#29 in Science fiction
Children of Time
- 624
- Pages
- about 11 h
- Reading time
- Arthur C. Clarke Award
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Editor’s note Children of Time, from 2015, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2016 and made Adrian Tchaikovsky’s name outside Britain. A scientist seeds a terraformed planet with a virus meant to lift monkeys to intelligence; the monkeys never arrive and the virus works on jumping spiders instead, and the novel alternates between the spiders’ civilisation, followed over thousands of years through a succession of females all called Portia, and the ark ship Gilgamesh, carrying the last humans from a ruined Earth towards the same planet. The spider chapters are the reason the book is loved; the ending is the reason it is argued about. Children of Ruin followed in 2019 and Children of Memory in 2022, each self-contained.
About the book
Children of Time, published on June 4, 2015, is a science fiction novel by author Adrian Tchaikovsky. The novel has two plot strands, one of which follows the evolution of a civilization of genetically modified Portia labiata (arachnid) on a terraformed exoplanet, guided by an artificial intelligence based on the personality of one of the human terraformers of the planet. The second plot strand follows the journey of an interstellar ark ship containing cryonically preserved humans as they seek a new planetary home following a planetwide environmental collapse on Earth.
Reading order · Children of Time
Full order & progress →- Children of TimeThis book
8.58.5 / 10 - Children of Ruin
8.08.0 / 10 - Children of Memory
7.97.9 / 10 - Children of Strife
8.18.1 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.6 across 2,012 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 93% of the weight and the score stays at 8.5 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.5 | 77 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 8.6 | 1.9K | 96% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“Wow, this is the best book I've read all year (and I've read over 40 of them!) Definitely recommend reading it if you're into sci-fi. If you haven't googled/seen a summary already - don't - I think this book is even better with that element of surprise.”
“Spider gender politics for the win baby! Love the book. I havent read much sci-fi so I dont have much to compare it. That aside, its well written, beautiful concept and pulled me into it right off the bat. The pacing around the end of…”
Frequently asked
How long is Children of Time?
It has 624 pages — longer than 84% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 8.5 and 8.6, closest to this book.
