Covet the Covers – 10 #Brainfluffcovetthecovers #CovetthecoversAdrian Tchaikovsky #SciFiMonth2020

Welcome to another helping of Covet the Covers, aka Cover Love. This week I’m featuring Adrian Tchaikovsky’s science fiction covers in honour of #Sci Fi Month 2020, which I’m linking with this post.

We are both huge fans of his writing – and if you don’t know just how prolific this talented, quirky writer is, there are also a number of his fantasy covers that I haven’t included in this feature. If you’d like a sense of his writing, check out my reviews of Children of Time, Children of Ruin, The Expert System’s Brother, Ironclads, Dogs of War, The Doors of Eden, Firewalkers, and my mini-review of Cage of Souls. The Expert System’s Champion, Bear Head and One Day All This Will Be Yours are due out next year – you see what I mean about prolific… My favourites are the covers for the Children of Time duology, which are yours?

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*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of NETGALLEY arc Children of Ruin – Book 2 of the Children of Tim series by Adrian Tchaikovsky #Brainfluffbookreview #ChildrenofRuinbookreview

I absolutely loved the Children of Time – it’s one of my all-time favourite science fiction books. So was thrilled to hear that there was a sequel on its way and even more thrilled when I was approved to read and review it.

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 those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it’s been waiting for them.

Once more, this is an ambitious, well-written epic adventure featuring humans, spiders and octopuses all as intelligent, sentient beings. Not only does this book encompass three species and convincingly depict their struggles to communicate with each other and amongst themselves, it sprawls across a brain-achingly long timespan. Furthermore, it does so whilst fracturing the timespan, so that some of it is told out of sequence…

I am a solid fan of Tchaikovsky’s work and familiar with the recurrent themes in his writing. I particularly love his knack of giving us unintended consequences, which is exactly what happens when a bored, rather lonely terraforming scientist decides to uplift a species of octopus to act as maintenance crews to the underwater equipment altering the planet for human use. No one writes non-human species better, in my opinion. I was completely convinced by what drove the spiders and the octopus societies, while the humans caught up in the middle of the crisis were also convincingly portrayed.

You might be sensing a but – and yes… there is one. For all that, I found the first half of this book rather a trudge. It might well be me – right now I’m tired and extremely stressed, although that doesn’t usually impact upon my reading. But while I was enjoying the slices of the adventure, I found the scrambled timeline really frustrating and at times, difficult to follow.

Once the stakes were clear and the action lined up for the desperate denouement, which was entirely gripping and held me throughout, the book rolled forward to a triumphant conclusion that will leave me pondering what happened for weeks and months to come. Tchaikovsky’s books tend to do that to me – it’s why I love reading them so much.

However, this one was a struggle and while it probably is more me than the book, I have to be honest about my reading experience. However, don’t be put off – especially if you loved Children of Time. Recommended for fans of well-written, first contact adventures with big, thought-provoking themes. The ebook arc copy of Children of Ruin was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest opinion of the book.
7/10

Sunday Post – 5th May, 2019 #Brainfluffbookblog #SundayPost

This is part of the weekly meme over at the Caffeinated Reviewer, where book bloggers can share the books and blogs they have written.

On Monday, my son flew out to L.A. to start rehearsals, as he has landed a part in a production of Loot written by Joe Orton at the Odyssey Theatre. I’m delighted for him!

This week my Creative Writing Monday group resumed – and it was a really special start to my last course. One student presented his children’s book that he’s been working for several years – it’s a delightful story with beautiful colour illustrations. Another student brought in a Wellbeing magazine that had published one of her poems; another student showed us a poem of hers that has been published in an anthology celebrating independent book shops; and yet another student brought along a quarterly poetry collection that had published one of her poems. What a wonderful way to start the term! It isn’t that unusual that one of my students is placed in writing competitions, or have stories and poems published – the standard of writing is high in all the groups, but that level of success is extraordinary. On a less happy note, my grandchildren have been smitten by a really virulent strain of chicken pox – one after the other…

I got a bit carried away at Pilates this week, picking the strongest black bands to use when performing a series of exercises – which left me hobbling around for the next couple of days, stiff as a board. As some stage this year, I need to get more serious about my fitness… I’m also exploring Mindfulness to help combat the stress I’m battling – watch this space.

Last week I read:
Children of Ruin – Book 2 of the Children of Tim series by Adrian Tchaikovsky
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 those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed.

And it’s been waiting for them.
This is a cracking read, although I struggled initially to get into this book, which I think is more down to me than the book. However once I became fully absorbed into the story, I loved it. Tchaikovsky’s ability to write other species is unsurpassed. Review to follow.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Audiobook by Douglas Adams, narrated by Stephen Fry
One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and the Galaxy is a very strange and startling place
I know and love the story – and this audiobook, with Fry’s superb narration, is great fun. Highly recommended for fans of quirky comedy and/or enjoyably humorous space opera adventure.

 

My posts last week:

Sunday Post – 28th April 2019

*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* – Review of Oracle’s War – Book 2 of the Olympus Trilogy series by David Hair and Cath Mayo

Review of AUDIOBOOK The Screaming Staircase – Book 1 of the Lockwood & Co series by Jonathan Stroud

*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of The Deathless – Book 1 of The Deathless series by Peter Newman

Friday Faceoff featuring Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Book 1 of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor

Interesting/outstanding blogs and articles that have caught my attention during the last few weeks, in no particular order:

6 Newbie Mistakes that Will KILL a Perfectly Good Story https://authorkristenlamb.com/2019/05/five-mistakes-kill-story/ Advice from this experienced author and social media maven is always worth reading…

The Literary Pig: HAG – debut poetry collection by Zoe Mitchell https://tracyfells.blogspot.com/2019/04/hag-debut-poetry-collection-by-zoe.html?spref=tw Tracy provides an excellent review and interesting interview with Zoe that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The Lexicographer of Misinformation https://interestingliterature.com/2019/05/03/the-lexicographer-of-misinformation-tom-burnam-dictionary-of-misinformation-review/ In these days of fake news, this fascinating article features a pre-digital debunker of ‘facts’ we generally believe are true…

Shiver Me Timers! the 2019 Hugo Finalists Part One https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/shiver-me-timbers-the-2019-hugo-finalists-part-one/ In my effort to catch up, I encountered this really useful and enjoyable article on the 2019 Hugo Finalists from The Cap – one of my favourite review bloggers…

The Band, Martin Carthy, Anton Karas: The Third Man Theme https://theimmortaljukebox.com/2019/04/06/the-band-martin-carthy-anton-karas-the-third-man-theme/ I also had the pleasure of catching up with Thom’s recent articles he’s posted at The Immortal Jukebox – and encountered this gem… Do, do, DO play the video of the opening credits – it’s a joy.

Many thanks for taking the time to comment, like and visit my blog – I will catch up with you as soon as I can, so thank you also for your patience. In the meantime, have a wonderful week!

Teaser Tuesday – 23rd April, 2019 #Brainfluffbookblog #TeaserTuesday

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by The Purple Booker.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This is my choice of the day:
Children of Ruin – Book 2 of the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky

2% Where the desert met the mountains, the winds were strong; they’d had the run of the place, after all, and now these rising shelves of rock came to thwart them. The remote recorded gusting clouds of brown-red grit, dust devils, a great complex of thermals whirling upwards and carrying all sorts of fine debris into the higher atmosphere.

The camera had lost sight of the plastic bag; now it veered back into view, far closer. The remote was rising, above the peaks now, looking down. The thing – the indisputably living thing – lazily undulated its way along the line of the mountains.

BLURB: 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 those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed.

And it’s been waiting for them.

As anyone who has visited my blog more than once or twice will know – I’m a huge fan of Tchaikovsky’s writing and his science fiction book, Children of Time, is a solid favourite, so I was thrilled to get the chance to read the sequel. And so far, I have no idea where this one is going – what fun!