From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Review of Adrian Tchaikovsky's _Children of Ruin_
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2023 15:48:20 -0500 (EST)

Here's a copy of the review I gave at last night's PRSFS meeting:

Last month I reviewed Adrian Tchaikovsky's _Children of Time_.
Tonight I'm reviewing the sequel, _Children of Ruin_.

(Despite his name, the author is British, not Russian.)

It's set entirely in a different solar system than appeared in
_Children of Time_.  In this solar system there are two planets
in the habitable zone.

Unlike _Children of Time_, which is set almost entirely after the next
ice age, it alternates between the near future and the far future.
In the near future, the time of the war that destroys all human
civilization on and off Earth, a large human crew has just reached
that solar system and is trying to decide which of the two planets to
terraform.  Neither is ideal.  One already has indigenous life, though
apparently no intelligent life.  The other is frozen over.  That
frozen planet could be thawed, but it would be almost all ocean, with
only a few small islands.

Before they can decide, the mission receives the computer-virus-laden
doomsday-weapon message from Earth that destroys all off-Earth human
civilization.  That kills all but a handful of people in the mission.
Then almost all the rest are killed by an infection from the life-
bearing planet.  There's just one survivor, who was near the frozen
planet.  He thinks he's the last person alive anywhere.  He has an
aquarium full of octopuses (octopi? octopodes?).  He uses the uplift
nanovirus on them, trains them to terraform the frozen planet, and
teaches them to forever avoid anything from the other planet.  By the
time he dies of old age after a couple centuries, the ocotopuses have
finished terraforming the formerly frozen planet and filled its oceans
with their progeny.

Thousands of years later, they're suffering from overpopulation and
wars.  One group decides to defy their ancient superstition that a
certain box must never be opened as it contains a great evil.  Perhaps
the box contains a weapon that could be useful for their side.  Sure
enough, shortly after they open in, overpopulation is no longer an
issue.  Fortunately those octopuses that were in space at the time
survived the folly.

Many thousands of years later, people, uplifted spiders, uplifted
ants, and the uploaded Dr. Avrana Kern, all from the previous book's
planet, reach this solar system and communicate with the octopuses
aboard one of the octopuses' giant spaceships.  But they also get a
radio transmission from the forbidden inner planet, claiming to be
from a woman named Irma Lante, one of the people on the original
terraforming expedition to this solar system.

She and Ms. Kern knew each other, and had met back on Earth a
thousand-odd centuries earlier.  So this novel passes the Bechdel
test, assuming they still count as women, given that both women are
uploads, though not uploads running on anything most people today
would regard as a computer.

The octopuses are extremely angry that the visitors were communicating
with anyone or anything on that evil inner planet.

The author has an excellent ability to depict truly alien
intelligence, i.e. beings that are as smart as people, but think very
differently.  Most, but not all, of these "aliens" aren't literally
alien at all, but are descended from ordinary Earthy ants, spiders,
and octopuses.

I enjoyed both books, and look forward to reading the third, _Children
of Memory_.

Glossary:  "Uplift" means to give a species of animals human-level
intelligence.  "Upload" means to copy the mind of a person or other
intelligent being onto a computer or other suitable substrate.

Next month I plan to review Andy Weir's _Project Hail Mary_.