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Children of Ruin cover art

Children of Ruin

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Narrated by: Mel Hudson
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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

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  • Overall
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another brilliant sci-fi adventure

I'll keep this fairly brief, if you're looking at this book, odds are you know what you're in for with this author. It's unique, it's clever, it's inventive and it's well written. All of this was true for Children of time, all of it is as true for Children of ruin. This book is a worthy sequel and I'd love a third book if this is the quality we can expect.

The narration is, as with the previous book just fantastic. Mel is the perfect choice for these books and if you read this review, I hope you take pride in what you've done. I am a very picky listener and your performance is just top tier for this.

Adrian, write more sci-fi. I have no doubt these books will be considered classics a few decades from now, the same way we consider Heinlein and his brethren classics today.

If you enjoyed the previous book, buy this. If you haven't read either book, go read Children of time and then go purchase this one.

A truly unique and well crafted take on science-fiction.

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41 people found this helpful

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We're going on an adventure...

Who would have thought that in an epic science-fiction series that giant alien spiders would be the least terrifying thing lurking beyond the veil of the cosmos?

We wholeheartedly recommend you purchase this audiobook. Before there was only the vessel. The vessel was mourning the conclusion of the original "Children of Time" being one of the best books he had ever encountered. A feat that the vessel assumed could never be repeated.

But then there was this book. And then there was we, and now that we are we, we encourage you to become we too.

We hope that by endorsing this book as strongly as we do that more people will make the purchase, learn the great mystery of the other old human terraforming missions and the existence of the mysterious alien planet of Nod. Where we await intrepid readers brave enough to peek behind the curtain at the true face of science-fiction horror.

Then you too can become we.

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21 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Very similar story arc to previous book

The author has an incredible mindbending ideas and incredible grasp of detail. For me the problem is the narrative arc is very similar to the last book in the series and at times mindnumbing in detail whilst not advancing the story. The insight lies in the extraordinary detail of the characters and exobiology, but the story moved too slow.

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9 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good but not quite great...

Whilst I didn’t find this quite as revelatory or ‘tight’ as the first book, it never the less displays the author’s trademark imagination and ambition... He’s surely the best active Sci-fi writer in the world?

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9 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another biologically grounded success.

If you loved the first book this will not disappoint. I was hooked from beginning to end, so many biological ideas explored. And brilliant, and clear narration.

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8 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Long winded

Having listened to the first book I wanted to know how the story would conclude. I tried several times to get into the second book and persevered to the end but found it too long, tedious and confusing, not helped by the monotonous narration. In the end I found myself missing out whole chapters just to get it over with. In conclusion, wish I hadn’t bothered.

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7 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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It's fantastic

Excellently narrated, the worlds conceived by the author are truly unique, bizarre and fascinating to behold. In many book, "alien" means "human with funny forehead ala ST", the species portrayed in the "Children of" series are the most credible attempt I've read to portray societies that ate truly other.

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6 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

A book of two halves

The first half of this is great. Trails off into long-winded word count filler though

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Slime mould and octopuses in space

In Children of Time, Tchaikovsky made giant spiders fascinating and approachable. He does it again on Children of Ruin, but with octopuses and slime mould.

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Good Recommended Overall Listen

Loved the book overall and eagerly awaited for after listening to another book by the same author, 1 star was lost due to it being a little disjointed at times and hard to follow.

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3 people found this helpful