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Children of Ruin
- De: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrado por: Mel Hudson
- Duración: 15 h y 25 m
- Versión completa
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General4.5 out of 5 stars 3,658
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Narración:4.5 out of 5 stars 3,309
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Historia4.5 out of 5 stars 3,306
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.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Rigged reviews
- De pondo en 05-20-19
- Children of Ruin
- De: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrado por: Mel Hudson
Great and unique hard sci fi
Revisado: 06-08-19
Like its prequel Children of Time, Children of Ruin is a zoologist's take on hard science fiction, and it's damned good. Most hard sci fi authors play with the laws of physics (Cixin Liu, Greg Egan) or technology (Charles Stross). There's a bit of that in Tchaikovsky's books, but he's most interested in evolution and the unexpected ways intelligence might arise from unexpected organisms.
Children of Time told the story of a spider species' thousands-year journey toward intelligence, and finally cohabitation with humans. This book is a direct continuation of that plotline, but brings the spiders and humans to a new system with two very different forms of intelligent life.
The first are super-evolved octopuses, which might not sound so special until the book explains the remarkable way they think. Their conscious desires and emotions emanating from the "crown" while their tentacles, or "reach," behave analogously to the human subconsciousness. The crown and reach communicate with each other and generally work toward the same aims, but each octopus is essentially two separate minds. If that's not interesting enough, both the crown and reach express all their thoughts physically — the crown via colors and shapes that are written out on the octopus's skin, and the reach by doing tentacle stuff. It's all totally batsh--, but Tchaikovsky makes it sound plausible.
The second species of intelligent creature is even stranger and its true nature is teased out of the course of the book, so I won't spoil it here.
Like Children of Time (and most hard sci fi, in my experience), this book is weakest when it comes to the plot and characterization. Which isn't to say that it's badly written, just that the specific soap opera crises and Macguffins that keep you turning to the next page are not as brilliant as the ideas about evolution, intelligence and consciousness that are clearly where the author's passions lie. But that's hard sci fi for you. I loved CoT and was skeptical that it needed a sequel, but Tchaikovsky has proven he's more than capable of filling out an entire series with his ideas.
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Dreams of Steel
- Chronicles of the Black Company, Book 5
- De: Glen Cook
- Narrado por: Rachel Butera
- Duración: 9 h y 37 m
- Versión completa
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General4.5 out of 5 stars 1,492
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Narración:4 out of 5 stars 1,304
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Historia4.5 out of 5 stars 1,307
Croaker has fallen and, following the Company's disastrous defeat at Dejagore, Lady is one of the few survivors--determined to avenge the Company and herself against the Shadowmasters, no matter what the cost. But in assembling a new fighting force from the dregs and rabble of Taglios, she finds herself offered help by a mysterious, ancient cult of murder--competent, reliable, and apparently committed to her goals.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The book gets 4 Stars, the interpretation a 2
- De Nick Olah en 09-18-10
- Dreams of Steel
- Chronicles of the Black Company, Book 5
- De: Glen Cook
- Narrado por: Rachel Butera
Narrator fine; plot fail
Revisado: 05-18-17
Since every other review complains about her, I'll start with Butera's narration.
It's ... okay!
By which I mean, her Lady and Soulcatcher are fine; her Croaker is terrible; minor characters are hit or miss.
Her Croaker is no worse than Vietor's atrocious Soulcatcher, and while many people seem to love Vietor's Croaker, I found it one-note and boring after four books.
Butera's Lady is a bit one-note, too, but her tone seemed appropriate for a character who is basically semi-sociopathic, unable to empathize and so old she's become blasé about matters of apocalyptic importance. Her Soulcatcher and Frogface were fun.
As for the story, it seemed like Cook started writing at page one and either ran out room or time before what should have been the conclusion.
Spoilers ahead!!!
What should have been the emotional and narrative climax of the book — Naryan's betrayal of Lady — incomprehensibly takes place off screen, at the very end of the book, described second-hand in an epilogue! WTF.
I actually enjoyed much of the plot, and the internal exploration of Lady who has always been my favorite character in the series. I was looking forward to seeing how she'd handle motherhood, then finding out what she'd given birth to, and the Deceiver's real game. Instead, she slept through it, and we get a few lines of exposition in place of a climax.
The culmination of the book's secondary plot — Soulcatcher's confrontation with Longshadow's assassin — at least happens live, but it's also a let down. Soulcatcher isn't even really involved in the chase, and Frogface has basically no trouble with it. This arc is still more satisfying that Lady's, and I enjoyed that (like every Cook character who lives long enough) Soulcatcher became a little sympathetic by the book's end.
But still, it's baffling that the book's two main and most interesting character got such rushed climaxes, and so much time was wasted on one-dimensional plot-movers like Swan and the royal siblings.
I get that this is a middle book in a long arc, and much of it is setup for subsequent novels. But Book 4 was basically all setup for this one, and the long journey is turning into a bit of a slog without compelling arcs in between.
If I keep going it'll mostly be because Jonathan Davis is voicing the next installments. Forget the Butera-Vietor debate; Davis's narration of Book 5 was the only inspired performance in the series to date.
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