I just recently finished the book and am writing this to get it out of my system. I love how suspenseful it was in its final act as the generational build-up between the two species, the Spiders and the humans, comes into *collision.* The themes of environmental evolution, religion, desperation, gender roles, and being with one’s nature are all tackled beautifully as they all tie up to the end. I love the character of Fabian’s quote about it, that there is nothing natural about them with all the progress they had made in the world and that idea also applies to us and being resistant to change and societal progress is simply dumb.
I expected the human POV to be substandard due to the reviews that I had read where they much prefer the Spiders’ POVs that’s why it surprised me when I became heavily invested in their story. I became invested in Holsten’s multi-generational journey as he was continuously woken up and put under his *cold coffin*, I slowly became compelled by his character as he is humanity’s classicist, the historian, and always the afterthought compared to his peers in Key Crews who are engineers, scientists, and security that are woken up first to handle situations.
His relationship with Lain was pretty sweet too especially when they met again and she is now the *old (wo)man* between them. They really embody the idea that the last of humanity’s greatest enemy is still time for Lain and Holsten is slowly losing the ark to deterioration and the two of them being unable to spend any meaningful time together due to responsibility.
The ending of humanity having to flee a doomed Earth and in the end, still resulting to doom another planet with its inhabitants just to have a place in the universe but ultimately being thwarted by their *children,* was a great conclusion for the story.
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by Nero234