Children of Memory Book Review

 Children of Memory 

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

 Release Date: January 31, 2023 

Genre: Sci-Fi

Age Range: Adult

Series: Children of Time

Proceeded by: Children of Ruin

Goodreads Avg. Rating: 4.05 stars

One day I will start recording my first thoughts before finishing a book. Since this was not a case of that let us just move on I was excited to read this final installment.

While the previous two books in the trilogy had a fair bit of world-building this one was lacking. Yes, we were given an alien landscape and people. However, I do not feel we got near the level of building and detail as before. This could be due to the majority of the story having an air of unsettling mystery waiting in the wings.

This book takes place on Imir, one of the lost terraforming planets. Imir is a very harsh environment, even more so than Nord. The colonists were only able to find a very small area to be forced into supporting Earth life. There are very few planets and animals able to be altered to grow here. It is amusing that most forms of those animals are altered pigs into versions of other animals.

In this installment, we have a few main characters. Kern makes an appearance but only one or two chapters of her POV. Mostly we are seeing from Miranda, Liff, or Gethi\Gothli. Also the original colonists' timeline briefly at the beginning. The original colonists were another ark ship that departed similar to when the Gilgamesh left Earth. Their trip took a fair bit long to reach Imir and suffered much more damage.

Liff is a child of Imir who descended from the original colonist. She is an inquisitive child who wants to know all the secrets that the adults don't talk about. Liff is trying to figure out how life on Landfall works while she is in that age between child and adult responsibilities. She is the one who will interact with Miranda the most.

Miranda is an explorer of the vessel Skipper. She is a Nordian entity originally but currently focused on the human perspective of Miranda the explorer. Through the species agreements, there are lots of personalities willingly given that create a vast library of knowledge, both intellectual and emotional within this Ur-Miranda (as she will call herself). Through this character, we will get a great deal of introspection as to what makes a personality.

As for Gethi & Gothli, they are another set of evolutionary intelligence from the original terraforming crews. They speak, and think, as two halves of a whole. Their chapters are an interesting test in finding meaning through restated quotes. If Miranda makes you question personality then they will make you question intelligence.

The story revolves around our group of interspecies explorers from the Skipper finding the planet Imir. When they arrive there is a small civilization there called Landfall. Determined to meet this distant offshoot of Earth the crew infiltrated and watched. What they found was a civilization on the break with harvest failures and suspicion of anyone different.

The ending of this book was different. While I had started to question after the time inconstancies it was still a tad bit odd. I wouldn't have fully thought this would be the end outcome due to the Skipper being in orbit still. The very last page though does not feel like an ending. It seems rude to have that be the end of the entire series. I have so many questions.

Overall I loved this series. When paired against the first two books this one was the weakest for me. The topics brought up for speculation in this one just did not hit the same. Mostly though I just don't want to leave this world here. I need the universe of these books to be connected in some way to his others to answer the questions.

You can find this book from the below retailers:

Amazon     Barnes & Noble