Children of Time (novel)
A civilization of spiders evolves while humans seek a new home.
Children of Time is a science fiction novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky, published on June 4, 2015. It won the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel. The novel follows two plot strands: the evolution of a civilization of genetically modified spiders on a terraformed exoplanet, and the journey of an interstellar ark ship carrying cryonically preserved humans.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Science fiction
- Format
- Print (hardcover and paperback)
- Publisher
- Tor UK
- Released
- 2015 (hardcover)
- Pages
- 600
- Followed by
- Children of Ruin
Facts from the source article.
Plot
In the far future, Dr. Avrana Kern heads a science team orbiting a terraformed exoplanet she hopes will be named Kern's World. The team plans to release a nanovirus to accelerate the evolution of monkeys, but war is stirring back home between authorities and anti-technology factions, including a group called non ultra natura. Kern learns an agent of an anti-technology group is aboard her ship about to overload the reactor; she flees in an escape pod.
The monkey payload is jettisoned but burns up in atmospheric entry. With no monkeys on the planet, the nanovirus infects and alters other creatures, notably jumping spiders (Portia labiata), called Portiids. Kern remains stranded in orbit, periodically waking from stasis, troubled by the cessation of radio signals from Earth. Millennia later, civilization on Earth reemerges from hunter-gatherer descendants, eventually salvaging Old Empire technology.
Facing the slow collapse of Earth's biosphere, the last humans travel to Kern's World aboard the starship Gilgamesh, ignorant of the uplifted spiders. Confronting a crazed, xenophobic Kern, the Gilgamesh takes a centuries-long detour to a neighboring system that proves uninhabitable. The novel contrasts the spiders' rapid advancement with the crew's descent into strife and barbarism, seen through the eyes of chief classicist Holsten Mason.
Characters
Dr. Avrana Kern is the Old Empire's only known survivor, a cynical, egotistic woman who aimed to beget new sentient life in humanity's image. She survived her ship's destruction and spent millennia in suspended animation in an observation satellite, orbiting the world she seeded with nanovirus. Isolation and degradation left her xenophobic, denying the humanity of the Gilgamesh crew. Guyen, the leader of the Gilgamesh, exercises autocratic authority over the expedition and its sleeping cargo.
After Kern forces his hand, he discovers Old Empire technology capable of uploading a human mind to a computer and devotes himself to uploading his mind to the Gilgamesh computer to establish firmer control. Holsten Mason, the chief classicist, translates the Old Empire language Imperial C, helping the ark ship navigate unknown territories. He eventually embraces a higher mission: establishing a new cultural heritage for humanity based on his lived historical narrative.
Lain, the chief engineer and eventual de facto leader, holds the ark ship together amid mechanical breakdown. Sacrificing decades to guide the tribe of engineering descendants, she becomes the spiritual leader of the ship-born generations. Vitas, the chief science officer, is a staunch adherent of professional objectivity capable of notable research, but her ambitious curiosity and deference to precedent often lead her astray; Holsten sees her as almost robotic and uncannily ageless.
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