Absolutely brilliant book and the first one I’ve read in many moons that I would prefer over Netflix as part of my evening wind down.
Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Children-Time-Adrian-Tchaikovsky-ebook/dp/B07DN8BQMD
A few highlights below to give a flavor of the writing and story:
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For we are gods, and we are lonely, so we shall create …
Conversely, the Spitters are well aware of the danger that Portia’s kind poses. The two species have clashed over untold generations, each time with more understanding of the enemy. Now both recognize that the other is something less than kin but something more than prey.
He saw Guyen, looking more alert than anyone else there, and guessed the mission commander had ordered himself to be woken early, so that he could assert his bright, brisk dominance over this room full of zombies.
For so long, scholars had taught that the further the ice receded, the better for the world, and yet nobody had guessed what poisons and sicknesses had been caught up in that ice, like insects in amber, the encroaching cold protecting the shivering biosphere from the last excesses of Empire.
Fabian explains that there were once several warring colonies here, but one has become dominant. Instead of driving its lesser neighbours to extinction, the ruling colony has incorporated them into its own survival strategy, permitting their continuance in return for making them into extensions of itself, utilizing food that they gather and technologies they have developed. It is this world’s first superstate.
It is, however, quite true that packs of females—especially younger ones, perhaps newly formed peer groups seeking to strengthen their bonds—will descend to the lower reaches of the city and engage in hunting males. The practice is covertly overlooked—girls will be girls, after all—but overtly frowned upon.
She is also a recluse, wanting little more than to get on with her experiments—a common trait for those driven to build on their inherited Understandings—
Of course the Messenger is waiting for their reply. This was heresy such a short time ago, but Portia has since looked within herself. Why should we be made thus, to improve and improve, unless it is to aspire?
The male creeps out, to be pinned by their collective gaze. Fabian has given this moment some thought, based on his earlier failure with Portia. He will not ask for too much. He will show, rather than tell. He will woo them, but as a female does, with success, rather than as a male, with flattery.
“Traitors,” Guyen repeated, as if savouring the word. “In the end, they got what they deserved.” The transition from earnest, martyred leader to raving psychopath had simply happened without any discernible boundary being crossed.
It was too much. It had been too much. He, who had translated the madness of a millennia-old guardian angel. He who had been abducted. He who had seen an alien world crawling with earthly horrors. He had feared. He had loved. He had met a man who wanted to be God. He had seen death.
“Fuck,” she said expressively, and then repeated it a few more times, as if taking strength from the word.
The giants must live their lives amongst these rigid, unvarying right angles, entombed between these massive, solid walls. Nothing makes any attempt to mimic nature. Instead, everything is held in the iron hand of that dominating alien aesthetic.