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Children of Ruin cover art

Children of Ruin

Written by: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Narrated by: Mel Hudson
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Publisher's Summary

Children of Ruin follows Adrian Tchaikovsky's extraordinary Children of Time, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award for Best Science Fiction Novel. It is set in the same universe, with a new cast of characters and a thrilling narrative.

 It has been waiting through the ages.

Now it's time . . .

Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life – but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time.

Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth.

But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed.

And it’s been waiting for them.

©2019 Macmillan Publishers International Ltd (P)2019 Macmillan Digital Audio

What listeners say about Children of Ruin

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic sequel to "Children of Time"

This is the sequel to "Children of Time" and you should definitely read the first book before reading this one or it won't make a lot of sense. But read the first one, it's also an amazing book, and then come back and read this one!

"Children of Ruin" follows the structure of "Children of Time" by jumping between two different time periods - the far past and the near present, which slowly converge over the course of the book as we see how they relate. The "far past" section deals with another terraforming ship, colleagues of Dr. Kern from "Children of Time", who went to a different planet with the intent to terraform it, only to find it already inhabited by non-intelligent life, the first actual alien life anyone has found. Rather than destroy it to make a new world for humans, they opt to terraform another planet in the same system that is less habitable due to being mostly ocean, but unoccupied. One team goes to investigate the occupied world, while a second team works on the terraforming, and because it is a water world, includes the creation of an uplifted breed of octopus intended to be the humans' helpers.

Without getting into too many spoilers, things go badly wrong, and many thousands of years later when a joint Human/Portiid expedition from Kern's World arrives in the system, they find a race of spacefaring octopods who are so panicked by the sight of a human being that it sparks a violent space battle and the remainder of the book involves the Kern's World alliance trying to figure out how to communicate with octopods, and why the sight of a human and even the suggestion of them visiting either of the populated worlds in the system induces terror to the point of open warfare.

I loved the spiders in "Children of Time" and the way Tchaikovsky believably describes their evolution into an intelligent, tool-using civilization without losing their spider-ness, and the only thing that could have delighted me more than the Portiid race is when he does just as well with the intelligent octopods. This book also has some moments of serious creepiness which were chilling and scary, and plenty of action as well as a thoughtful discussion of the problems of communication that would obviously exist when Humans, Portiids, and octopods attempt to learn to communicate. Dr. Kern is back also in ship's-computer form, and also a key part of the plot.

I felt the ending was resolved a little quickly and a bit predictably if you'd read the first book, as there are many parallels between the structure of the first book and this sequel. However, still lots of great and unique details along the way and some really alien aliens, so if you loved the first book this one is a must-read too. Definitely leaves room open for another sequel also.

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6 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Just ok

Other than the last 10 minutes there was to much going on. I think I also was expecting it to be similar to the last book.

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5 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Not bad.

I was hoping for better. Well narrated but the story was a bit lacking. It felt like it was an abbreviated version of what he wanted to write.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another great book by this author

I really like Adrian Tchaikovsky. He writes fascinating books with interesting characters and big ideas. I’m always looking for an excuse to put the headphones back on and fall back into the story. The only quibble I have with this book is that the epilogue felt a bit rushed; I would’ve preferred an extra chapter before the epilogue to tie together the threads of the main story. Overall excellent.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Good but hard to follow at times

This book I found more difficult to follow than the first. I think it would have been the type of book where I would re-read things to further understand. That is annoying with audio books. Only my option thought. Narrator was fantastic once again.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

nice book

it was a nice book. listened to the first one so was nervous it would be the same story repeated but the author did a great job of adding a whole new perspective and evolving the storyline. with the read.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Worst of the 3 books in series

Still amazing and worth listening to before memory. Love this series. Can’t wait to listen to his next series.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Read it anyway

Why do I think you should read this book, despite the other reviews? Because it is an adventure novel, much more so than the previous book, and different does not equal worse. It's good fun, with interesting concepts therein. Enjoy!

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

a decent second book

The performance is similar to the first book. it was quite good and enjoyable.

the story, its self, is sometimes hard to keep track of, at some points becomes a bit boring, and is rushed near the end. however, the story as a whole is enjoyable and I do believe you will enjoy listing to this book if you liked the previous one.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

A dumpster fire inside a turd

Shockingly incoherent nonsense from an author capable of much better, the description of octopus society and politics makes zero sense. Rather than trying to explain it, he just leaves it hanging there hoping you somehow won't notice that a civilization whose members can't agree on anything for more than five minutes can't possibly build anything, because its members can't cooperate in large numbers. Octopus technology? He just phones in the whole thing, waving his arms around vaguely as he repeats they can invent things without knowing how they are doing what they’re doing. Lazy, bad writing from beginning to end, no interesting characters and a plot you’re not sure even Tchaikovsky is following. Awful.

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