I was so, so excited to read this novel. I love futuristic, dystopian space adventures. It’s one of my favorite genres, and I can say that Children of Time did not disappoint!
The novel begins on a space ship, which is a great way to begin a space opera. We follow Dr. Kern as she prepares to send a batch of monkeys to a recently terraformed planet to test its suitability for humanity. That’s right, the book is already so far into the future that we’re able to terraform whole planets. Neat!
The monkeys will be infected with a nanovirus that enhances their intelligence over time, causing them to progress in a similar way to early humans. This is so that the scientists can test the suitability of the planet on a species similar to our own.
We also learn during these early chapters that not everyone on Earth supports these terraforming missions. There are some religious groups that believe humanity should die out on earth, but the largest dissenter is a political party that disagrees with cultivating other planets and creating new intelligent species in the process. They’re a sort of eco-terrorist group in that they’re willing to take great pains to stop these projects from happening.
Tchaikovsky doesn’t really dwell on these different factions very much. The focus is largely on the remaining humans rather than the history of how everything ended. I would say there’s enough information to create a competent backstory that lets the reader fill in the blanks. It’s a feasible representation of the trajectory we’re currently on and how that could affect future space endeavors. Mainly, I’m pointing this out to say that the world building is solid but not expansive, all-encompassing, or the point of the novel.
After Kern’s monkey mission is interrupted, the book jumps forward in time and is split between the perspectives of two different species. The first perspective is of a group of remaining humans traveling on a space ship called the Gilgamesh to one of the previously terraformed planets. Millenia have passed between the terraforming projects and this latest venture, so the crew on the Gilgamesh aren’t sure what they’re getting into. They do have 500,000 people in sleep tanks, though, so the hope is that they’ll find somewhere to colonize and carry on the human race.
The second perspective is of a group of spiders who have enhanced intelligence from the nanovirus. Without spoiling too much, Kearn’s monkey plan goes awry, but the nanovirus is still released onto the planet. While developing this new world, the scientists didn’t anticipate that the nanovirus may affect more than the mammals they planned to release, and it ends up affecting many of the insects on the planet. This causes them to develop in unforeseen and incredibly interesting ways.
The two different perspectives are both equally engaging, which is a tribute to Tchaikovsky’s writing. As a reader, I wasn’t sure about how much I would enjoy reading about the spider society, but it’s a really fascinating representation of how an inhuman culture could evolve.
Essentially, the reader sees how the humans on the Gilgamesh handle being the last survivors of the human race juxtaposed with a culture of spiders that is trying to establish itself as a prominent race on its own world. It’s creates a neat dynamic, especially since these humans are the remnants of an extremely technologically advanced society while the spiders are still very technologically primitive.
The reason this book is called Children of Time is that the plot surges forward periodically throughout the book. The humans often have to put themselves back into their sleep chambers in order to travel through space, so they wake up between tens and hundreds of years into the future each time there’s a new issue. The spider society has a type of reincarnation that allows previous memories to be passed down to new progeny (an affect of the nanovirius, I think, though I don’t remember if that was specified), so we follow them through generations as well.
This takes the reader on an incredible, several millennia long journey of humanity on its last legs. We see plans having to be changed and adjusted, different leaders come and go, mutinies, cults, and more happening during the time spent on the Gilgamesh.
Of course, there is also simultaneously a journey of the millennia-long evolution of a spider society. We follow the spiders as they learn to communicate, create their own societies, enact laws, build new technology, and more until they’re ready to make contact with other species.
Their two stories grow closer and closer together until the remaining humans and hyper-intelligent spider society have their final confrontation at the end of the book. Though it takes a long time for the climax to happen, the buildup and eventual ending are well worth the read.
Overall, I thought this book was extremely creative, and I really enjoyed having the two different storylines. It made the story feel very expansive and detailed, and the reader can tell that Tchaikovsky put an enormous amount of effort into both the large scale and small scale aspects of this novel.
Tchaikovsky seemed to have a good idea of what aspects of the novel needed extra detail and explanation and what could be glossed over, making the sci-fi aspects of his book always interesting and never too repetitive or dull.
I would recommend the book for any sci-fi fan really, but especially those who are fans of space operas, new worlds, dystopian settings, etc. At 529 pages, it is a bit of a longer novel, but the time really flew by as I listened to the audiobook, so I have no doubt it would be a quick read as well.
The Lit Wiz