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We are an opinionated group of friends reviewing all sorts of fantasy and science fiction media. Don’t forget to get to know the curators and visit our curated Collection, where we discuss the stories that never cease to transport us to another world.
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- Novel written by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Published January 1st, 2015
- Part one of the Children of Time trilogy
Children of Time is one of those books that so many people recommended to me that at some point it just had to skip to the front of my shelf of shame, despite that fact that Tchaikovsky’s Dogs of War fell in the decidedly meh-category for me.
So the question is: why the hype, and did Children of Time live up to it?
I think the hype mostly comes from the fact that Children of Time is very original. It’s just new. It does things you can’t find elsewhere in science fiction.
Children of Time features an ambitious long-timelines evolutionary narrative that is not only very interesting in its worldbuilding, but somehow also manages to stay interesting on a plot level.
And then the novel combines that one narrative, that will take countless years to cook properly, and combines it with another narrative of humans in-and-out of cryosleep on a colony ship – which skips through the same amount of time featuring a single, continuous set of characters.
The setup takes a couple of sci-fi handwaves to work, but I’m all aboard with that for such a clever idea. This story structure addresses some of the typical issues with stories with far horizons (Asimov’s Foundation comes to mind) in that the human characters, with whom the reader is supposed to bond and who are ultimately what draw the reader into the story, necessarily can’t survive long enough to make it into the next chapter.
Tchaikovsky’s clever structure alone is probably enough to make this book worth reading. But the hype does not lie – both halves of the narrative are also independently good.
The spider half of the story (wait, what? Yes, a spider-half of the story), focusing on biological and cultural evolution, moves at breakneck speed and may strain your suspense of disbelief at times, but it is always interesting and surprisingly suspenseful given the shifting main characters.
The human half of the story initially appears more traditional, but as the narrative progresses and the insanity of living in short bursts over the centuries on a cramped space ship ramps up, it takes a turn for the surreal and ended up reminding me of the post-apocalyptic psychedelic ride that is Metro 2033.
If that doesn’t pique your interest, then I don’t know what will.
Is there anything negative to say about Children of Time? I think it would be that Tchaikovsky’s style is to focus on the interesting ideas more than on how they work – I saw Lotte mentioned Children of Time fitting the ‘hard sci-fi’ category and I have to give that a hard disagree – its not as soft as some space opera, but artificial gravity fields? Human consciousness uploads? Rapid evolution virus that recognises other bearers of the virus? Stuff like that is borderline magic, and while I don’t have a problem with it per se, Tchaikovsky leans on it a lot. But as long as you don’t go into it with the wrong expectation, that should not keep you from enjoying Children of Time.
One final thought – which some may consider a spoiler and some may not, so read at your own peril – is that Children of Time shares a very negative perception of humanity with Dogs of War, with both novels eventually settling on the conclusion that humanity needs to be ‘redeemed’ or ‘improved’ by some outside factor. I don’t mind a bit of moralising, but the ending of both novels was frustrating to me because Tchaikovsky is telling us we’re not good enough, but in neither case his suggested improvement is something that we have. I guess I’ll just have to take it metaphorically.
I got this book as a present from my dad. Whenever I get gifted a book, I try not to look at the summary on the back and just go in blind. That’s what I did with Children of Time.
All I knew going in was that it was a Sci-Fi story about evolution. And it was! Children of Time is unlike most novels precisely because of this focus on evolution. While we do follow a couple of specific characters from the start to the end of the book, this is only the case for one half of the cast: the humans. The other half of the cast are spiders.
It feels a bit like a spoiler to say that in a review, but I feel that it’s extremely relevant because of two reasons. One: if you hate spiders, as many people do, this book may not be for you. However, the second reason is that Children of Time is a fascinating exploration of what a society of spiders may look like, had they evolved in a similar way to humans.
I’m not a huge fan of spiders myself. I like the idea of them, but I like to keep some distance between us, generally. However, I really enjoyed the spider chapters in Children of Time. They offer some extremely fun world-building and surprisingly believable characters.
I wasn’t as much of a fan of the characters on the human side, but the writing was solid and both sides of the story made sense, in a way. I think it would be easy in a story like this to paint one side as the “bad guys” which doesn’t really happen here.
One thing I wasn’t counting on but I feel I should warn readers for is the fact that this is part of a series. It’s definitely readable as a stand-alone, and the ending is satisfying enough for me (though I can also imagine people disagreeing very strongly on this). Still, around halfway through I started to feel like I was reading a prequel for another story. It’s very much a story of “how we ended up in this situation”. I was expecting the ship to land at some point, and for there to be genuine conflict between the spiders and the humans, but that’s not really what this book is about. Children of Time focuses mostly on the evolution of the spiders, and the struggles of humanity trying to survive in a time where Earth is no longer inhabitable.
While I really did enjoy this book, I didn’t find myself running to the store to buy the sequel. Most of the story is neatly tied up at the end of the book, albeit very hastily. I’m still unsure whether I think that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Overall I would definitely recommend Children of Time! Especially if you like Hard Science Fiction, good world-building and, of course, spiders.
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Tonke Dragt may have written my favourite Dutch children’s book of all time, but when I was younger, Thea Beckman was my favourite author. She is best known for her amazing children’s historical fiction, ranging in setting from the crusades all the way to the renaissance.
Fascinatingly, she also penned the Children of Mother Earth Trilogy of post-apocalyptic science fiction novels, which may actually be some of her best works. I am honestly distraught that they apparently haven’t been translated into English – I just assumed they would be available but apparently they’ve only been translated into German and Hungarian. So our apologies to English-speaking readers!
Children of Mother Earth is the first novel in the trilogy, and spends a lot of time describing the society of Thule. In doing so, Beckman paints a utopian picture of an alternative way to run a society, clearly intended for readers to start questioning the cultures that they themselves live in.
Though originally written in 1985, I feel the message in Children of Mother Earth is no less relevant and no less important nearly 40 years later. Even though Beckman’s apocalypse was cause by nuclear war instead of climate change, Children of Mother Earth is way ahead of its time in many ways – it feels like Beckman wrote a cli-fi novel and a solarpunk utopia, both avant la lettre.
One element in particular that was a relevant in 1985 as it is today is Beckman’s foray into the role of gender in society. In particular, Children of Mother Earth is great at challenging masculinity and femininity, and provides role models for both male and female characters with more masculine and more feminine traits.
Finally, Children of Mother Earth does a great job of describing the difficulties of intercultural communication. The reader is constantly identifying with both the protagonists and the antagonists, bouncing back and forth between them as they try to understand each other’s customs.
And alongside all of these great educational qualities, Children of Mother Earth is also just a great novel, with lovable characters, set in a heart-achingly beautiful country, with moments of great tension as well as interpersonal drama, constantly thought-provoking but never tedious. Even if you’ve never given these books a shot as a child, I found Children of Mother Earth highly enjoyable as an adult. And if you have children in their early teens…
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- Video game developed by Summerfall Studios
- Published by Humble Games
- Starring Laura Bailey, Janina Gavankar, Khary Payton, Troy Baker, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Ashley Johnson and others
- Released in August 10, 2023
- Single-player narrative adventure game
- Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox series X/S
- Playing time: about 6-9 hours hours to beat the game
I’ve had my eyes on Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical since it was still in its early kickstarter days. Being a big fan of Bioware, Telltale Games and musicals in general, the fundamental idea behind a musical choice matters roleplaying game was already more than enough to spark my interest. The fact that it would revolve around Greek mythology with Laura Bailey voicing the main character was honestly just the cherry on top. There was no doubt I would play this game when it would finally release.
At the time of writing this review, a few weeks after my first (and as for now only) playthrough, I find myself still haunted by the story and its characters. Ironically, despite my initial excitement, this is not something I expected this game to evoke in me. Though I’ve loved Greek mythology since my early primary school years, I tend to be very critical of reinterpretations and retellings of these ancient stories. There’s a lot of them out there, and more often than not they are lacking creativity. It’s hard to take these well-known story beats and archetypes and craft something original with them. Admittedly, reimagining (Greek) gods in a modern day urban setting already helps with circumventing expectations. Still, I went into Stray Gods thinking the Greek mythology would more be flavour than anything else. I was wrong.
Though the main plot is a murder mystery with a rather predictable perpetrator, most of the side plots touch upon sensitive themes involving grief, trauma, regret and resentment. As you might expect from immortal beings, a lot of the gods and creatures you meet are stuck in the past. As Grace you have the chance to help them find a new way forward. The writers didn’t shy away from controversial subject matters, and they handled it with grace (pun somewhat intended). Additionally, the worldbuilding explaining how the gods ended up where they are now had me intrigued. I suspect much of the created lore didn’t make it into the game, but hopefully it will find a way to us in the future. I have many questions.
As for the game mechanics, these are fairly simple. The gameplay is a mix between a visual novel (pleasant art with minimal animation) and a Bioware dialogue wheel. In the beginning you choose one of three character traits for Grace, and this chosen trait will unlock specific extra dialogue options. During musical acts there’s a timer for your choices, but you can easily turn this mechanic off.
Speaking of Stray Gods‘ unique selling point, I was very pleased with the variable songs. The first time I saw the mechanic in action, I was squealing with delight (truth be told, Khary Payton’s suave performance also didn’t help). Each song gives you several opportunities to influence the direction it’s taking. Similar to the three personality traits Grace can have, there are three “vibes” you can choose for the songs. Though sticking to a specific vibe results in a cohesive song, it’s entirely possible to mix things up. During my playthrough, I mostly chose a combination of vibes per song and I didn’t feel like this had a negative impact on my experience. In fact, since then I’ve listened to the four different albums on Spotify and I’ve come to the conclusion that some lyrics only come up when you use certain combinations. In other words, you’ll need to replay Stray Gods a LOT if you want to hear every possible song. Though some songs could have used more polishing, there are some living in my head rent free. Also, there were some (musical) jokes I could greatly appreciate.
One thing that could use some improvement is the sound mixing during dialogues. Some characters are much louder than others, while others were hardly audible. If this were to be fixed, I would immediately change my rating to four and a half stars.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention there are four romance options in this game! Well, I neglected all the ancient Greek gods and their emotional shenanigans and romanced Freddie. Then I cried. Loved it.
- TV show developed by Scott Smith for Amazon Prime
- Released 21 October 2022
- Starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Gary Carr, Jack Reynor, JJ Feild, T'Nia Miller, and others
- 1 Season of 8 Episodes, renewed for a second season
Flynne’s brother is hired by a shady company out of Columbia to beta-test the most real sim videogame ever played. Flynne subs for him, and can hardly believe what she is playing. As her suspicion towards the simulation grows and she pushes to speak to their ostensibly Colombian employers, she learns that this is no mere simulation. This starts a process that will rock Flynne’s perception of the world she lives in to her core.
This review relates to season 1
While I enjoyed watching The Peripheral, this is another tough review to write because I felt there is a big quality difference between the different elements that came together to make the show.
As I wrote in my review of the Gibson novel that The Peripheral is based on, the novel’s universe is an interesting synthesis of several science fiction ideas, though the plot is perhaps a bit thin. In this case, I think it makes a lot of sense that show creator and writer Scott Smith took the novel’s storyline as inspiration rather than gospel.
Unfortunately, the additions and embellishments to Gibson’s story are hit and miss. Some additions add a lot to the story – particularly, the expansion of Flynne’s world and the attention given to Netherton’s childhood. But others appear to be included mostly to create opportunities for action scenes, or to fit into the pattern of the Game-of-Thronesifying of television: the need to have ‘complex’ politics, betrayals, subversions, alliances, etc. I think that element of the rewrite is overambitious, and I have trouble buying into the villain Smith introduced.
This paragraph might contain a couple of slight spoilers – but I think the biggest ‘miss’ in the television adaptation of The Peripheral is how the rewrite changes the ‘power dynamic’ between the ‘real world’ and the stub, and the perception of the stub of the main characters. In the book, the ‘future’ characters – including the ‘good guys’ – happily rewrite the entire history of the stub because of a criminal investigation in their own world. In the series however, the stub and characters in it are taken much more seriously, treated like ‘real people’ in a way that the book simply doesn’t. I think that is an element of social commentary that made the novel fascinating that simply got lost in translation.
But like I hinted at, while the story and sci fi are decent, this adaptation of The Peripheral is very much about the visuals and action sequences. The visuals are good – I love the merger of near future technologies with a very grounded background, and the production value is great. I don’t generally watch TV for the action sequences, but the fight scenes in The Peripheral really pop. I’m sure Chloe Moretz did a lot of training to get all the choreography down.
I think I am mostly a little disappointed because the novel has a lot of potential that didn’t make it onto the screen. Some of the adaptational choices show that Smith recognised that potential, but I feel like he unfortunately failed to tap into it. Overall, a relatively weak three star rating – I didn’t mind watching, but if you can stomach a bit of 18+ television, I would recommend something like Altered Carbon instead.
- Novel written by Elizabeth Lim
- Published August 30, 2022
- Part one of Six Crimson Cranes (duology)
I recently read Six Crimson Cranes by the same author. This is the sequel to that book, and to be fully honest, I wouldn’t have purchased it if I hadn’t accidentally bought this one first without knowing it was a sequel.
As I stated in my review of Six Crimson Cranes, Lim’s work is perhaps just not for me.
Shiori as a main character is still not very interesting to me, and the same goes for pretty much all the other characters in this book. The first couple of chapters, which take place in the Dragon realm under the sea, start off promisingly. Unfortunately, these chapters have very little to do with the rest of the book. A wildly unnecessary love triangle is implied, but fortunately not delivered on. I stated in my previous review that Seryu would become relevant in this book, which to be fair was an assumption on my part. Past page 150 he’s basically gone again, which is unfortunate because he occasionally does threaten to be interesting.
The plot of The Dragon’s Promise is very convoluted and I would honestly struggle to summarise it. I didn’t find myself wanting to find out how it would end at all.
Overall, if you really loved Six Crimson Cranes then you’ll probably enjoy The Dragon’s Promise. As I didn’t care very much for book one, I suppose it makes sense that the sequel doesn’t really do it for me either.
- Board game designed by Manny Vega
- Artwork by Sandara Tang
- Published by Cardboard Academy
- Released in 2022
- 1-5 players (officially, but we also succesfully played it with 6!)
- Playing time: 60-120 minutes
Jasmijn and I stumbled upon the deluxe edition of this game at a Dutch Comic Con, and decided to buy it on a whim because of the cute art and the bag of ‘gold’ coins that came with it. Luckily, this is one of our best impulse purchases ever.
All in all, Flamecraft isn’t a very complicated game. You and your fellow players gather dragons and various resources in order to upgrade the different shops in town, vying for the love of the townspeople. The player with the best reputation at the end of the game wins. That’s it. Though the game is technically competitive, you’re mostly focused on your own plays and can’t really sabotage other players. In fact, you’ll have more chance being rewarded for helping other players. I really love this, and it perfectly suits Flamecraft’s feel.
Despite the simplicity of the game mechanics, there is enough variability in shops, dragons and enchantments to make every game feel different. Additionally, this game has extra rules to spice things up or to play it solo.
In summary, I love this game. Frankly, I wish I could live in this magical town full of happy and wonderfully diverse people. Every time I play Flamecraft, I immediately start to relax and smile at the art. It’s just so comfortable and sweet. Especially a recommendation for people who love cozy fantasy.
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Review: Children of Time – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Earth is no longer habitable, and humanity must find new planets to terraform. The crew of the Gilgamesh has its sights set on one such planet. What they don’t know is that the planet isn’t the new Eden they are expecting. Meanwhile, a new species has made the planet their home. Who will inherit the new Earth? Humanity, or the species that has been living there for thousands of years?
Review: Children of Mother Earth/Kinderen van Moeder Aarde – Thea Beckman
Part 1 in the Children of Mother Earth Trilogy – Following the nuclear apocalypse of World War III and a resulting shift in the Earth’s axis, the formerly ice-covered island of Greenland has turned into the lush paradise of Thule. Its inhabitants are determined to build a society that will not devolve into the violent cauldron of pollution and hatred that was 21st century civilisation. Pacifistic, matriarchal, and deliberately not-industrialised, the culture of Thule rejects everything that led to the destruction of the previous world order. But when Thule is ‘discovered’ by steam-powered warship from the Badener Empire that arose out of the ashes of former Europe, all of Thule’s beliefs are challenged.
Review: Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical – Summerfall Studios
Review of the video game Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. College dropout Grace is accused of murdering the last muse by a pantheon of Greek gods. In order to escape a death penalty, she has to find a way to prove her innocence within a week.
Review: The Peripheral – Amazon Prime
Flynne’s brother is hired by a shady company out of Columbia to beta-test the most real sim videogame ever played. Flynne subs for him, and can hardly believe what she is playing. As her suspicion towards the simulation grows and she pushes to speak to their ostensibly Colombian employers, she learns that this is no mere simulation. This starts a process that will rock Flynne’s perception of the world she lives in to her core.
Review: The Dragon’s Promise – Elizabeth Lim
Princess Shiori has promised that she would return the Dragon’s pearl to its rightful owner, which leads her on a dangerous journey. On her quest, she descends into the kingdom of Dragons, far under the ocean. Meanwhile, demons still threaten the kingdom of Kiata, and Shiori is the only one who can defeat them. As she navigates between worlds of Dragons, Humans and Demons, Shiori must also face the power of the corrupted Dragon’s Pearl itself. Can she return the pearl, which at times jumps to her aid, only to betray her the next minute? And can she defeat the demons that threaten her home?
Review: Flamecraft – Manny Vega
Review of the board game Flamecraft. In a peaceful, magical town, people live and work alongside little artisan dragons that are a little like their larger (and quite dangerous) cousins. Shopkeepers greatly appreciate the help of these little dragons, for their flamecraft is a delight to all customers.
As a Flamekeeper, you are blessed with the ability to communicate with the artisan dragons. Both shopkeepers and dragons look to you to help dragons find their ideal home, enabling the wonders of flamecraft to make everyone in town more happy.
