Children of Memory (Children of Time 3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

[gilda_elise]

The unmissable follow-up to the highly acclaimed Children of Time and Children of Ruin.

Earth is failing. In a desperate bid to escape, the spaceship Enkidu and its captain, Heorest Holt, carry its precious human cargo to a potential new Eden. Generations later, this fragile colony has managed to survive, eking out a hardy existence. Yet life is tough, and much technological knowledge has been lost.

Then Liff, Holt’s granddaughter, hears whispers that the strangers in town aren’t from neighbouring farmland. That they possess unparalleled technology – and that they've arrived from another world. But not all questions are so easily answered, and their price may be the colony itself.

Set long after the second book, you now have humans, sentient arachnids, octopi, and the parasitic slime on the vessel, Skipper, on an expedition to find more of the lost ships that left earth millennia ago. What they find on the planet, Imir, defies all their expectations.

Dressed in human bodies, the symbiotic slime known as Miranda, the arachnids Portia and Fabian, Paul, the octopus, and two rather strange corvids, infiltrate what’s left of the humans who still survive. But the colony is dying. Their best bet seems to be Liff, who is somehow connected to what may be another life form.

The story moves around in time, so it took me awhile to understand what exactly was going on. Once I did, it became compulsive reading, as we, as well as the crew of the Skipper, learn who, or what, is controlling the colony. Its ending took me by surprise, yet it made perfect sense.

I eagerly look forward to the fourth book in the series, due for publication on March 12, 2026.






Mount TBR 2025 Book Links


Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson
2. The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy #1) by Pat Barker
3. Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year #1) by T.J. Klune
4. The Traitor's Son by Wendy Johnson
5. All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson by Mark Griffin
6. You Like It Darker by Stephen King, Thomas Hayman (Illustrations)
7. The Fireman by Joe Hill
8. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
9. Lark Ascending by Silas House
10. Memorials by Richard Chizmar
11. The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History by Serhii Plokhy
12. Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati
13. The Border by Robert McCammon
14. The 2084 Report: An Oral History of the Great Warming by James Lawrence Powell
15. Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
16. All Over the Town by R. F. Delderfield
17. The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA: The Book That Inspired the Dig by John Ashdown-Hill
18. Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean #2) by T.J. Klune
19. Blood of the Children by Alan Rodgers
20. For Fear of the Night by Charles L. Grant
21. We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
22. America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War by H.W. Brands
23. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
24. The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
25. A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen
26. Lost and Found by Marilyn Harris
27. Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill
28. Three Wild Dogs by Markus Zusak
29. Full Throttle by Joe Hill
30. Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next #2) by Jasper Fforde
31. Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky
32. Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King
33. Pearly Everlasting by Tammy Armstrong
34. The Women of Troy (Women of Troy #2) by Pat Barker
35. The Conjurers by Marilyn Harris
36. The Regulators by Richard Bachman (Pseudonym), Stephen King
37. Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn
38. The Nun's Story by Kathryn Hulme
39. The Bones Beneath My Skin by T.J. Klune
40. They Thirst by Robert McCammon
41. Blue World: And Other Stories by Robert McCammon
42. Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens by David Mitchell
43. Run by Blake Crouch
44. Babylonia by Costanza Casati
45. What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees by Stephen Buchmann



46. A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and Its Implications by Carl Sagan
47. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
48. Curfew by Phil Rickman
49. The King's Justice by Stephen R. Donaldson
50. Virgin by F. Paul Wilson
51. The Ancients by John Larison
52. Children of Memory (Children of Time 3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky







NOV – Tale, Final, Feast, Bloom, Cliff, Wide, Memory, Always

Children of Memory (Children of Time 3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
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Comments

[tinny]

Good to hear that you liked it! I did not like the revelation, and it's my least favorite in the series so far. But I'll absolutely read the next book, anyway. No doubt about that.

[gilda_elise]

I didn't dislike the revelation, but it was rather sad. And I'm with you; while I did enjoy the book, it's also my least favorite in the series, my favorite being the first.