Children of Time: Winner of the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award (The Children of Time Novels, 1)

Sometimes, on very-very rare occasions, you come across something that's truly exalted and yet exciting, profound and mind-boggling, poignant and brutal."2001: A Space Odyssey" was one such book for me.This one, probably the best book to have done justice to the award named after the great Arthur C Clarke, was another.What's it about?Many-many years from now, in an incredibly advanced earth, science and technology, supported by various regimes, achieve things that have been never achieved, even attempted before. In the process they overlook and overrule all ethical, natural considerations.Invariably, they generate a backlash.In that great fight between the inwards & outwards, earth gets wasted. Its colonies and settlements are ruined by electronic virus aimed at crippling life support and everything else.Darkness falls.A terraformed earth is about to be populated by monkeys, to be guided by humanity from above, when the "naturalist" insurrection takes place. The mission is sabotaged. The station is destroyed. So are the monkeys.Only Doctor Averna Kern, the monstrously single-minded scientist responsible for this project, survives. She uploads herself into system to stay "alive" and to be awaken in case of finding a response to signals being thrown by the satellite.Something else survives too.The nanovirus supposed to trigger mutations taking the monkeys ahead in the path towards civilisation reaches the planet surface. It doesn't find its intended recipienta, since the monkeys had burnt away. But, it doesn't give up.Sentience finds a way.Countless years later, the runt of a humanity treading the toxic steps of their gigantic forefathers, realises that Earth is uninhabitable. They prepare an arc-ship named "Gilgamesh", and leaves for a place where humanity may survive. Inevitably, old maps and desperation bring them to that green dot burning bright against overwhelming darkness.They find that the planet is not empty. A civilisation already exists there!How did this happen? How could this happen?And, what happens next?Believe me, if you have decided to read only one science fiction book in near future, then this should be it.Why?Because this is a book where science acts as the matrix for a vast human and non-human portrait of ascent, descent, travails and accomplishments, love, sacrifice, intelligence, faith, fury, and eventual glory.Recommended as a must-read.

Extremely gripping sci-fi. Written in an original, engaging style. Amazing world-building. Very detailed. I truly liked the format of the book. The rotating chapters between Portia and the Gilgamesh was a really smart way to tell the story spanning over 1000s years. Without confusing the reader with a crazy timeline.I felt the ending was kind of abrupt.Looking forward to the next in the series.

When I heard spider aliens I expected a very different book. I expected something like alien horror. I was very very wrong. This book is science fiction at its best with large ideas and concepts such as evolution, society, survival are played with using small, but fully realised characters. This is a book I can confidently recommend to any science fiction fan.

Absolutely a treat of a book for sci-fi and space fanatics. What with its beautifully imagined concepts and vividly painted depictions, it captivates you from start to finish, and has you betting on the unlikely underdogs in the story. For me, one of the best things about the book is in its visualization of alien civilizations which is by far probably one of the most accurate and creative ones, and very correctly forseeing the vast differences that could arise in such widely different worlds and beings of the universe. Very highly recommended!

Definitely brilliant world-building as stated on the front cover. Underlying themes range from biological to societal. The story moves quickly, but retains immense depth along with well thought-out characters and motivations.

The novel was good... A space opera involving a generation ship from earth and its contact with a civilization of sentient spiders from a human bio-engineering project gone wrong eons back in the past. Kind of first contact story too (except for the fact that the spiders are kind of intellectual descendants of a warped-up human mind-body complex orbiting their planet since the beginning of their civilisation. The author shows strong influences of Stanislaw Lem, Greg Bear and Iain M Banks in his writing, but manages to tell a good story about the folly of humans placing absolute trust in technological redemption.Excessive feel-good political correctness spoiled the ending for me though. Others might find it okay.

Children of Timeby Adrian TchaikovskyGenre: Hard SFAudience: AdultRating: 3.5 stars out of 5ReviewThis book won the Arthur C Clarke award in 2016.A big positive is the wealth of creativity, from beginning to end.Negatives are that the book has 600 pages and was written for readers trapped in a long Russian winter. It is serious, mostly hard SF, and does not entertain enough. There is also a mixture of politics, sociology, philosophy, religion, and fighting. Finally, there is too much that is quite improbable for a book that tries to be hard SF.

Such crazy perspective and so well written that it transports you into this fantastic story that spans over multiple generations of many species and thousands of years in time. An absolute must read for any science fiction lover.

Excelente libro

I was completely smitten with this book about 2 chapters in. Engrossing plot, engaging and interesting characters and epic beyond my ability to describe. I ordered the second and third books immediately and have thoroughly enjoyed all three and read them all in the same week. This series joins the scant few books I deem worthy of reading more than once. Highly recommend.

Ainda não li o livro por causa de outras leituras que estou fazendo no momento.No entanto, deixo registrada a minha satisfação quanto à entrega (do pedido cuja chegada levou 10 dias) e com o estado do produto, que veio muito bem embalado e sem partes amassadas.Espero que minha leitura e estudos com a língua inglesa possam ser beneficiados com essa história envolvente e cheia de aventuras! Recomendo a todos que estão interessados!

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 liked the evolutionary perspective and the kind of drama that ensues in different stages of societal development. That the characters kind of ‘repeat’ (different individuals are being given the same names in different historical moments, because they stand in for certain traits) worked well for me.I also read the second and third part of the series and the first is by far the best of them. The second part is okay, but the third part is disappointing (see separate review). Children of Time can easily stand on its own, so if you are hesitant to commit to the series I would still recommend reading just this one.