Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think this book might be my second favorite of the series.

It's not because I particularly liked the five egotistical scientists who created a whole ecosystem out of whole cloth on their particular alien world. I didn't. In fact, it's super easy to loathe them. And for very good reason, it turns out.

It's not because I think those in the Society, the one made up of many kinds of minds and aliens working together toward an accommodating, positive end, is such a fantastic politicized end I just have to spout hundreds of great things about it to anyone who could be bothered to sit still for it. Or complain about how it's still a FORCED creation by Kern's virus, or how unrealistic even that would be--if it wasn't for the fact that THIS NOVEL specifically addresses that and a handful of other rabbit holes in such a clever and clear way that I was forced to re-evaluate all of my earlier dismissals.

I love this novel precisely because it touches on so many great SFnal concepts, be it forced Darwinian concepts or the Game of Life writ VERY large on a VERY large canvas, to the impermanence and faulty nature of memory, to self-hood in wildly different matrices, or how massively different cultures (Stomatopods!) can STILL find a way to work WITHIN vastly different conceptual fields than their own.

Or I could just point to the time-hopping structure of the plot, all weaving together a picture both wonderful and strange and gorgeous and terrible, point at the wild cast of characters on every side, and just sit aghast at what became of them all at the end.

And make no mistake: Tchaikovsky weaves it all together in a very cool way and the ending is wild. Like, top-SF wild.

I 100% recommend. Perfect for all of ya'll who like to make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven.


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