Review: Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The good

• Another journey into the interesting universe created in Children of Time.

• A good exploration of new several alien species and the vastly different ways they may think about the world.

• Starts slow, but then hits a wild plot twist (perhaps not a plot twist, but just a significant change) about half way through the book, and then picks up pace to a fairly satisfying conclusion.

The not so good

• The conclusion relies on a literal deus ex machina.

• The start of the book, and a few parts in between, are fairly slow. It’s a long book that would’ve been better if some of the fluff was edited out.

• Given that humans can barely communicate or get along with other humans, I struggle with the idea of vastly different alien species all being able to communicate and get along.

Rating: 4 stars