Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a book about giant, super-evolved spiders and a human ark ship. It is so well done it somehow manages to make you empathize and root for the spiders.
Published in 2015; won the Arthur C. Clarke award.
Brent: 3 stars. A super ambitious, really interesting premise. I can’t believe that Tchaikovsky got me, an arachnophobe, to like this spider book. It did start slowing down halfway through though, and the ending isn’t the most satisfying.
Cody: 4 stars. Detailed and imaginative journey through two of my favorite science fiction tropes, uplift and generational ships.
Hasan: 4 stars. Tchaikovsky’s spiders were so well done, it changed my perception of how alien creatures should be written.
Here's the setup:
Earth has been destroyed in an unknown cataclysm, but just before the fall, a scientific ship in a nearby system terraforms a planet and drops a super-evolutionary nanovirus onto the planet - where it starts working on spiders and ants.
In the generations after the fall, humanity recovers enough to send out a few ark ships, one of which is heading toward the burgeoning spider world. We rotate between two narratives: one that describes the evolution of various spiders and spider characters across the generations, and one that details the events aboard the ark ship Gilgamesh as its human cargo wakes and sleeps over the eons.
Hugonauts' Thoughts:
The most memorable aspect of this novel is obviously that Tchaikovsky chose spiders as his protagonists for half of the novel. It is a resounding success that he could make a story about spiders so compelling and emotional! We care about their battles and triumphs, and how they advance as a species, and the detailed descriptions of their giant spider bodies and how they interact with the world are fascinating, rather than revolting.
Also, since Children of Time takes place over eons, he employs an interesting narrative trick to keep us emotionally invested in each successive generation of spiders. In each short story covering a generation of the spiders (each story usually involving overcoming some huge, existential threat), he reuses the names Portia, Bianca, and Fabian to make you feel connected with that next generation - a really excellent way to create a feeling of continuity over vast periods of time. Plus, this naming technique makes sense internally, given the spiders’ genetic manipulation that lets offspring maintain memories and skills from their parents.
Tchakovsky studied biology as an undergrad, so it’s no surprise that this story relies heavily on that background, and to great effect. It is refreshing to read sci-fi that relies so heavily on a science that doesn’t typically get as much of a front seat in fiction.
The human section of the novel deals with the more traditional trope of time experience on an ark ship, and what it might be like for a human to experience life a little at a time over many eons. This section is also Tchaikovsky’s way of grounding the story in something a little closer to our lived experience (ie., humans not spiders). There is a touching love story that winds through the ages between the two central human protagonists. One of the two partners is awoken from cryosleep far more often than the other, so they age more quickly, but their love never fades despite the growing gulf of time between them - somewhat reminiscent of the love story in Hyperion.
Children of Time imagines a fascinating world and teaches us interesting science, all buoyed by a gripping plot.
Related Books
If you loved this one, you might also like:
A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge
Another satisfying space opera, with fascinating speculative speciation and ideas about artificial intelligence wrapped up in an absolute blast of a plot.
Startide Rising - David Brin
Dolphins work alongside humans against many other detailed and fun types of aliens in Brin's memorable space opera that brought the concept of uplift mainstream.
The Dark Beyond the Stars - Frank M. Robinson
This story, about search for alien life in a multi-generational ship, packs a ton of fun and interesting sci-fi ideas into one novel.
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