A review by lakmus
Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

4.0

Cogsci adventures in space continue! We now have: spider-human communication interfaces being developed with risk to life and limb, evolved octopuses only recognising visiting humans as real sentient species when humans are on the verge of hysteria (because emotions are the mark of intelligent life, *obviously, duh*), and a parasite thingy that just really wants to learn about the world but messes things up a bit and accidentally absorbs everything in its path and nearly extinguishes a neighbouring civilisation. (it's sorry, it knows better now, it's joining us on the space adventures in the future).