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Children of Time

Running thoughts while reading. Preserved exactly as chaotic as intended.
Feb–Mar 2025

Initial Impressions

21-02-2025

  • Needed a story to get out of my brain, man. This one did the job.
  • Fast pacing, clear visuals, and yeah, spiders taking over is a weirdly fun concept.
  • The ecosystem-worldbuilding behind each scene is tight.
  • The two-timeline structure + the “crystallised species control” concept is cool. High-concept fiction, fun to think about.

Midway Thoughts

23-02-2025

  • This is a very “show-like” book lol. Might have binge watched it overnight be excited about this.
  • Themes of gender equity and violence in the spider world (mirroring the real world?).
  • Civilization growth arcs are genuinely entertaining.
  • The whole serum discovery and virus-analysis part felt way too quick. Breakthroughs don’t happen in three weeks lol, but fine. We roll with it.

Final Thoughts

26-02-2025

  • Book done. La-di-da man. Pretty solid ending.
  • Character development? Surprisingly good. Lain and Guyen have great arcs.
  • This book is about going places, not about engineering those places. And that’s fine.
  • Not much in terms of “hard-hard science.” It’s running with tropes, and it works.
  • Tight storyline. Characters make clear decisions. Respect.

Worldbuilding & Alien POV

  • Loved the shifting spider societies: castes, virus-level differences, land vs water civilizations. The intergenerational startship applied to both the spaceship and the planet eh?
  • Alien POV reminded me of The Dark Forest: a perspective so unfamiliar it makes your brain hurt (in a good way).
  • Spiders boarding the Gilgamesh and getting confused by right angles? Peak alien-geometry moment. Same vibe as the vampires in Blindsight.
  • Goethe had it nailed:
    “Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music.”

Science Gripes (aka the Fun Bits)

  • A ship designed to last 2,000 years being defeated by spiders with acid? Come on bro.
  • The prisoner’s dilemma reference was cool, but… language exists. Negotiate! Stall! Go hide behind a moon! Anything except “let’s just blow up the ship.”
  • Ant-colony-optimization-as-brain? Not buying it. Delays kill it. Bandwidth kills it. Physical scale kills it.
  • They completely ignore communication delay too.
  • But whatever — writing sci-fi is hard. Salute.

P.S.

This book made me want more sci-fi that genuinely commits to alien cognition. Not “humans with exoskeletons,” but real alien minds that force you to rethink your own assumptions.

P.P.S.

If I ever write sci-fi, I want the alien POV to feel as geometry-warping as spiders seeing right angles for the first time.