Children of Ruin

This is a terrific follow-up to Children of Time.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is great at writing characters that think differently from how you or I might think  but who you can still grow attached to.

Like all of the other books of his I've read, In this one, he managed to find four or five major science fiction ideas I've never come across before.

And this book has octopuses!

Tchaikovsky's Children Of Series focuses on the lifeforms left behind by mankind's self-destruction. The sentient spiders from Children of Time are back, and are exploring a solar system caught in a civil war. One of science fiction's strengths is being able to imagine other beings, and Tchaikovsky's depictions of their life and thoughts are excellent here as well.

The alien development in Children of Ruin wasn't quite as good as the Portid chapters of "Children of Time", but the overall pacing of the book was much better with no boring human chapters to break up the palp-quivering goodness of the Portid and Cephalopod chapters. The ending of the book, despite sharing a similar flavor to the first book, still hits just as hard. These-of-We are looking forward to going on another adventure with the third book.

What a great book. In my last update, I mentioned not being surprised about where the story was at that point, but almost immediately after writing that the story took a wild turn that I didn't see coming at all. The last half of the book took so many twists and turns, making for some very exciting reading. The past couple of days I had a hard time using my free time for anything other than reading this book, it was that captivating.

Children of Ruin builds off its predecessor, Children of Time, and takes the saga to new heights. I can't wait to dive into the final book of the series, Children of Memory, and see how it all wraps up.

Decent read! Unexpectedly enjoyed having previously read one of the author's reference books (if you have gotten into Children of Ruin you might be able to guess which topic it concerns :) Less bombastic storyline than Children of Time, a larger focus on cognition in general