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Children of Time
2023: Other Books
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[Subdue] Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky 5 stars
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Great review! I own this book on audio, but I never even started it. I guess the spiders scared me away. I have it on my to-read-in-2023 list, so I hope we get a sci-fi related tag soon.
Nancy - Based on how many books we enjoy in common, I think you would love this book. I got over the spider-ick pretty quickly.ETA: I also think the author picked spiders intentionally since there is such a human aversion to them. It makes their evolutionary advance all the more intriguing.
I DNF'd this book. I don't have any phobias about insects, but I didn't like this one, or Empire of the Ants or the one told by a bee, which I think is called The Bees, but GR isn't finding it.
A group of humans far in the future have just finished terraforming a planet. The plan is to seed the planet with monkeys and then release a nano-virus designed to cause a fast-forward in evolution - resulting in a human-like species in centuries instead of millions of years.
Last-minute sabotage results in the loss of the monkeys and most of the scientific team. The nano-virus finds a new species for hyper-evolution: Spiders. The spiders develop through all the same stages as human development: Staring with Hunter/Gatherers and Farmers all the way through space travel. They form cities, domesticate other species, conduct war and diplomacy, pursue science and religion. But all within the constraints of how a spider sees the world.
Such a creative story, the world-building is incredible. And I'm no fan of spiders, but definitely found myself rooting for them in the final showdown with humans.