I have finally finished Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. I liked the book. What it does best IMO is depict the intricacies of spider cognitive evolution from early lone hunters to a planetary society of sentient beings. The fiction of evolutionary biology is upon us!  This alone makes the book worth reading, and I think it will always be a formative literary example of the emergence of a newly evolved intelligence.

Why Is it not a great book? Well to be frank there are few truly great books. And many good ones. This is a good one. It lacks for a lot that is only partly compensated by the joys of spider evolution. I didn’t find any characters that were particularly refined or well developed. It’s hard to become completely emotionally invested without characters to love. There are some characters - some spiders, who are mostly stand-ins for a role a spider or group of spiders would play in this scenario. The scientist, the rebel, the leader, etc. But they are not personal enough to fully grasp them let alone grok them. And there are human characters. They too were largely two dimensional in my estimation.

I could go on with critiquing issues of plotting. And tropes that felt hackneyed to me, especially regarding human foolishness. But no need. I liked the book, good book. Glad I read it. It always feels like an accomplishment when you fill a reading lacuna, and now feel more fortified to interpret the ongoing call and response of science fiction.

Having been persuaded here and elsewhere, I have begun a book I delayed for 50 years. I had the impression it was an ugly affair, and that there was no need to proceed. I believe I was misinformed. Like Rick about Casablanca. My new starting assumptions based on further reports were that the writing is quite good if the protagonist may be troubled or unlikeable. After two chapters, I’m enjoying the writing itself, we shall see!

Lord Foul’s Bane

Aja Jin wrote:

Donaldson does like to flex his language muscles. It's sometime a bit much, but is essential to the tone and feel of tthe stories. 

This I have discovered early. It’s over the top. But I’m bearing with it.

Surtac wrote:

starexplorer wrote:

Aja Jin wrote:

Donaldson does like to flex his language muscles. It's sometime a bit much, but is essential to the tone and feel of tthe stories. 

This I have discovered early. It’s over the top. But I’m bearing with it.

I remember being particularly struck by his broader than usual vocabulary when  I first encountered the books.

 

 
The prose is unusually purple. But what was particularly striking (and I am some 40 pages in so we will see where this goes) was the voice of Lord Foul the one time I encountered him. Quite overwrought!

Aja Jin wrote:

LOL, here's a quiz: https://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/Humanities/Stephen-Donaldsons-Luxurious-Lexicon--404801.html

Ha, thanks! This is scary department: I got 8/10 correct 😲