I was excited when I picked up this book because Children of Time absolutely blew my mind. I expected the same level of grounding in real-world physics and biology going in. Instead, I discovered the usual sci-fi staple of FTL drives.
The plot bears a striking resemblance to The Expanse series by James Corey. Warring factions, mysterious relics, dangerous entities bearing down on humanity, a ragtag crew of scavengers caught in the fulcrum of events.
The characters are thinly fleshed out and one dimensional. I felt nothing for them, even when two of them died very early in the book. The author puts very little effort into character histories. A page or two in total spread across multiple chapters for each character.
He also makes abortive attempts to explain a character motivations. For example, he says that one of the crew – crab like alien – needs money as a matter of life and death. I expected a longer explanation of said alien’s society and culture. None was offered.
The world building is terrible. AT has crowded too many alien factions into his universe. And they remained as minor characters eliciting no curiosity. Again, their motivations remain opaque, if not flimsy. Why did the Castigar help humanity colonise planets? What does the Hive Assembly value? Why does the Hegemony demand obeisance from defecting planets? These questions were never answered and I stopped caring about the aliens after a point and focused on the plot instead.
The story itself is a run-of-the-mill follow the clues type hunt by the crew. They face dangers, they make discoveries that change the fate of worlds, they fight, they become the darlings of the universe when they succeed in thwarting a long-dreaded enemy.
Overall, I think the work is very derivative. It’s been done before. And it’s been done better.
by quiescent_haymaker