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Children of Ruin

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Children of Ruin

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Narrated by: Mel Hudson
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About this listen

'Asimov or Clarke might have written this' – Stephen Baxter, co-author of The Long Earth

A scout ship discovers a human outpost lying derelict in space – and a planet better left unexplored. Set in the same universe as Children of Time, this is a thrilling narrative from the award-winning Adrian Tchaikovsky.

It has been waiting through the ages. Now it's time . . .

Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life – but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time.

Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth.

But those ancient terraformers awoke something on Nod. Something better left undisturbed.

And it has been waiting for them.

'Books like this are why we read science fiction' - Ian McDonald, author of the Luna series

Children of Ruin follows Adrian Tchaikovsky's extraordinary Children of Time, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award. It is set in the same universe, with new characters and an original narrative.

©2019 Macmillan Publishers International Ltd (P)2019 Macmillan Digital Audio First Contact Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Exploration Fiction Space Interstellar Thought-Provoking Mind-bending

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This is an interesting concept but not easybto read. Very complex ideas interwoven into different alien cultures trying to communicate. Author uses English strands that would be easier if reading rather than listening whilst doing other things. It’s very easy to lose the threads.

Difficult to understand with Audible

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Very much a sequel to Children of time, I do not know that you can read it on its own because of all the background and the obtuse beginning of the story in this book; time and species are presented with little reference till it all comes together in the middle of the book, and some of the links are more apparent, it is challenging to speak of time expanses that are totally inhumane and add in the mix alien thought representations, for very long stretches of the book.
Was it worth it? Yes, Adrian Tchaikovsky is a great writer, and you have to follow, but some of it should have been edited.

We are going on a great adventure.

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Adrian Tchaikovsky's wordy style is more evident here than his previous novel, Children of time, and though the story is laboured over extensively throughout the book, I found it hard to follow in many places especially as he explores either one in particular character or several of the various sentient species relationship together. Maybe audio isn't the best media for this book alone and reading it simultaneously would work better for the understanding as he jumps around space and time, sentient creatures, humans and AI machines.
Having said this, it is an intriguing concept and well worthy to be called a good scifi story, though it would benefit from some judicious editing to bring out the story better I feel.
I will probably read his next book, as Ian M Banks's sad passing has left a bit of a vacuum in the SF genre thats hard to fill, and I think this guy has real potential to amend this.

Children of Ruin reader review

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Not quite as good as children of time as it jumps around a lot more on different tangents. It does all become apparent at the end but getting there felt more of a struggle than children of time which was simpler in its approach. Still a good read if you enjoy this style.

A good follow if not slightly confusing

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Loved it. Space faring Spiders and Octopus. Sounds ridiculous, but it works. On to book 3 now.

Book 2

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I enjoyed the first book, but found it to drag on at times. Not this one. This book drew me in and kept me engaged all the way through.

You have some main characters, but it's more a telling of the history of different factions over a large timescale.

This is a bit of a 'broad strokes' kind of story, so might not be for them that prefer the more in-depth intricate character based and tech heavy sci-fi books.

More than the sum of its parts.

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Adrian has done it again. Another well crafted piece of masterful story telling. The narration made my teeth itch from time to time. 'interlocutor' with the emphasis on the syllable 'loc' instead of 'low'. Inter lo cu tor.

The story was amazing. Narration not so much.

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This was a interesting take on the idea of lost in translation. Using the extremes of aliens to show the true difficulties of communication through language barriers and revealing interesting avenues of how such communication could be brought about. I do lover this book from it concepts and characters. My only gripe with it that it was hard to follow the span of event. How long each act took to complete due to there complexity. But this is a minor complaint.

Lost in translation Expanded

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This tale contains some of the best realisations of Aliens and alien cultures ever put to pen. It also pokes fun at hubris and the human condition.
All hail our octopus overlords!

A very well constructed positive SF tale

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I could tell quite quickly that the sequel to Children of Time was not going to be quite as gripping and imaginative. That said, I enjoyed the vast majority of it, especially as familiar characters intertwined with new ones. However, one of the great features of the first book, the juxtaposition of narrator/perspective, was almost given steroids in this book, including past and present time frames, making it difficult to follow at times.

I honestly enjoyed it, right up until the crescendo. Suddenly, all character dialog dries up and the storylines are rushedly concluded, extrapolated or just plain left. Kearn's character is owed a great ending for what she has endured, built, sacrificed and saved - but her active incarnation disappears with little more than a couple of lines of text directly telling the reader that is exactly what happened to her.

Really disappointed with the ending. It feels like a brilliant story that ran on too long and the author had to quickly finish before the alarm went off for "pens down".

A disappointing end

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