Review Day: Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

There are no major spoilers in this review.

Children of Ruin is the second book in the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Although it's a sequel in the sense that you need to have knowledge of what came before, it plays out more like an anthology story, laterally covering similar themes as the first book.

The story begins on one ship out of many tasked with terraforming a new planet for mankind's salvation. Unlike the first book, the crew arrives to discover the planet already teeming with life forms that seemed to evolve without Earthlike biology. When signals from Earth stop transmitting, the five-man crew allows their mission to evolve more towards exploration and science. Uncounted years later, descendants of the protagonists from the first book arrive in this galaxy in search of other terraformed worlds.

The tone of this book is mostly clinical and detached, as if the author is crafting a scientific report about a really cool terrarium. I felt like I was kept at arm's length (even more so than I did in the first book) so I never grew attached to the characters. However, this tone is expertly subverted at several points, where the plot dips its toes into light horror themes. I loved the creepiness of a potentially dangerous planetside menace (and its catchphrase). I had positive flashbacks to the pulpy thriller aspects of Michael Crichton's books.

Overall, I loved all of the concepts that were explored in this book, from organisms that behave like machine learning algorithms to massive space worms bred for planetary mining. I didn't think it was totally successful as a cohesive story though, and my interest started to wane around the 3/4 mark during several consecutive chapters of backstory. As plot threads started to converge, I felt a little lost and adrift, like I had focused on the wrong elements early in the story rather than the elements that would become foundational to the conclusion.

I like that Children of Ruin tried something different even if it didn't resonate with me personally. In spite of its flaws, I'm still willing to give the final book (Children of Memory) a try, just as soon as I get through P.L. Stuart's newest release in his Drowned Kingdom series.

Final Grade: B-

• Book 1: Children of Time review
• Book 2: Children of Ruin review
• Book 3: Children of Memory review