Editors Reads Verdict
The rare sequel that matches its predecessor — Tchaikovsky's uplifted octopuses are as alien and as rigorously imagined as the spiders of Children of Time, and the encounter between them is exhilarating SF.
What We Loved
- The octopus cognition — distributed across eight semi-autonomous arms, with different emotional states literally visible — is as imaginative as anything in SF
- The first contact between the spider civilization and the cephalopod one is managed with extraordinary narrative skill
- The novel's central horror — the alien parasite that co-opts other species' minds — is genuinely unsettling
Minor Drawbacks
- Without Children of Time, much of the emotional investment in the spider civilization is unavailable
- The human and uplift storylines take time to converge in ways that may test patience
Key Takeaways
- → Consciousness has no single architecture — minds built on entirely different hardware will prioritize entirely different things
- → Communication between radically different intelligences is less a matter of translation than of finding entirely new conceptual frameworks
- → Cooperation between species with incompatible values is possible but requires radical mutual humility
| Author | Adrian Tchaikovsky |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Orbit |
| Pages | 485 |
| Published | May 14, 2019 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science Fiction, Hard SF, Space Opera |
Children of Ruin Review
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin is the sequel to Children of Time, his Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel about uplifted spiders, and it faces the formidable challenge of following a book whose central conceit — rendering the psychology of an evolving spider civilization in rigorous detail — was so original that anything less inventive would feel like a step back. Tchaikovsky’s response is to find an equally challenging alien mind to imagine from the inside: the octopus.
The novel’s premise involves a terraforming mission that goes catastrophically wrong, resulting in a planet where the target of an uplift virus — the octopus — evolves sapience along lines that are fundamentally different from spider cognition, which was itself fundamentally different from human cognition. Octopus intelligence is distributed: each arm has semi-autonomous neural networks, emotional states are literally displayed on their skin through chromatophore patterns, they live short lives but develop culture nonetheless. Tchaikovsky renders this with the same painstaking care he brought to the Portia spiders, and the result is equally extraordinary.
When the spider civilization’s exploration vessel encounters the octopus world, Children of Ruin becomes a first contact story of genuine complexity — how do species with incompatible architectures of mind reach mutual understanding? The novel’s third alien element, a viral intelligence that co-opts other species’ neural networks, adds a horror element that makes the already complex situation catastrophic. Children of Ruin is hard science fiction at the ambition level the genre is capable of at its best: ideas and story working together at full power.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Children of Ruin" about?
The spiders of Kern's World encounter an alien civilization of uplifted cephalopods — octopuses who have evolved sapience along entirely different lines. Tchaikovsky's sequel to Children of Time raises the stakes and deepens the alien cognition that made its predecessor so extraordinary.
What are the key takeaways from "Children of Ruin"?
Consciousness has no single architecture — minds built on entirely different hardware will prioritize entirely different things Communication between radically different intelligences is less a matter of translation than of finding entirely new conceptual frameworks Cooperation between species with incompatible values is possible but requires radical mutual humility
Is "Children of Ruin" worth reading?
The rare sequel that matches its predecessor — Tchaikovsky's uplifted octopuses are as alien and as rigorously imagined as the spiders of Children of Time, and the encounter between them is exhilarating SF.
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