Children of Ruin, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Jun. 24th, 2019 01:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkI finally read "Children of Ruin", the sequel to "Children of Time," i.e. "spiders in space!", this time with more spiders in space, and more fascinating species. In fact book 2 is quite similar to book 1 but with everything turned up a notch or two, and I mean that in the most positive sense. (There's more horror too. I'm not a fan of horror because I tend to get nightmares. …I'll see how I sleep tonight.)
I was a bit worried if the sequel would hold up to the first book, but I like it as least as much. In "Children of Time" I liked the chapters about the spiders so much more than the chapters about the humans that during the latter I was always impatient to get to the perspective shift. In "Children of Ruin" I liked both the past and the present storylines a lot, and the pacing worked well. (Apart from possibly the ending, which is a bit abrupt, but to be fair if he started on the details of the truce that'd have been almost an entire story in and of itself.)
The octopuses were fascinating! It took me a while to "get it," but the contrast between Crown and Reach was very interesting. In general the octopus "society" was very alien, no written language and so many different factions and their ways of deciding questions etc., and their reliance on a subconscious they're not even aware of – this is "not how sentience is supposed to work," heh. I was a bit skeptical about how quickly Helena figured out quite complex and abstract communication with them, but then she is a specialist and has worked in interspecies communication before. Their spaceships are also very cool.
And I liked that they have a statue of Disra Senkovi, of sorts. Their entire uplift story was kinda funny and touching and sad in turns, Senkovi bringing them on board as pets and developing them and then realizing what he's created, and then spending years as (as far as he knew) the last human alive trying fruitlessly to communicate with them. (Apparently he made himself a dog too, that's at least something.)
And in the meantime, the rest of the surviving crew got most of the horror story. After they were all almost killed by a war on Earth thirty light years away and only survived thanks to Senkovi's octopi taking over the station, heh. But their first encounter with the alien parasite was genuinely horrifying, the way it distorted Lortisse's thoughts like that, and then took over Rani and Lante, who Baltiel was forced to kill with an ax, and then he tried to escape but he was already infected and bringing the parasite with him, so Senkovi had to get the octopuses to kill him. *shudders* I'll never hear the words "We're going on an adventure" the same way again.
Later too, with the empty space suit, and the genocide of dozens of billions of octopuses… Thank goodness Kern figured out a way to connect to them.
(Though in the end, it wasn't a particularly complicated line of thought, leading me to wonder about what-ifs – the parasite didn't really have much time with thinking humans, after all: Lortisse was a rough first try, Rani and Lante died almost immediately, and Yusuf after I think a few hours. What if they had managed to establish communications? And/or what if the parasite had gotten Baltiel and Senkovi both? Could the mass-killing of octopuses have been avoided and something entirely new established? …okay half I think that this would be really cool and half of me was happy to run with that half a sentence and immediately shipped Baltiel/Senkovi. (Senkovi being ace, Baltiel interested in men, and Lortisse/Lante/Rani being together – yess all-queer space expeditions.) *makes notes for Yuletide*
And then the epilogue! There was a lot in there, I'll have to read it again (I think it mentioned uplifted crows?, very interesting…)
This is the best kind of science fiction :)
I was a bit worried if the sequel would hold up to the first book, but I like it as least as much. In "Children of Time" I liked the chapters about the spiders so much more than the chapters about the humans that during the latter I was always impatient to get to the perspective shift. In "Children of Ruin" I liked both the past and the present storylines a lot, and the pacing worked well. (Apart from possibly the ending, which is a bit abrupt, but to be fair if he started on the details of the truce that'd have been almost an entire story in and of itself.)
The octopuses were fascinating! It took me a while to "get it," but the contrast between Crown and Reach was very interesting. In general the octopus "society" was very alien, no written language and so many different factions and their ways of deciding questions etc., and their reliance on a subconscious they're not even aware of – this is "not how sentience is supposed to work," heh. I was a bit skeptical about how quickly Helena figured out quite complex and abstract communication with them, but then she is a specialist and has worked in interspecies communication before. Their spaceships are also very cool.
And I liked that they have a statue of Disra Senkovi, of sorts. Their entire uplift story was kinda funny and touching and sad in turns, Senkovi bringing them on board as pets and developing them and then realizing what he's created, and then spending years as (as far as he knew) the last human alive trying fruitlessly to communicate with them. (Apparently he made himself a dog too, that's at least something.)
And in the meantime, the rest of the surviving crew got most of the horror story. After they were all almost killed by a war on Earth thirty light years away and only survived thanks to Senkovi's octopi taking over the station, heh. But their first encounter with the alien parasite was genuinely horrifying, the way it distorted Lortisse's thoughts like that, and then took over Rani and Lante, who Baltiel was forced to kill with an ax, and then he tried to escape but he was already infected and bringing the parasite with him, so Senkovi had to get the octopuses to kill him. *shudders* I'll never hear the words "We're going on an adventure" the same way again.
Later too, with the empty space suit, and the genocide of dozens of billions of octopuses… Thank goodness Kern figured out a way to connect to them.
(Though in the end, it wasn't a particularly complicated line of thought, leading me to wonder about what-ifs – the parasite didn't really have much time with thinking humans, after all: Lortisse was a rough first try, Rani and Lante died almost immediately, and Yusuf after I think a few hours. What if they had managed to establish communications? And/or what if the parasite had gotten Baltiel and Senkovi both? Could the mass-killing of octopuses have been avoided and something entirely new established? …okay half I think that this would be really cool and half of me was happy to run with that half a sentence and immediately shipped Baltiel/Senkovi. (Senkovi being ace, Baltiel interested in men, and Lortisse/Lante/Rani being together – yess all-queer space expeditions.) *makes notes for Yuletide*
And then the epilogue! There was a lot in there, I'll have to read it again (I think it mentioned uplifted crows?, very interesting…)
This is the best kind of science fiction :)
no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 09:33 pm (UTC)I found the whole "we were waiting for the adventure! and the adventure never came back ;_;" genuinely heartbreaking. They just had an utterly separate plane of reference, that was all!! I was so happy for the happy ending.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 09:58 pm (UTC)The truce is a very nice idea, and it's good and I'm glad that it works out eventually, but I'm sure there'll be plenty of people who'll never trust it. I'm also not sure how intelligent the parasite actually is - or, it seems smart enough, but have limited imagination, or at least problem-solving capability. I'll have to pay more attention the next time.