Reviews with content warning for Death - Children of Time

Aug 2024

I decided to reread because I read another Tchaikovsky book (Cage if Lost Souls) and it made me want to read the sequels to this book. A lot easier to get into this time, I didn't find it slow and I liked the characters a lot better. I found half the plot more compelling than the other half and that there was a bit of a mismatch in tension jumping back and forth

between the spider and human parts

. Also some parts were very difficult to visualize and I wished there was a bit more descriptions.

There's so much going on in the book that I wasn't bored rereading and I'd found that Ive forgotten a lot of the interesting details.

The most fun part of the reread was seeing themes across the author's works

like civilization destroying itself, things evolving, future generations loosing th technology of their ancestors, the vibe of like things just getting progressively worse/ a more realistic/ pessimistic view of future problems

--
Jan 2024 - 4.25/5
I had a super difficult time getting into this book but I'm glad I powered through because I ended up really enjoying it towards the end. I did find it a bit slow and a bit plodding throughout.

I had a difficult time vibing with the writing style at first. I think it was a combination of it being written in third person but then also being kind omniscient narrator (like they knew everything about past humanity -

like comparing the spider pandemic to the black plague

.

And I just could not connect with any of the characters until almost the half way point. ~~I don't think the author is great at characterization.~~

I kept going because I liked the premise and I read all these reviews talking about how weird (in a good way) the book was and just thought I'd keep going and give it some more time.

And wow, I loved it when things got weird! Having the structure of the book set up the way it is

spanning multiple generations

made it so some really interesting things could occur. Really liked how the two story-lines came to a head.

Lots of wtf moments

really was not expecting Arvana to turn away the last of humanity, the mutiny, the spiders holding a human captivity for decades, spider sexism, the captain wanting to become the ship and being kept alive by machines, the captain letting people out of some pods and them having generations of children that followed him like a cult leader, really loved the love story between the humans (how it was impacted by one of them staying out of their cold sleep for longer) and then the one between two of the spiders towards the end where the male sacrifices himself, and loved the twist/ fake-out at the end!

Content Warnings

anion's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

chelsea_nailpolishlover's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Dnf’d at page 350.

Listen I tried.. I really did. What sucks for me the most is I didn’t listen to my gut when I read the sample of this book before outright buying it and wasting my money of this trivial piece of work.

The actions against humans and animals and the way they are thought about in this book is quite frankly racists, ablest and annoyingly ageist. Ageist is the least of its problems though.

At first when the mfc was thinking disgusting thoughts and hints of racist thoughts about people, calling them animals and monkeys (and no I don’t mean the actual monkeys, saying they were less than etc. Incredibly speciesist, even against their own species. The egoistical aspersions of the person etc I thought I could look past it as a villain origin story, of a sociopathic individual and that it wouldn’t be a huge continuing aspect in the writing. Boy was I wrong.

Even the god damn spiders had the same thinking. The author (a man) really loved to pound out the grossest most stereotypical feminist propaganda imaginable. (And I’m a feminist). It was like they wanted to make a joke of women.

The crew part was the most interesting part of this book. But the writing was all over the place. You had no idea half the time of how much time had passed. Where they were currently. What they were actually doing. And it would jump from different POV’s almost every chapter. And then you would get back and generations had passed?!?!? How the fuck is anyone supposed to keep up with the story, the timeline, or learn about literally anything when we get 5 minute snippets of bullshit plot.

Let’s not even get to the impossibilities of the science fiction aspects of this book. Clearly the author has no idea how science works. Infecting a whole planet instead of injecting the monkeys? Let’s not forget the crystal 💀 and sending signals plz. I just couldn’t fkin do it anymore.

One of my last straws honestly was one of the characters calling people ret^rded. Along with the spiders becoming religious and basically becoming a cult for this god and wanting to destroy others if they didn’t believe the same. 👎🏻🙅🏻‍♀️

Content Warnings

nunchikoi's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Tchaikovsky's work has stunning depth in its world-building and well-constructed moments of intellectual and emotional clarity: it's so amazing how he manages to make a futuristic world that is far-off and alien hit so close to home.

A friend recommended this after I told him about my obsession with Monarch Butterfly migration in North America, who (fun fact) specifically don't fly over Lake Superior's entire diameter: scientists figure that they make a strange detours because of a mountain that might've been there ages ago.

Content Warnings

jaimiejaimiejaimie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This would have been 5 stars, but the ending was too neat. Everything ends happily and kumbaya? I expected a struggle for understanding so that alliance was earned!

Otherwise, absolutely loved this book. The world building was awesome, the characters were vivid, and it was so creative. There were some parts that felt written by a male academic, but the rest was so engrossing that I could forgive them. The audiobook reader was excellent.

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