakness and oversight. Even if you are not into sci fi, you can read it as a simulation of what will probable happen if two species ( one human and another spider based) both having sixth sense and both having developed civilization independently on different planets and how they would perceive each other and try to understand each other. the development of a spider society to a civilizational level is also described, their culture , their language , their mode of communication is all wonderfully described and is completely believable. the climax is also unexpected , i don't know how they will take the second part ( its a trilogy, by the way) but i will read it soon

Increíble libro, lo tuve guardado mucho tiempo y cuando le di la oportunidad supe que esto era calidad. Hablando desde lo técnico, un libro con muy bonita portada y las hojas tienen buen gramaje. Aquí seguimos dos hilos de una historia que poco a poco llega a su clímax, encariñandonos con bastantes personajes no importa de que especie, involucrándonos en dilemas de toda índole. Algo muy presente es la diferencia de perspectivas entre especies, ¿todos los caminos de la evolución llevan a los defectos de ser humano?