While Adrian Tchaikovsky has a name that is very hard to say, his writing in Children of Time is sublime, with an excellent flow. Each chapter, the perspective swaps between two different stories. As it swaps, story to story, and you get to see parallel paths along time but with wildly different results.
Parallels between a species that is evolving, and a species that is struggling. There are some great features in the book that you don't see in every book you read. First, a bit of background. There's a planet that is being terraformed by humanity. One day, it might be a new habitat for us. Only, there's a twist on this planet - a nano virus has been released, in order to select for intelligence.
A stern, unlikeable woman named Kern orbits the planet as a sentinel, ensuring that no interference is made to the planet. But where there is conflict, there's a good story to be told.
Now back to the tricks. Kern is wrapped up with an AI and a machine for her long watch. Humans find the planet, in some future time, and would very much like to go there, but - they can't - so, In conversation with a person trapped in stasis, their "AI" clone responds, while a ghost in the machine echoes creepy things that the human may want to say in the background. It is presented in columns in the text, side by side, so you get a sense of simultaneous nature of the speech, the "all at once-ness" of it. Kind of like the rambling the Hybrids do in Battlestar Galactica's reboot series.
As we swap from human perspective to the inhabitants of the planet (who are spiders), what plays out is an enthralling journey through scientific discovery, and a descent into tribal disputes, squalor and desperation on the other side.
Tchaikovsky keeps the science part simple, but runs freely with the speculative side, showing us the moments of discovery throughout history, and how these might differ from species to species - without really touching on long term physiological evolution, just the evolution of the mind.
Its an easy read, it flows well, but it is uncomfortable at times, particularly as you see humanity descend deeper and deeper into despair as the pages go on. There's also a few tired science fiction tropes seen in some of the character identities, but for the most part, it feels fresh and new.
There were also some quite personal moments through this book; the inter-character relationships are believable and poignant, but I felt much more attached to the non-human characters than the humans.
I am not angry that I read this book, but I am angry that it took me so long to read it. No "so long", as in it has many thousands of pages, and lots of bits that aren't important - it all is, but I am angry at myself for not getting through it quicker, as it feels to be a disservice to the pacing to borrow this book on two separate occasions, and only just get through it, on the basis of it being interesting, but not being interesting enough to keep my hands firmly clamped around the throat of this story.
I've got the second book of the series on hold - and hope that I won't do it the same disservice that I did to this one.