Now imagine this mantis shrimp in a spacesuit, with a taste for weaponry
Shutterstock/Samy Kassem
The fourth novel in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s much fêted Children of Time series is nearly with us. And Children of Strife is terrific. Before we get to it in detail, let me say that I will do my best to avoid spoilers for all four books.
Science fiction about “uplifted” species isn’t an original idea, but Tchaikovsky tackles it in an entirely original way. As fans will know, the first book in the series (Children of Time) involved an ark ship finally reaching a terraformed planet.
In theory, the world should have been ready to receive the settlers, but, oh dear… has something gone horribly wrong? Has a different species been elevated into the top spot intended for humans? I think it is OK to mention spiders here.
In the also-brilliant follow-up, Children of Ruin, a different planet is featured, and here I will just drop in the word “octopuses“.
Tchaikovsky is a prolific writer, with many wonderful books, but this series represents the best of his work. They are instant classics, not to be missed by anyone passionate about the genre and its ability to explore ideas about our cosmos, past, present and future.
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Sci-fi about ‘uplifted’ species isn’t an original idea, but Tchaikovsky tackles it in an entirely original way
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While a lot of famous sci-fi writers mark themselves out with Big Physics, Tchaikovsky has made his name by taking the Big Biology route. Seeing what kind of society uplifted octopuses, for example, might build is an absolute delight.
I felt the third novel in the series, Children of Memory, which went in a different direction from the first two books, was a bit of a damp squib in comparison.
However, we now have the fourth in the series and Children of Strife is a real return to form. I think you could probably skip book three in the series and still understand book four, by the way, but obviously don’t skip books one and two or you might find things a tad confusing. (I can imagine someone reading book four before any of the others, and ending up yelling: “What is going on with the ants?”)
Children of Strife is ambitiously structured into three timelines. It regularly shifts between the three, and each has its own characters.
This time, there is an uplifted mantis shrimp at the centre of things. Mantis shrimps, as they are on Earth today, are carnivorous predators that really pack a punch. Imagine an uplifted one in a spacesuit, about the size of a human and with a taste for heavy, futuristic weaponry… now there’s fun. Some of the creatures, or at least species, in this book will be familiar from previous volumes, however, which will please devoted fans of the series.
The really big new thing about Children of Strife is the planet itself. The world looks as if it has been terraformed into something very much like Earth. Actually, it looks lovely, like a garden of Eden… at least from a distance!
This planet is like nothing we have ever seen before in Tchaikovsky’s books. I think it is fair to say, and no spoiler, that this place is Not Very Pleasant. The how and the why of this new planet is really well done.
The character work is also bang on: the people – human or otherwise – feel real and well thought out. The Big Biology is as genius as you would expect. The plot itself unfolds in a satisfyingly brisk and logical manner.
If I were going to nitpick, I would say the last sequence of the book, planet-side, is perhaps a little long. But that is to pick the smallest nits imaginable. This book is brilliant.
Book
Children of Strife
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tor (26 March)
Emily also recommends…
Book
The Uplift Storm Trilogy
David Brin, Open Road Media
This trilogy, set in Brin’s so-called Uplift Universe, is great stuff. Think uplifted chimps and dolphins, and far-flung space opera. The three books, Brightness Reef, Infinity’s Shore and Heaven’s Reach, are all part of one continuous story.
Emily H. Wilson is the author of the Sumerians series (Inanna, Gilgamesh and Ninshubar, all published by Titan) and she is currently working on her first sci-fi novel. She is a former editor of New Scientist and you can follow her on Instagram @emilyhwilson1
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