You know, I was about to describe this book as an ‘epic work of science-fiction’, but thinking about it, I don’t think the term ‘epic’ really does it justice. Children of Time is breath-taking in scope and ambition, covering thousands of years and taking in the desperate flight of the last remnants of humanity to find a new home, and the birth and accelerated evolution of an entirely new species: from the mud, to the trees, and eventually to space travel.
Yes, it’s that big, that detailed, and yet it still manages to keep things moving at a cracking pace. The prose is sparsely poetic, managing to distill an awful lot of scientific detail into the story without overwhelming the reader (and I’m easily overwhelmed, and have a surprisingly short attention span when encyclopedias get in the way of a good novel).
Continue reading “Book Review: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky”
I bought the book because I loved the idea: a failed priest, the grandson of a millionaire, and a geriatric hitman just out of prison. Circumstances throw them together, and together they come up with some pretty odd ideas to scam money out of their fellow Swedes. The book is a good long poke at organised religion, which manages to deliver a few smiles and the occasional raised eyebrow along the way, but if I had to sum it up in one word, then I’d probably go for ‘likeable’.