Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Created | Updated Jul 31, 2023
Adrian Tchaikovsky is an English science fiction and fantasy writer. In real life his surname is spelt Czajkowski but his books are published with the same spelling as the composer to prevent mispronunciations.
"Children of Time" is his most acclaimed science fiction book. It touches on many topics including space travel, assisted evolution, artificial intelligence and the future of the human race.
Overview
Some time in the not too distant future, the Human Race fights the ultimate war, wiping out civilisation and poisoning the planet with radiation. Humans descend into barbarism. But just before this, they had mastered space travel and had been starting to terraform other planets. One particular experiment was to colonise a planet with innocent monkeys who should not suffer from humankind's flaws, and to release a genetic engineering virus which would improve the monkeys, allowing them to progress quickly to intelligence in their new Eden.
A long time later, perhaps a thousand years, humankind has become civilised again by studying and reusing the remains of the previous civilisation. It is is now heading into space for a second time, hoping to escape the poisoned wreck of Earth and to establish a new life on one of the terraformed planets. They survive the long journey to the stars by cryogenic stasis - putting their bodies to sleep and freezing them to preserve them.
When they arrive at the monkey's Eden of which they know little except its location, they find a green world teeming with life, but they also find they are not welcome. Life on the planet has taken an unexpected direction and the machines monitoring the experiment are still in orbit warning them that the planet is not to be approached.
A mutiny breaks out on the ship which becomes a long-drawn-out civil war between various factions in the crew.
Meanwhile, life is advancing at a spectacular rate on the planet below and has become civilised. The planet's inhabitants will accept the human "invaders" on their own terms and are willing to fight to protect their planet.
"Children of Time" is his most acclaimed science fiction book. It touches on many topics including space travel, assisted evolution, artificial intelligence and the future of the human race.
Overview
Some time in the not too distant future, the Human Race fights the ultimate war, wiping out civilisation and poisoning the planet with radiation. Humans descend into barbarism. But just before this, they had mastered space travel and had been starting to terraform other planets. One particular experiment was to colonise a planet with innocent monkeys who should not suffer from humankind's flaws, and to release a genetic engineering virus which would improve the monkeys, allowing them to progress quickly to intelligence in their new Eden.
A long time later, perhaps a thousand years, humankind has become civilised again by studying and reusing the remains of the previous civilisation. It is is now heading into space for a second time, hoping to escape the poisoned wreck of Earth and to establish a new life on one of the terraformed planets. They survive the long journey to the stars by cryogenic stasis - putting their bodies to sleep and freezing them to preserve them.
When they arrive at the monkey's Eden of which they know little except its location, they find a green world teeming with life, but they also find they are not welcome. Life on the planet has taken an unexpected direction and the machines monitoring the experiment are still in orbit warning them that the planet is not to be approached.
A mutiny breaks out on the ship which becomes a long-drawn-out civil war between various factions in the crew.
Meanwhile, life is advancing at a spectacular rate on the planet below and has become civilised. The planet's inhabitants will accept the human "invaders" on their own terms and are willing to fight to protect their planet.
