Children of Time is the first book in the award-winning science fiction series written by Adrian Tchaikovsky.   It is the story of a future where Earth and its colonies are at the end, and so advanced spacecraft are sent out to terraform distant planets where humans can settle.   Ark ships follow with people kept in a cryogenic state and AI oversees the ships’ journey through space.   Not only are planets terraformed, scientists also seed them with life and engineered viruses to improve the chances of survival and evolution to more advanced lifeforms.

In this story, the plan works to the extent that a planet is terraformed and a virus is released, but the intended life form (monkeys) are exterminated in an armed conflict in orbit.    What does survive are insects, small mammals, and sea creatures.    The virus supports accelerated evolution of species and the dominant life form on the planet is not a mammal.    The story follows thousands of years of both life on the planet, but thousands of years also on the Ark Ship (the Gilgamesh), and to complicate matters, thousands of years on an orbiting high-tech armed satellite run by a combined-scientist-AI protector.    She is determined that the dominant species (spiders) should continue to evolve and that no humans should land on the planet.   She assists the spiders and prepares them to respond to the “invaders.”

The storytelling has scientific ideas embedded into each chapter.    We are provided with alternating chapters – the changing spider society on the planet and the deteriorating human culture and conditions on a thousands-of-years-old spacecraft.    Insights are numerous and every chapter sparkled with fresh ideas, well-developed themes, and carefully crafted plot segments.    The ending was a welcome, but unanticipated surprise.    The central themes of the book are revealed fully in the final chapters.    The central theme is about “humanity”, but an critical evaluation of what makes us evolved, beyond a narrow definition of belonging to a particular biological species.

This is hard science fiction, following the “what-if?” sub-genre.     It is easier to envision some possible futures and quite another to write a well-crafted novel that honors the ideas.    This book won the Arthur C. Clark Award in 2016 and the series won the Hugo Award in 2023, two of the highest honor for a SF book.   It is simply one of the best sci fis ever written and is highly recommended.   [ratings stars =”4.8″]

More Information:

• The Children of Time Series – Children of Time (2016), Children of Ruin (2020), and Children of Memory (2023)