640 pages
English language
Published June 30, 2016
Children of Time is a 2015 science fiction novel by author Adrian Tchaikovsky. The work was praised by the Financial Times for "tackling big themes—gods, messiahs, artificial intelligence, alienness—with brio."It was selected from a shortlist of six works and a total pool of 113 books to be awarded the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction of the year in August 2016. The director of the award program said that the novel has a "universal scale and sense of wonder reminiscent of Clarke himself."In July 2017, the rights were optioned for a potential film adaptation.A sequel, Children of Ruin, was published in 2019.
I enjoyed this one a lot. The ending left a little bit more to be desired, but overall it was a great read.
The Book starts out with the human interstellar empire at its peak, and the greatest human scientist, Dr. Avrana Kern, is watching the disastrous end of an experiment to terraform a planet that is several light years away from earth, and try to recreate human evolution there.
Unknown to her, a catastrophe is about to befall the empire she knows, plunging humanity into the dark ages and relegating her experiment to mere legend.
After they are able to salvage a ship from the ruins of the old world, the last colony of humans are on their way to that same planet, seeking a place to set down roots and grow once more.
This sets up a scenario where you are watching an alien invasion from the point of view of the aliens (the human beings). I found myself, very much like Dr. Kern, rooting against that ship that represented the …
The Book starts out with the human interstellar empire at its peak, and the greatest human scientist, Dr. Avrana Kern, is watching the disastrous end of an experiment to terraform a planet that is several light years away from earth, and try to recreate human evolution there.
Unknown to her, a catastrophe is about to befall the empire she knows, plunging humanity into the dark ages and relegating her experiment to mere legend.
After they are able to salvage a ship from the ruins of the old world, the last colony of humans are on their way to that same planet, seeking a place to set down roots and grow once more.
This sets up a scenario where you are watching an alien invasion from the point of view of the aliens (the human beings). I found myself, very much like Dr. Kern, rooting against that ship that represented the last of our kind, hoping against hope that humanity goes extinct.
If you want a new point of view on evolution, intelligence, empathy and what it means to be human, Tchaikovsky's space epic is the book for you. I found myself wiping a few tears from my eyes at the climax of the book, and while it's not a page turner, it is a poignant, thoughtful story
Genial novela que cuenta dos historias paralelas: por un lado la del arca que lleva de lo que queda de la humanidad y su periplo por el universo; por el otro la evolución de una nueva y muy original civilización en un planeta terraformado que no salió como esperaban. Está muy bien escrita y relaciona tan bien la fantasía con la ciencia que resulta muy creíble. También es entretenida y emocionante, tanto que he llegado a empatizar con unos seres a los que les tengo cierto pánico instintivo, por mucho que las admire como seres vivos...
What a great book. I'm so happy I went back to it, and I'm looking forward to starting the second book in the trilogy, probably in the new year.
I would highly recommend this to any and all sci fi fans.
Incredible! "The smartest evolutionary world-building you'll ever read", indeed! I was not expecting that wonderful ending. I was bracing myself for an ending I would not like, but I was wrong!
I can't wait to start the second book.
Tenía muchas ganas de leer algo de Adrian Tchaikovsky en castellano y Alamut no ha podido elegir con más acierto. Una historia original que nos sitúa en dos escenarios paralelos: la nave arca Gilgamesh con los últimos seres humanos a bordo en busca de un nuevo hogar, y la evolución de la vida en un planeta terraformado de una manera que no podríamos imaginar. A cualquiera que le guste la ciencia ficción le va a entusiasmar esta novela. Para mí es una de las mejores que he leído este año y cruzo los dedos para que nos llegue el resto de la serie.
