When it comes to modern-day science-fiction literature, Children of Time is quite the phenomenon. Upon its release, it was almost universally praised and since then made its way onto many professional and social-media created lists of personal favorites of the genre. Going by its lasting presence in bookstores, it must have been a commercial chartbuster, too.

The success is likely due to the fact that the novel ticks so many boxes. Once you've figured out the elaborate history and the direction of the plot, it turns into a real page-turner. Although the book is clearly on the lengthy side, there appears to be no event that doesn't serve a purpose within the wider story. This is explained by the narrative itself, since we basically follow the same people only for the most crucial times and often with many generations in-between.

The intricacies of the setting are quite demanding on the reader. In the very beginning there was the Old Empire (as it later will be called), our highly advanced descendants in the distant future. At that point, humanity has colonized many planets of the solar system and beyond. Uninhabitable were transformed to become Earth-like. That's party number one, the Old Empire.

Dr. Avrana Kern originally lived at a time when the Old Empire was still thriving. She is the head of a scientific endeavor whose aim it is to highly increase the intelligence of monkeys by use of a nanovirus engineered for this purpose. To create an isolated environment, the test subjects are to be released on a newly terraformed planet. It comes different, though. There are groups who condemn the attempts to play God. Their attacks sabotage the project and the monkeys burn in the atmosphere. Kern is able to save herself, but only by the use of technology that makes her less than human. Party number two is a form of Kern immortalized as part of the satellite that orbits the green planet.

The monkeys didn't make it to the surface of Kern's World, but the nanovirus did. The third big player is one of the many species gradually transformed by the virus, the Portia labiata kind of spiders. We follow them from their humble beginnings as tiny hunters up into the space age. Because of their biological setup (to be discussed below), its reasonable to regard their lineages as, to some extent, consisting of identical individuals. So, with each Part of the book, we have new iterations of Portia, Bianca, Fabian, and a few others.

If you have any familiarity with the human race, you'll already figured out why it's the Old Empire. Some time after the events near Kern's World there was a war that almost obliterated our species. But somehow – to be honest, I don't know how exactly – there were survivors who later emerged again from under the ice. They were able to rebuild some civilization, though never getting close to the technological standards of their long-gone ancestors. Actually, many of the inventions were rendered unusable in the final stages of the big war. Earth was gradually dying, and the remnants of humanity are sent off on the Gilgamesh to find a new home. These survivors form the last faction of the story.

With the exception of Avrana Kern I haven't mentioned any characters, yet. It's probably fair to say that there aren't any. Tchaikovsky is primarily interested in developments on the macro level. Some thinkers uphold the assumption that it's a few powerful individuals that determine the course of history. Here it's a few named people that overwhelmingly influence how events will unfold in the times they leave the stage.

Because of its episodic nature, the plot is very high-paced throughout and the captivating prose adds further momentum. The dust-cover blurb asks, Who will inherit this new world?, and It's soon clear that the climax will be about whether humanity will be able to settle on the veritable Eden protected fiercely by mad Avrana Kern. The suspense of the dying spaceship towards the end of the novel won't really grip you because whenever you enter again, problems are magically solved. But the direct encounters with the superior intelligence were sure thrilling.

But it's not just her, as soon as her "monkeys" (as she continues to call them) are advanced enough to receive her messages, she becomes their God. I enjoyed the portrayal of developing religion. The spiders are relatively quickly to recognize the mathematical patterns in the signal, but it will take hundreds of years for them to send back the answers. An age of mutual communication ensues – and Kern is able to teach them how to build the weapon systems to defend her world. It was also fascinating to think about how species of so differing sensual experiences would communicate their thoughts. Mutual misunderstanding is unavoidable.

From the perspective of the travelers on the Gilgamesh their encounter with the sentient computer that is Doctor Kern is most frustrating. Humanity's salvation is right at their fingertips, yet Kern doesn't recognize kinship with the pitiful remains of a once-great race. This was among the story's strongest themes, the idea that the survivors will forever be the shadow of former glory:

"All (Holsten) could think was that his own people, an emergent culture that had clawed its way back to its feet after the ice, was nothing but a shadow of that former greatness. It was not simply that the Gilgamesh and all their current space effort was cobbled together from bastardized, half-understood pieces of the ancient world’s vastly superior technology. It was everything: from the very beginning his people had known they were inheriting a used world. The ruins and the decayed relics of a former people had been everywhere, underfoot, underground, up mountains, immortalized in stories. Discovering such a wealth of dead metal in orbit had hardly been a surprise, when all recorded history had been a progress over a desert of broken bones. There had been no innovation that the ancients had not already achieved, and done better. How many inventors had been relegated to historical obscurity because some later treasure-hunter had unearthed the older, superior method of achieving the same end? Weapons, engines, political systems, philosophies, sources of energy . . ."

Naturally, what really makes the book special is its portrayal of arachnid culture. The social system is developed to detail. We learn of the inferior status of male in their society, a matter that will become the subject of fierce political concerns later on. But for the females, too, there is the constant pressure of an order without definite hierarchies. Social standing is based on achievements, and these have to be gained in accordance with your role (of which there are priestesses, warrioresses, scholars, and others). The result is recognition for your peer-group, the replacement of familial structures in human societies.

Among the other species elevated by the nanovirus, the ants are the most salient. Through the archaic times, their colonies are ever more expanding, thereby gradually pushing back the spider city states. As time progresses, their military encounters become increasingly more bio-chemical. I thought the following passage well exemplifies the point:

"Now the slingers are sending over silk-wrapped globules of liquid to splash amongst the advancing ants. The scents thus released briefly cover up the attackers’ own constant scent language – denying them not only speech, but thought and identity. Until the chemicals dissipate, the affected sections of the attacking army are deprogrammed, falling back on base instincts and unable to react properly to the situation around them. They blunder and break formation, and some of them fight each other, unable to recognize their own kin."; "These new ants brew chemicals inside their abdomens, just like certain species of beetle. When they jut their stingers forwards and mix these substances there is a fierce exothermic reaction, a spray of heated fluid. The atmosphere of Portia’s world has an oxygen content a few per cent higher than Earth’s, enough for the searing mixture to spontaneously ignite."

The spiders use nets for writing, though there is a much more important
to preserve knowledge – or Understanding – for posterity. Because of the influence of the nanovirus, they are highly capable to bequest the practical and propositional knowledge down to their offspring. Naturally, there is much strategy involved. Easily the most intriguing aspect about this ability was how it connects to the nanovirus itself. It's described in terms of an inner language. If the code of the hidden book could be deciphered, they would be able to copy and paste new abilities by nanotechnology. I suspect it comes close to what humanity is currently trying to do?

The interactions with the ants are interesting for other reasons, too. Apparently, ants are sightless, so that their perception of the world is entirely built on smell and touch. The spiders insidiously make use of pheromones to turn their enemy into their oblivious slaves. This climaxes in the epic moment when they make use of the Paussid bugs' special abilities to gain perfect control over their foes. These scenes also lay the foundation for the spiders' later merciful stance towards other species.

As we know all too well, humanity is the polar opposite. Consequently, the episodes on the Gilgamesh repeatedly involve hostile confrontations between human beings. It's less original yet still highly entertaining. Tchaikovsky knows how to keep things interesting. I would have liked there to be more personality to the named agents, but in some moments I still felt with Holsten and Lain to some degree. It's not moving or anything, but it's the overarching idea of time that comes to the fore here.

In an absolute sense, if there was something like that, they spend so much time together. I understand how they are able to build their romantics on these facts, even if their subjective perspective was much briefer. Actually, time becomes relative to the time the crew spends awake. For Lain much of her life flies by while Holsten is still in his suspension chamber. Maybe the passing time gives meaning to their relationship, and he too can draw from this – even if for him the experienced time was much briefer.

Of course, for the most part the chapters on Kern's World were more relevant, but there were still fun plots on the Gilgamesh. I rarely ever felt disappointed when a chapter ends and we find ourselves in the vastness of space again. Especially the episodes about the mutiny and their commanders later God complex were among the more memorable parts. I also loved how the narrative adheres to the perspective of the peoples concerned, even when the reader has more understanding and more accurate terms to describe what was really going on.

The story ends with another example of Tchaikovsky's amazing talent to describe sieges, a skill already often demonstrated in his Shadows of the Apt series. It's the biggest spectacle, but throughout the story there are great moments when the mind-blowing repercussions of earlier events are revealed. For me this was everything I want from a science-fiction novel. If you don't expect successful narratives to be character-driven, Children of Time won't leave you wanting.

Rating: 4.5/5