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Children of Time cover art

Children of Time

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Narrated by: Mel Hudson
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Publisher's Summary

Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet.

Who will inherit this new Earth?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.

Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

©2016 Adrian Tchaikovsky (P)2017 Audible Ltd

Critic Reviews

" Children of Time is a joy from start to finish. Entertaining, smart, surprising and unexpectedly human." (Patrick Ness)

What listeners say about Children of Time

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable book with a rather swift ending.

An enjoyable, imaginative book exploring the evolution of a Spider society - an accidental by-product of a human terraforming project and a nano virus invented to accelerate the evolution of Monkey to Human. As the Monkeys never arrived planet-side, the Spiders become the dominant species. The inventor of this project is a computerised remnant of an ego-driven scientist from a previous Human era, still housed in a satellite revolving the planet. She is quite possibly insane.
The book also follows the survivors of a defunct and war-ravaged, planet Earth, struggling on a cold storage Ark-ship for thousands of years in space. The Humans inevitably need to resettle on the planet inhabited by the Spiders to survive. The Spiders evolve culturally and scientifically, whilst the Humans fight entropy and themselves over the two millennial time frame, with a few of the main crew disjointedly awoken for brief often bizarre periods. Both storylines are insightful and character driven. My only criticism is that the ending felt rushed and abrupt.
Good narration and Highly Recommended.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Beautifully Read

Couldn't put my device down. Fascinating story. Lovely female voice. 5 stars. Future of humanity?

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Joe
  • 10-10-2018

To slow

Has potential for a good story, but just rattles on and on. Too slow. Had to stop half way through. I dont know how the author can stick it out, just thinking about "nothingness" to write, just to make up space for a longer book. Sorry. It was gruelling.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
  • Caz
  • 17-09-2018

Really struggling to keep listening...

I have given up on this one, an interesting concept but I really struggled to stay interested and will probably never finish it.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

dreadful

Could not get past chapter 5.

close to the most boring book I havev EVER read

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Worth every minute

Evolution of imagination. This book proves that not all science fiction has to be formulaic and predictable.

When you find yourself moved by the fate of spiders, you know the author has led you into another world.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great and insightful

An idea of alien species and a possible future or even present. Kept my mind busy from itself, good work :)

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant, thought provoking.

I loved the concept, the 2 different storylines happening side by side of humans and spiders and the struggles they both went through driven by the most basic of instincts of all living things, trying to survive.

The ending caught me by surprise and what a way to wrap up the story. Excellent book

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

boring

I finished it, but not excited at all. found it quite boring, but narrator was good nevertheless.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

This really makes you think

It took me a little while to get the story. But before long I was hooked. It is a believable story in a weird way. I was getting concerned on how it would end as the author has you sympathetic to both sides plight. But the ending was great. I really enjoyed it.

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4 people found this helpful

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