Review Day: Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

There are no major spoilers in this review.

Children of Memory is the final book in the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky (although the author might revisit this world if ideas lead him there in the future). The book works very well as a capstone on the series, taking the ideas from the earlier books and then stretching, weaving, and elevating them to logical conclusions.

The story begins in a familiar way, with the convergence across time and space of ancient human terraformers seeking to build a new Earth and the modern, uplifted species traveling across the galaxy in search of life. This recognizable setting effectively toys with your expectations while the author gradually introduces discrepancies which suggest that things are not as they seem and, in fact, something may have gone horribly wrong.

The tone and style of writing are different than before. It's a mix of innocence, sardonic wit, and wry pessimism that often feels more like a fantastic fairy tale (with a little Douglas Adams thrown in) than a sci-fi novel about evolution and intelligence. Reading still requires exacting attention though -- because one of the major themes is what constitutes identity and "self-hood", there are passages that are almost infinitely recursive in the way that they present big ideas and bounce those ideas across characters with different origins, and within physical or virtual spaces. I found the exploration of themes to be very successful, and if the language had been any less dense, it would have made the arguments on the page more shallow and less thought-provoking.

I felt like the concepts overwhelmed the plot in the second book, Children of Ruin, so I was very happy to see this book end on a strong, emotional note. The penultimate reveal of the story's mysteries truly moved me in a way that nothing earlier in the series had done. The subsequent finale hit just the right mix of maudlin and hopeful and felt like "the only way" it could have ended. Most impressive to me is that the author was able to draw these emotions out of me using characters outside of a human frame of reference. To oversimplify: Adrian Tchaikovsky was able to introduce me to a single-celled organism and then, hundreds of pages and generations later, convince me to care about its feelings -- masterful!

Final Grade: A

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