★★★☆☆ Magnificent, followed by dismal

Children of Memory

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Here's where Children of Ruin left us: the ark ship Gilgamesh encountered the first truly alien life in the Children of Time series on the planet Nod. This included greedily curious information-hoarding bacteria capable of taking over any living thing they encounter. An expedition from Kern's World convinces them to accept a truce in which they agree not to take over any organism without its consent. We thus ended up with a team of AI, Humans and spiders from Kern's world, octopuses from Damascus, and a Human emulation running on a Nodan bacteria substrate. They discover a way to traverse space instantly, without light-speed limitations, and set out to explore the galaxy. Their first targets are the worlds to which Earth sent terraforming teams. Two such worlds, Rourke and Imir, are visited in Children of Memory.

The first thought that struck me when I began Children of Memory was, "This is a reminder that Adrian Tchaikovsky writes Fantasy as well as science fiction." There is magic in Children of Memory. It is what I call Clarke's Law magic, that is, an advanced technology that looks like magic to people who don't understand it. That includes you, Reader, because you first encounter it from the point of view of characters who don't understand it. For instance, Tchaikovsky found a way to incorporate Odin's ravens Huginn and Muninn into his universe. (Here they are called Gothi and Gethli.) A witch who lives in a cave in the woods and who has mystic powers also appears, and magical things happen.

Most of the book tells the story of the ark ship Enkidu's arrival at Imir and Enkidu's crew's attempt to establish a colony. They are visited by a team of Nodan, Human, spider, octopus, and raven explorers, who stir the pot. As the blurb says, "Then Liff, Holt’s granddaughter, hears whispers that the strangers in town aren’t from neighbouring farmland. That they possess unparalleled technology – and that they've arrived from another world." That story is the first 84% of the book, and it is the part that I referred to as "magnificent" in my review title. It has the brilliance and grand scope that you learned to expect in Children of Time and Children of Ruin.

At 84% we get the big reveal -- where does the magic come from? And it is a HUGE disappointment -- just spoils the entire previous story in my opinion. Here it is: the entire story of the Imir colony never physically happened. It was all a simulation. This is the new version of the dreadful "All Just a Dream" trope familiar from the film version of The Wizard of Oz.

From this point on there is not much story-telling. Instead the last 16% of the book is a philosophical tract discussing issues of ontology, ethics, and philosophy of mind raised by the just-spoiled story. Although I can easily imagine an undergrad reading it, taking a drag on a joint, and moaning, "That's so DEEP, man!" (yes, I was an undergrad in the 70s -- how did you guess?), it really is not. Now, to be clear, I am not likening Tchaikovsky to a dorm pseudophilosopher (even though he has a beard). He is consistently erudite and has read up on these subjects. In fact, I believe I could with considerable confidence identify some of the things he's read. But he has little insight to add.

As it happens, the last book I read before Children of Memory was John Scalzi's Redshirts. Redshirts covers much the same ontological and ethical ground as Children of Memory with no less insight, but far less pretentiousness.

In summary, Children of Memory contains a magnificent novel, which it spoils. So sad!

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