Children of Ruin
by Adrian Tchaikovsky · first published 2019
65% recommend32% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Sequel to Children of Time that imagines how uplifted octopuses think, learn and communicate, within hard sci-fi about non-human minds. Suits readers curious about alien intelligence; read the first book first.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The astonishing sequel to Children of Time , the award-winning novel of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Thousands of years ago, Earth's terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life -- but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity's great empire fell, and the program's decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But t
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If you find the topic of non-human intelligence, esp. octopus intelligence interesting, you may find Adrian Tchaikovsky's children of Ruin series worth your time. The 2nd book, without ruining too much of the story, has octopii as one of the central characters. [1] Going out further afield, exploring forms of intelligence & cognition that…
on “Giant Pacific Octopus” ↗Good read! Adrian Tchaikovsky explored octopus consciousness in the sci-fi novel 'Children of Ruin'. They really do seem alien.
on “The Octopus: An Alien Among Us” ↗Children of Ruin, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, explores the concept of squid communication. I'm about half way through, and enjoying it! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40376072-children-of-rui...
on “Deep sea squid communicate by glowing like e-readers” ↗For a sci-fi take on this, Children of Time and Children of Ruin, Adrian Tchaikovsky
on “An ant colony has memories its individual members don’t have (2019)” ↗…a bit presumptuous for us to colonize a hospitable planet for our own experimentation. But it's an interesting question. In fiction, I can recommend Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time, and sequel Children of Ruin.
on “Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study” ↗Others have recommended Three Body. I’d second that. Amazing trilogy. Rendezvous With Rama is one of my favorites. I’d also recommend Children of Time and Children of Ruin by adrian tchaikovsky. It was one of those random ones I picked up with low expectations, and it turned out to be amazing. It’s well regarded now, but this was when it first came out. Dune is one I recommend…
on “Neal Stephenson – Announcing Termination Shock” ↗A fictional take on this that’s moderately entertaining is Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin. It’s a sequel to Children of Time which I liked a lot.
on “Researchers model how octopus arms make decisions” ↗If anyone is else is interested in thought experiments on how other forms of intelligence / sapience may evolve, try to read "Children of Time" and "Children of Ruin" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Also if anyone else has other books that follow similar themes, please recommend!
on “What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)” ↗Children of Time and the sequel Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Best sci-fi I’ve read in a while.
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?” ↗A few years ago I read a great sci-fi book, "Children of Ruin", by Adrian Tchaikovsky[1]. The book features, among other things, an octopus civilization. It's the second book in the series; the first features a spider civilization. I highly recommend both; they…
on “Why octopuses are building small “cities” off the coast of Australia (2017)” ↗An aside, but Adrian Tchaikovsky‘s Children of Ruin/Time center on intelligent spiders and mollusks. Earth-centric as they were bio-engineered from Earth native species, but an interesting take on non-human species.
on “AI thinks like a corporation (2018)” ↗…story. Her first and best book under that pseudonym. Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard and The Moons of Barsk by Lawrence M. Schoen for making me care about anthropomorphic elephants. Children of Time and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky for almost making me care about non-anthropomorphic spiders. I Am Not a Serial Killer and sequels by Dan Wells for tricking me into reading a horror novel when I at first thought…
on “Ask HN: What Are You Reading?” ↗"children of time" & the sequel "children of ruin" by Adrian Tchaikovsky; sci-fi with AIs, uplifted species, uploaded personalities, space travel et al. Very entertaining, and quite optimistic, compared to a lot of stuff I'd been reading recently. (I…
on “Ask HN: 2019 Winter Reading List?” ↗To piggyback on the sci-fi theme, some of the best sci-fi from the past few years has been Adrian Tchaikovsky's novel Children of Time and its follow-up Children of Ruin, which explore the idea of an artificial virus that interacts with genomes and allows for a sort of genetic memory.
on “How much innate knowledge can the genome encode?” ↗…more Greg Egan goodness. I have some generic sci-fi recommendations, although some are probably not considered "hard" sci-fi and most are pretty well known but here they are anyway. - Children of Time/Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky - Hyperion by Dan Simmons - Accelerando by Charles Stross - House of Suns/Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds - Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained by Peter Hamilton - The…
on “Ask HN: What are less known hard Sci-Fi books to read?” ↗