Children of Ruin

I enjoyed this a lot more than the previous: ‘Children of Time’. Both were very good, but this felt a bit deeper, a bit more daring. At times it even had some horror elements which I found to be very exciting. The main settings are hard sci-fi and psychology, but the bits of horror were very fitting for what is unfolding in the story. Much as the previous book, a heavy feature of this is the interaction between disparate yet intelligent species, and Tchaikovsky explores this interaction as thoroughly as one can. Not only exploring the struggles of interspecies communication, but even the sheer diversity that can be found in alien life and what it means for this diversity to meet head-on. I highly recommend this series, and with this edition Tchaikovsky seems to be on par with Greg Egan or Cixin Liu, at the very least making ground in that direction.