Children of Time/Children of Ruin. Why one worked for me and one didn't. (Mild Spoilers)

Submitted by ChickenDragon123 t3_11e0nan in books

Let me say this upfront. Both of these books are fantastic and well worth your read. On a rating scale I'd say Children of Time for me is a 9/10, I think Children of Ruin is a strong 7.5/10 maybe an 8. I'm not trying to diss anyone or dismiss anyones enjoyment of the book, it's a dissection of why the books did or didn't work.

The stories are similar. There's variation, however the emotion throughline remains the same. Mr. Taichovsky has said that he believes strongly in the power of empathy, and I believe that. But here's the thing, Empathy has a cost to it, and I don't know that Children of Ruin appropriately expresses that.

For a quick summary, Children of Time follows basically 3 perspectives. The first is that of Dr. Everana Kern, a scientist who is attempting to uplift monkeys on a terraformed world. The second is that of the Gilgamesh, a ship fleeing the wartorn ruins of earth. And the last is the Spiders that have taken up residence on Kern's terraformed world. These perspecitves are followed over thousands of years, and it maintains both it's pace and it's tone over that time. This is in part because the stakes remain high throughout. Explicit and at the forfront.

The many variations of Portia and her broodmates are followed through time, each appearance a fight for survival, a snapshot of the challenges the spiders face as a culture. The Gilgamesh on the other hand suffers defeat after defeat, constantly on the edge of destruction from just about every side, while the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. And at the center of it all is Dr. Everana Kern, the woman who is slowly losing her mind.

It's a fantastic book and while the ending was wrapped up more quickly than I would have liked, it told it's story well. The stakes remained high throughout, and it concluded itself in a way that while a little handwavy for my taste, fit.

In contrast stands Children of Ruin. It is still a very good book, but while Children of Time has 3 basic stories split over 7ish character perspectives, Children of Ruin has 3 basic stories split over 15 or so character perspectives and in almost the same word count.

Let me compare the cast and the emotional weight of each perspective with the problems it has to solve for a moment.

Children of Time:
Portia, Fabian, and Bianca: Equal amounts of emotional weight, worldbuilding and technical problems to solve.
Dr. Everana Kern: Some emotional weight, is the fulcrum on which the plot sits.
Holsten: Good amounts of emotional weight, world building and technical problems to solve.

Children of Ruin
Disra Senkovy and his team (Terraformers): Carries most of the emotional weight of the story, and probably a quarter of the book's plot.
Yusuf Baltiel and his team (Researchers): Carries a good amount of emotional weight and probably another quarter of the books plot
Paul, Salome, Ahab, Noah, Lot: Maybe an 8th of the books plot, and there is never a really good emotional scene with these characters. There's scenes that are sad, sure. But nothing that sticks long term. A good chunk of world building rests with these perspectives, but I don't get the feeling that they are doing much when I'm not looking.
Helena and Portia: Probably another 8th of the books plot. Lots of technical problem solving but not much emotional context.
Fabian, Viola, Zaine, and Artefabian: Probably another 8th of the books plot. Again lots of technical problem solving, but not much emotionally.
Meshner and Kern: Another quarter of the books plot there about? A suprising amount of emotional depth, much more than I expected from the last book.
The Many: Like maybe 1/16th of the word count for the book if that. Impressively plot relevant, and a solid emotional component (mostly horror), but I feel the need to keep things vague here.

Do you see the difference in these lists? There just isn't enough emotional baggage for everyone to get a piece of the action. Not in 150,000 to 200,000 words. Most of the emotional weight is split between Senkovy, Baltiel, and Kern. The technical issues are distributed more evenly, but without the emotional weight I have a hard time caring.

The best parts of the book all took place in either the distant past with Senkovy and Baltiel, or in the last couple of chapters with Kern and Meshner. Because of that distrobution though, I always wanted more Senkovy, and less of the Lightfoot. I didn't care about the present, I wanted more of the past, because that was were the answers were. I was interested in how the tragedy of Senkovy would go down, much more than I was interested with what the modern day crew was doing. Children of Ruin was far more plot focused than the first, I think to it's detriment.

But for all of it's flaws, I still enjoyed my time with it. The sci-fi elements were facinating. The aliens actually feel alien. The science was interesting, the worldbuilding fantastic, specific scenes will haunt me for years. I just wish it had been able to maintain that level of excellence throughout the rest of the book. I still can't wait to read the third book next month.

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Mad_Madman_is_Mad t1_jabxofi wrote

I read children of time and absolutely loved it, I've been avoiding reading children of ruin because I'm afraid that I'm going to read it and it's going to somehow taint the first book for me. But your kind of synopsis makes a bit of sense and makes me also more willing to try to read it? I don't know. It sounds like it can be okay, I have just been too scared to start it lol.

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GlobularClusters t1_jace552 wrote

This is a good and fair review. I'd be tempted to score children of ruin slightly lower, but I still think it is a good book. Having read them a while ago, Time has really stuck in my mind and Ive recommended it to several people. Ruin, on the other hand, has not (which your review has helpfully recapped for me!).

That being said, I'd add another reason to still read children of ruin. Children of Memory (the third book) is excellent and more on par with the first book. Ruin gives some insight into it, but is not strictly speaking necessary to understand Memory. But I'd certainly stick with them to read the whole trilogy. Memory also departs a bit from the structure of the first two books, which are both quite similar. It provides a nice refreshing take on the overall theme of the series.

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kmmontandon t1_jacik3g wrote

Replying to GlobularClusters (#2,101,178)

> Memory also departs a bit from the structure of the first two books

No kidding. I was coming down with the flu and taking some meds when I read it, and I seriously thought I was hallucinating because of that structure. I kept wondering "Is it me or the book? WTF?"

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SoothingDisarray t1_jad6ytr wrote

I read both of these books recently and I feel very similarly to you. Both very good books that I enjoyed, but the second one had some clearer flaws. Those flaws didn't ruin the reading experience, but did mean after it was over I felt less satisfied.

I agree with your review, and have one thing to add. (And thank you for giving me the opportunity! I've been mulling this over for a while and didn't know where to share my thoughts.)

Spoilers follow! [Edit: MAJOR spoilers. Do not click and read the below if you haven't read the books and don't want them spoiled.]

>!The OP has pointed out how the structures have some parallels. One more major parallel is how a technology introduced earlier on in the book is then responsible for the climatic ending where multiple sentient species are able to come to a joint understanding. In Time it's the "smart virus" that is used to help the humans feel kinship with the spiders and avert disaster. In Ruin it's the brain interface that allows Kern to make real contact with the The Many and avert disaster.!<

>!In the first CoT book, the virus is fundamental to the plot. It drives the entire novel, since it's what allows the spiders to evolve into an advanced species and contributes to their whole memory-transfer ability. So when that virus is used to bring the humans into a feeling of kinship with the spiders it feels like a really logical conclusion to the storyline.!<

>!The problem in the second CoR book is that the brain-interface technology is not fundamental to the plot. In fact, many if not most of the scenes where the book explores that technology feel ancillary from what is going on. Yes, it's interesting and important how that technology gives Kern the ability to "feel" emotions again, and the way she those emotions distract her does have plot relevancy. But the whole book could have definitely been written with all of these scenes removed, except for (of course) the climax.!<

>!So, the conclusion of the second book felt less satisfying to me than that of the first. In retrospect it became clear that the author had added this technological diversion side-plot in order to deliver that conclusion, rather than having told an organic story with an organic conclusion. (In other terms, it made the "author's hand" a little too obvious.) !<

Anyway, that's not saying the second book wasn't a good book or that I didn't enjoy it. Just a plot point (a major one) that didn't work for me as well as it did in the first book.

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SoothingDisarray t1_jad8hlr wrote

Replying to Mad_Madman_is_Mad (#2,096,811)

As my spoiler-filled comment elsewhere in this thread makes clear, I agree that CoR isn't as good of a book as CoT. However, I still think it's a very good book. And, more importantly to your point, I don't think it detracts from CoT in any way.

I know what you mean where sometimes a sequel can ruin (pun!) one's feelings about the first book in a series. This sometimes happens because a sequel is so awful that it leaves a bad taste about the entire series, and it sometimes happens because new information is revealed that retrospectively messes up plot points one liked in the first book. I don't think either of those things are true about CoR.

So even if you don't like it as much as CoT, I don't think it will impact how much you liked CoT. In fact, I think it's still additive even if it's not quite as great.

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Tacos_Rock t1_jaesqrr wrote

Replying to kmmontandon (#2,102,655)

I read COM while super sick with COVID and couldn’t figure out what was going on at all until the end. I had to reread it after I recovered, and realized it was supposed to be that way! I think maybe it started as a separate standalone book from the COT series, and the author felt it would fit in well with that series during writing. I loved all three, but Ruin was the weakest in my opinion.

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