Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovski
It is a real treat when I can
choose and read a book that is not involved with a podcast. So, being all
caught up on "required" reading, I searched Amazon for something I
might enjoy and found Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovski. I must
admit that I was intrigued by the author's name since it is the same as one of
my favorite composers, and couldn't help but wonder if there is any
relationship between the two. Alas, I have since learned that the author's name
is actually spelled Czajkowski, a Polish name, and there is no mention of any
relation to the famous Russian composer. Never the less, I downloaded the book
and began reading. All I can say is WOW!
Children of Time takes
place in a post-apocalyptic future in which the Earth has become uninhabitable.
A very large colony ship is wandering through the stars looking for a place to
settle and rebuild humanity on a new planet. Meanwhile, another ship arrives at
a terraformed planet, only this ship is the vehicle for an experiment being
performd by a scientist that has no interest in helping the human race survive,
as a matter of fact, the scientist would just as soon see humanity disappear
altogether. This second ship is occupied by monkeys and is supposed to set down
on a new planet that has been seeded with a nanovirus that would allow for some
rapid evolution by the occupants. Unfortunately, the monkey ship experiences a
malfunction and crashes on the planet with all occupants killed. The scientist
survives as she escapes in a pod that is designed to keep her in suspended
animation until such time she is needed.
Meanwhile, the colony ship
approaches the planet and is warned off by an automated message stating the
planet has not been terraformed for colonization, but for long term scientific
research. With a few punctuating shots across the bow of the colony ship, the
humans decide to cut their losses and leave to look for another place to
settle. as time passes, the humans, being what we are, set up numerous styles
of leadership and find themselves immersed in ambitious conflict. The people on
the ship as well as the ship itself deteriorates with age and the humans try
desperately search for a place to settle. Meanwhile on the experimental planet,
spiders, ants, and other insect life flourishes and begins building a world
that they can live on. When the humans run out of options, they decide that
they are going to take over the spider world no matter what it takes. The
spiders make ready to do battle to protect what they have created.
What happens when two
philosophies of life clash? This story brilliantly spells it out.
This story follows the exploits
of a ship from Earth whose occupants are seeking a place to settle and found a
new civilization on the one hand, and on the other, a world that had been
terraformed as an experiment by a scientist. On the planet, the intended
occupants were to be monkeys that would be infected by a nanovirus designed to
induce accelerated mutations and evolution. So the monkeys would rather quickly
evolve to sentience (by quickly I took it that it would be hundreds of years as
opposed to thousands or millions of years) and bring forth a new civilization,
not human.
The intended occupants of the
planet never got the chance to make their mark, however other species that were
already on the planet did get a chance at taking advantage of the nanovirus and
were very successful. Insects became the target of those that would inherit the
new Earth, and at the top of the list for those that would lead were spiders.
For me, the spiders development was the best part of the story. It was
fascinating how they started out with just their basic instincts and moved on
from generation to generation developing intelligence and technology that would
eventually even allow them to travel in space. Every chapter revealed new
abilities and ways of thinking that eventually became a highly evolved, well
organized, and intelligent society. It was not without its problems along the
way to be certain, but the outcome was likewise fascinating.
Then there were the humans. The
occupants of the colony ship were all in suspended animation to be awakened if
the ship's sensors detected a likely candidate world on which to settle.
Unfortunately for them, they stumbled upon the world that was made for the
monkeys. In orbit around this world, in a very sophisticated lifepod was the
scientist who claimed the spider world for her experiment. When the colony ship
arrived there, they were turned away by the scientist, who saw no value in human
life and, under no circumstances would allow her experiment to be contaminated
by a human presence. Sent away, to another possible candidate world, the humans
did what humans normally do.
As David Gerrold wrote in his
novel, Blood and Fire, when humans move out among the stars, we will
take our memes with us. Those memes include some good behaviors as well as many
ugly behaviors. Tchaikovski does a great job of illustrating some of the
ugliness that might be taken away from our planet; struggles for power,
idolatry, and a tendency to make war with one another for numerous reasons.
Feeling that it is too far to travel to the other world, they eventually decide
that they are going to take the spider world for themselves, no matter the
cost.
My favorite character is a
spider named Portia, well actually there are a lot of characters named Portia.
Most of the spider evolution is expressed through this character, passing down
her DNA from one generation to the next over thousands of years. Portia starts out
as a common spider, working and surviving on instinct. As time moves on, the
instincts stay intact, but there is reasoning added making Portia continuously
more interesting. Portia and her spider companions develop a social structure
allowing each to develop as their individual spices talents allow. Each has
their own talents while Portia maintains a benevolent rulership over them all.
Portia leads the spiders through an evolutionary process that begins with basic
instinct, emotional awareness, the uprising of superstition and development of
religion, scientific enlightenment, and finally a spacefaring civilization. It
is, in any case, a fine example of world building This was the most compelling
part of the book and is what kept me reading.
Every other chapter of the book
dealt with the human perspective. I found these parts of the book interesting,
but not as much as the spider story. It seemed that the humans were never able
to get it together because all they wanted to do was take the spider planet over
as conquerors. Most of the scenes dealing with the humans were through the eyes
of a character who seemed a little cowardly and uninspiring. Unfortunately, as
far as I was concerned, the only reason for the human story line was to be bad
guys for the spiders to fight off when they arrived to take over the planet. There
was a lot of filler in the human story that was unfortunately predictable and
uninteresting. But, as I said earlier, the spider story more than made up for
the shortcomings in the human chapters. As far as the plot was concerned
though, the human story was not a total loss when one considers that while the
spiders on the planet evolved, the humans went in the complete opposite
direction de-evolving to the point of becoming tribal and falling into idol
worship.
Finally, there was the scientist
that started the whole thing. Dr. Kern was a megalomaniac who saw herself as a
god-like individual. Nothing was more important to her than her experiment and
there she would allow nothing to get in her way to see it come to fruition.
Aboard a ship she was leading to her terraformed planet, she had a large
population of monkeys that were to receive the benefit of her creation, the
nanovirus. What she didn't count on was a faction of eco-terrorists that were
bent on not allowing her to waste a perfectly good planet for the evolution of
monkeys. The terrorists destroyed the ship while she escaped in a life-support
pod to spend the rest of eternity in orbit around what she dubbed Kern's World.
Kern's character soon became uninteresting as she more or less merged with her
pod and became confused.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book
and give it high recommendations in spite of it's few shortcomings. There is a
good reason that Children of Time won an Arthur C. Clark award. It is
well paced and continually compelled me to read on. Most of the ratings for
this were in the 4.3+ approval rating and I would agree, calling it a solid 4 on
a scale of 1-5.
Well, there it is...
Qapla!
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