Children of Memory

After some 2500 years an Ark ship from Earth had made it to a distant Earth-like planet. It was difficult but the colony was eking out an existence. But there were some mysterious things going on on this planet. Although this book features some characters from the first two books of the trilogy, most notably Avrana Kern, its focus is mainly centered on two new characters, Miranda and Liff. Liff is a young girl of about thirteen and Miranda is her teacher. As it turns out, Miranda is not really from the Colony ship but part of the crew of the exploratory vessel Skipper who have journeyed to Imir to see how the early terraforming project had worked out. The crew also consisted of Avrana Kern and intelligent Portiiid spiders and Octopuses. Also a part of the crew were a pair of Corvids who evolved from a failed (at least for humans) terraforming mission on the planet Rourke. They decide to visit the colony, incognito, to get a feel for how the colony is getting along. They are in for a big surprise. The author takes what is seemingly a simple story (but with an intriguing and marvelous reveal) and transforms it into a near perfect story filled with great characters and interesting philosophical discussions.

Ok, I enjoyed reading Children of Memory. Throughout my reading I had several pauses, questioning what just happened🤷🏽‍♀️ I did re-read parts of the story for clarity. This was not a fast pace story for me. As I continued to get further into the story, half way the suspense builds up. A futuristic spaceship Enkidu arrives at a terraform planet Imir in hopes for a human colony to survive. There is no advance technology and their resources are limited. Living conditions are pretty harsh. Eventually, technology is brought in by alien strangers including Gothi & Gethli (birds), Miranda, Kern (uploaded intelligence) and others. These alien strangers are interconnected exploring thoughts on consciousness, identity, and the why of humanity. In the book alien sentients are always challenging human intelligence and emotions. Complicated things start to happen on the planet in the area known as Landfall. There are lots of confusing jumping around. It makes for quite a mystery! My favorite characters: Liff the child, of course the raven birds Gothi & Gethli, and Miranda. When I reached the end of the story, it left me feeling all life, including artificial intelligence, that follow through changes of consciousness of being aware and a sense of caring to where creatures of intelligence of all kinds need to work and communicate together.

Absolutely fantastic, would recommend to anyone who wants a compelling and well written series to read. I will definitely read again

I’ve very much enjoyed Adrian Tchaikovsky’s other works, including the earlier entries in this series: Children of Time was epic and blew me away, 5 stars Children of Ruin, quite enjoyable, 4 stars Children of Memory? Ok, 3 stars. While it shows flashes of brilliance, overall I found it confusing. Or else I’m getting dumber. This novel spends about the first 3/4 setting a very nice table, then proceeds to pull out the tablecloth and everything goes crashing down. The plot twist is one of those kind that leaves you scratching your head wondering if the book is really being honest with you? Because once it goes there, you could overlay whatever you want on top of the story and it would still fit. One of my favorite elements of the previous books was that characters such as Portia, Fabian, and Paul were more like archetypes of their species, with a whole series of different individuals inhabiting those personae. That element is gone here- or is it? I also find with the character Kern, the larger role she plays, the less interesting she is. She was a small part of book 1, and increasingly significant in books 2 and 3. The larger her role, the more clear it is that I don’t understand the character. I also find the Nod microorganism a hard character to really understand or cheer for, and it ends up being one of the main characters here. And the octopi? octopodes? are really an afterthought in this, barely utilized in any meaningful way except “Paul is weird”. This book is also much smaller in scale than the previous entries. It’s hard to recapture the epic scope of Children of Time. But this one feels like a small-town Western: despite ostensibly covering a very long time span, the nature of the plot is only a few characters, a few locales, and a few short (in time) vignettes used in different combinations. So it all feels more confining than the previous entries that featured story arcs of planetary and interplanetary scale.

“Children of Time” is a far more ponderous, heady, and fantastical novel than the prior two entires in this series. Surprisingly it also manages to have a much more focused and relevant message. This book ponders significantly on what makes a mind and what makes a being. It explores plenty of fascinating concepts pf sentience and consciousness that feels novel. Yet, and Mr. Tchaikovsky is oddly direct on this point, it does replicate many of the architectures used in generative networks today. The result is a poignant piece on ethics and creation. I can’t help but think this may be the magnum opus. It is a masterpiece and a capstone to a very forward series. You won’t regret this book. Read it.

Compared to the previous books, this 3rd and final book to the series is very hard to read but ultimately worth it. Humans, Portiids, Corvids, octopi, and the book 2 parasite come to a mysterious settlement on a faraway planet. Interesting setup but then the book falls apart. Two things go against this book: most of it is told in flashback, and most of it is told in non-linear order by characters who themselves don't know what is going on. As a result, a space mystery ends up being 60% filled up with life in the colony told from the perspective of a teenage girl. At first this feels cute and it feels like you are reading a Western, but then the inconsistencies start growing. (The inconsistencies are there for a reason - they are not mistakes.) The other thing that is frustrating is that the writer will take you to an climactic scene (like a hanging) and then never come back to it - again, there is a valid reason, but at the time you feel cheated. For all these reasons, I am removing 1 star. There is lots of repetition, especially with Miranda and the parasite. The Corvids were interesting characters and I wish they were explained more fully rather than just being idiot savants. Finally it is slowly revealed what is going on -- unfortunately by this point 75% into the book, you may have thrown it away in sheer boredom (as I considered several times). But don't do that - it is worth it! There are 3 massive plot twists at the end that make up for all the issues in this book. It is debatable whether another way of writing would have been better. A linear style of writing would have removed the twists but would have been even more boring. Definitely read this book, but know in advance that you may be scrolling through some chapters. I have read a lot of science fiction, and this is still one of the wildest books I've read! Edit: added reference to Corvids.

This is Existential science fiction that is mind blowing in its concepts. I loved all three books in this series: Children of Time, Children of Ruin, and Children of Memory. This writer is a masterful science fiction author. Highly recommend

What starts out as a story about colonizing an alien becomes a twisty mystery about a degrading colony told through the eyes of a young girl. What unfolds is a meditation on the definition of self aid the mystery of sentience. I guarantee when you put this book down you'll be thinking about it far a long time after.