Book Thoughts: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
A time lapse in which I accidentally read book 3 of the series first and then decided I don't care enough to read any of the other books.
October 26, 2024:
Have you read this book? I'm currently listening to the audio since my sister recommended this to me after I mentioned that I wished The Mountain in the Sea (which she has not read) had more of the actual communication between species part.
I'm like halfway through and I don't like it very much. Seems too much like sci-fi for the sake of sci-fi instead of asking or answering questions that are interesting to me, communication, morality, etc.
Also the interspecies communication is just explained as every species learns to talk English and process human meanings because that's who they're currently communicating with and I find that supremely boring.
There's some time shenanigans that are going on that I don't comprehend, which is probably the draw of it to sci-fi readers. Me no attention span for this.
October 28, 2024:
I finished this book. Apparently this is what won the Hugo Award after Babel was mysteriously disqualified in what became a scandal of sorts.
The questions it's asking don't interest me much. The central theme is around what we regard as sentience and the answer to that just comes out to be "nothing is sentient so anything with complex enough processes should be afforded respect" except their bar for complex is again a human-created bias that's basically like the Turing Test. If it can fool you into thinking it's sentient that's good enough.
I'm not really interested. I'm more interested in figuring out how to accord respect to living beings that don't meet our standard of awe in terms of processing input and creating output we find interesting. I'm more concerned with how we define animal rights, or plant rights and the like. I feel like that's something The Mountain in the Sea tackled better.
Just reads human science bias all the way down. The way they talk about human civilizations and terraforming and the like. The idea of a Natural progression of higher tech meaning a civilization is more evolved which is a better thing. The idea that experiencing on the level of a human is better than the level of a microbe... boring... we get it humans are Special. Even when they're not humans but evolved to basically be humans because they were created by humans or learned to mimic humans.
Solid Meh.
Again, these books (MitS also included) just have anti-Indigenous frameworks baked into them and never know what to do about disability, especially intellectual disability and what that would mean for their frameworks. What is a severely intellectually disabled person worth to these frameworks? A person who may not always display functions of being Aware, who may be minimally responsive?
but at least MitS had a more interesting development with the octopus symbols and whatnot.
November 22, 2024:
I JUST TRIED TO TALK TO MY SIS ABOUT THIS BOOK AND SOMEHOW I LISTENED TO BOOK 3 IN THE SERIES. this is so fucking sad net information 0 and i need to go back to book one ive been fucking bamboozled
Luckily, I did not have to go back to read the previous books. My friend helpfully supplied critiques of the first book (which they had read) that made me decide the series wasn't for me.
Science Critique of Book 1:
This book hinges on the idea of "genetic cultural memory" which is pseudoscience and a misunderstanding of what epigenetics are. "Superior cultures", in this book, are literally encoded in genes. (Note from me: This is a takeaway that continues into Book 3.)
- In reality, there is no genetic cultural memory.
- For example, young children show no or rare intrinsic fear of snakes, suggesting that a fear of snakes actually develops over time, rather than being intrinsic from genes. The only underlying "intrinsic" fear that has been found is fear of the unknown.
- Epigenetics refers to how accessible different genes or parts of our DNA are, which impacts their expression. For example, children born to those who lived through personal infectious illnesses are more likely to have robust immune responses. Children born from those who experienced significant trauma are more likely to develop major anxiety-driven responses. Children born to those in real or perceived nutrient famine (not caloric famine) are more likely to have obesity-inducing metabolisms. This is a way of protecting children generation after another from perceived threats. But this doesn't distinguish one culture from another inherently as these happen to individual people across cultures. It is important to think about when reflecting on the generational trauma of those who have endured genocide, racism, etc.
- No actual "cultural markers" that we would recognize as being emblematic of CULTURE are genetically passed down, nor can they be, by the nature of genetics.
It doesn't actually bother to explain languages of spiders other than that they use webs, and this language is decoded in 30 hours by a scientist who doesn't explain his process.
- This isn't "inherently scientifically inaccurate" but is definitely disappointing and highly improbable.
- This isn't "inherently scientifically inaccurate" but is definitely disappointing and highly improbable.
It has a very small-minded view of what sapience must look like. The spiders count because they're individuals, and they can do things like court each other, experience jealousy, and have religions. There's an ant "intelligence" that is described as alien because the individual ants are just mindless biological machines, and of course, these are the bad guys and have to get turned into genetically bred slaves for the spiders (who are the empathy-having good guys). The author is really preaching about empathy while not having any for any intelligences that aren't individuals, okay.
- This pattern occurs in the author's other books too. For example, Alien Clay (spoilers for Alien Clay) brings up the idea of emergent intelligence from a system, which the characters seem to posit as superior to human intelligence. However, this intelligence is specifically distinguished from mindless biological machines and is instead shown as a form of "super empathy" where people can tell others' emotions and intents through various messaging molecules, a kind of sci-fi version of the fantasy "the entire ecosystem is harmoniously working together". The book also fails to meaningfully explore what the emergent intelligence is and has some other issues.
- I still appreciate that the book chose spiders for its vehicle.
The book brings up the fact that the humans are not worried about bacteria or viruses on the spider jungle world because the world has no humans to incubate bacteria or viruses. But the world has mice and deer, which are also vectors of disease, meaning that diseases which Incubate in mice and deer can easily jump to humans due to shared biological characteristics. Tick-borne illnesses kill people every year, and their primary host are deer. Other diseases don't even need mammals. The black plague came from fleas, and malaria from mosquitoes, and they do not require human hosts to evolve. Again, the biology of ancient underlying DNA and organ systems permits parasites and bacteria from insects to make the jump to humans.
- Even the currently theorized last universal common ancestor of all modern life on Earth (LUCA) appears to have had an autoimmune system and been fighting off viruses. And we know, as has happened multiple times in the modern age, that viruses can adapt to new hosts incredibly quickly. In fact, viruses usually try to adapt to be less lethal over time as this improves their survival.
- Even the currently theorized last universal common ancestor of all modern life on Earth (LUCA) appears to have had an autoimmune system and been fighting off viruses. And we know, as has happened multiple times in the modern age, that viruses can adapt to new hosts incredibly quickly. In fact, viruses usually try to adapt to be less lethal over time as this improves their survival.
All the biology facts regarding the different types of spiders used in the book are readily found on their respective Wikipedia pages. Perhaps the author did significant research, but simply citing facts does not show as such.
In terms of cultural impact, the spiders could indeed be replaced by monkeys, and, frankly, not much would be different. The worldbuilding is essentially lifted from any fantasy "matriarch" society, and individuals still reign supreme.
- Again, I appreciate that spiders were chosen for a vehicle, but I don't feel like the worldbuilding was sufficiently inventive.
- Again, I appreciate that spiders were chosen for a vehicle, but I don't feel like the worldbuilding was sufficiently inventive.
Related to the above, despite the spiders being decidedly not human, their whole cultural.and world development is like 1:1 in reference to cultural myths about Western Europe development. Even if this was meant to induce empathy from human readers, it felt so boring and small-minded. You have matriarchal intelligent spiders, and you can only think of a single way for a society to develop?
- It felt like it was supporting the very Eurocentric concept of how Advanced a Society must be and now societies will naturally go through a specific chain of advancement. These concepts have been used to regard other cultures as inferior and worthy of genocide or enslavement.
- It felt like it was supporting the very Eurocentric concept of how Advanced a Society must be and now societies will naturally go through a specific chain of advancement. These concepts have been used to regard other cultures as inferior and worthy of genocide or enslavement.
Everyone in this book is heterosexual due to a drive to reproduce, which also just doesn't track with real biological diversity.
- Studies done on house spiders show that only about 40-60% of adult females mate at all, even with ample food and provision of males.
- Many animals have exhibited homosexual or bisexual behavior patterns in nature.
- The book explicitly uses the drive to reproduce as a unifying factor.
(Bonus): Also, there's this whole subplot where the spiders are sexist towards males, and then one male spider is super smart and figured out genetics so good that he's able to change society for gender equality. And it's not subtle about it. The male spiders are explicitly sex workers or eye candy, and they say things like "girls will be girls" in the text. And it's an entire species of meek super smart nerd male spiders and Tough Big Warrior Spider Girls, and then the single meek super smart male spider wins men's rights for the male spiders.
- I can see the purpose of this subplot if it had been paired with humans discussing women's rights, but, as is, I don't recall the book bringing up misogyny at all.
- I don't like that the specific pattern of gender violence was effectively 1:1 gender violence in Eurocentric societies.
- The idea of a race of meek super smart males and tough big warrior females smacks of fetishism. This is exemplified by the fact that, on the human side, the two main protagonists are a meek super smart man and a tough warrior woman who organizes a revolution but still aggressively is in love with and fucks the meek super smart man. I would prefer to see more variety before I can say that it's not a fetish.
- Even in Alien Clay, which has a hilarious "no homo" in the narration, the female love interest chooses to fuck the male protagonist because he's so smart. I was like, "Oh, an important female character who doesn't die on the page she's introduced! Oh...she's there to fuck him...okay." This isn't exactly subtle.
Seems like the primary benefit of this series was that it challenged people to try to sit with their ick about spiders, and some walked away with thinking more about extending empathy to non humans.