Blew my mind away. Tchaikovsky might be my new favorite scifi author along with Martha Wells. The imagination and the buildup are unlike anything I've read in a long long time. It is reminiscent of old school scifi behemoths but also so so unique.

The evolutionary worldbuilding of the spiders is slow and the 3rd person present tense narration did annoy me at times but the payoff is just brilliant. I am very glad I stuck with this book till the end because it was extremely enjoyable, and it's always a lovely surprise to discover something so fresh in this age of being flooded with media. The writing is really good, with lots of very hard-hitting sentences that had me putting aside my book just to mull over how brilliantly crafted it would be. Avrana Kern's bits were still my favourite, the first chapter is one of the best-written pieces of literature I have ever read. Tchaikovsky pulls no punches with Children of Time and yet for a book as dense and full of the ugliness and desperation of humanity it ends on a very warm and hopeful note. I was not expecting and might have come across as a bit twee, but Tchaikovsky managed to land that ending. I am surprised this wasn't nominated for the Hugo the year it came out, because it checks all the boxes in my mind.

I will for sure be reading the rest of the series, and might even check out more of his short works that've been on my list.