"Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky

 

Earth wrecked, the last hope of the human race is to find a new planet but the one they've terraformed is dominated by enormous spiders.

The narrative alternates between an account of how the spiders develop a civilization and the experiences of classicist Holsten Mason in the intervals that he is awoken from suspended animation to assist with the operation of the ark-style spaceship Gilgamesh as it seeks a habitable planet for the last survivors of the human race. 

The world building is first class. He shows us step by step how the spiders evolve (with the help of a nanovirus designed to speed evolution though it only seems to work on invertebrates) and how they develop technological capabilities (mostly by enslaving ants). Themes include technological developments, a large dose of religion, and there is even reverse feminism as the male spiders struggle to be recognised as more than mates and fodder. The Gilgamesh becomes increasingly dilapidated as the centuries pass by and battles develop between the key officers who have different strategies for the accomplishment of the mission objectives.

But it didn't work for me. The spider narrative felt like a documentary. There was a lot of telling rather than showing, the author's voice repeatedly intruded. It was difficult to empathise with any of the spider characters because after a few chapters we jumped forward a few generations to a new set of characters and the device of giving them the same names failed to provide sufficient continuity, at least for me. The Holsten Mason narrative was better because his character and the characters of those he interacted with were continuous so I could develop some degree of rapport.

The spider narrative was written in the present tense with an omniscient point of view and the Holsten narrative, told through his eyes although in the third person, in the past tense.

It was driven by parallel and interleaved plots which connected, disconnected and them came together at the climax. There were plenty of incidents.

The characterisation may be thin but this is epic sci-fi and will appeal to those who like thrillers and intricate world-building

Selected quotes:

• “Guyen was a thin, small-framed man, with a nose and mouth that both seemed to have been salvaged from a far broader face.” (2.1)
• “You know what a good lesson of history? You're screwed if you can't pay the army.” (3.3)
• “All recorded history had been a progress over a desert of broken bones.” (4.1)
• “The spiders are a curious species, and those who are drawn to the temple are the most curious of all. It was inevitable that the hot-house flower of heresy would end up nurtured by those very guardians of the orthodox.” (4.2)
• “She hunts, she wrestles, she climbs, she mates; traditional pursuits and perhaps a little old-fashioned. She prefers to think of them as timeless.” (6.1)
• “Her face was written over in that universal language of hardship and care.” (6.5)
• “For a second Holsten was looking into the stress-fractures and botch-job repairs that made up Karst’s overstrained soul.” (7.1)
• “Alpash led him to a console, still acting as though Holsten and Karst and the rest were heroes of legend brought to life, but turning out to be somewhat disappointing in the flesh.” (7.1)

December 2024; 600 pages

Published in 2015 by Tor

My paperback edition was published in 2016 by Pan

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God