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Great recommendation. The second and third books leave something to be desired, in my opinion, but no other sci fi authors I'm aware of are as good as he is at

Great recommendation. The second and third books leave something to be desired, in my opinion, but no other sci fi authors I'm aware of are as good as he is at what he does. His sci fi speculates about biology and ecology, and extrapolates outward from them, the way most sci fi speculates about technology and society.

yencabulator 2y ago
Yeah, same thing with his Final Architecture series, promising but in the end middling. Great alien/synthetic mind concepts, but as the story goes on most of them behave just like humans except with funny ways of talking. Tchaikovsky's concepts are amazing, but he needs to pair up with another author who's better at aliens as characters.
- globnomulous 2y ago
  That's a terrific point, and I agree completely. This also explains my most recent sci-fi misadventure: a novel by Christopher Paolini, Fractal Noise, that earned glowing praise from Tschaikovsky. It is a dreadful novel -- wooden, stilted, repetitive, unimaginative -- but, hey, the concept is mildly interesting, so I guess it gets the Tschaikovsky seal of approval. Peter F. Hamilton doesn't get a ton of praise for characterization (and I found his latest novel strangely, uncharacteristically vulgar and puerile), but I think he has a lot of the chops that Tschaikovsky lacks -- especially when it comes to language. Tschaikovsky's writing is at times awfully clunky. Hamilton's prose, by contrast, in my view at least, is in its own category among living sci-fi writers for its polish and effective use of the countless tools the language offers.
  - HelloMcFly 2y ago
    Interesting. I basically feel the opposite - I love Hamilton's ideas and plotting but really think he writes characters that don't feel real, they feel too much like archetypes. I can think of a few exceptions to this, but almost all of his characters feel like programmed automatons to me. And boy has he MISSED BIG when writing female characters at times. Unlike the others, I think Tchaikovsky's best writing is in Children of Ruin. I know it's not as popular as Children of Time, but I admired the way he didn't rinse/repeat and instead created a wholly different view of humanity's legacy intersecting with alien life. I though the "antagonist" in that book was far more alien and creative.
    - globnomulous 2y ago
      Man, I'm impressed by the quality of the responses my offhand comments have received in this thread. I keep getting corrected and find myself agreeing with the corrections. You're absolutely right that female characters are, uh, not his strength, and mostly I think you must be right about characterization in his work as a whole. That being said, when I ignore the male characters who seem like wish fulfillment of some adolescent power fantasy (Nigel Sheldon -- immortal genius, intergalactic industrialist, undisputed patriarch, and virile keeper of the harem? Please.) and the female characters who are, you know, young, "nubile," and hyper-sexual, the remaining roster is, I think, solid. Even the characters who are archetypes worked for me. (Edit: sorry, I confused Children of Ruin and Children of Memory.) And I find myself agreeing with your assessment of Children of Ruin. In some ways I think it's not well constructed, sort of stumbling through the mystery, winding up much longer than it needed to be, but the main character (no spoilers) has a psychological richness that I can't recall encountering in his other books and is the only of his characters to whose fate I've felt emotionally attached. The ending, too, is among the best and most affecting I've read in quite a while. And, yes, the antagonist and setting is, I think, incredibly well conceived and well drawn. So maybe I've changed my mind. Despite some structural issues that, I think, weaken the novel (and I think recall feeling that the 'reveal' came too early or just that the clues leading up to it were too obvious), it may be my favorite book in the series. Its more modest cosmic stakes and narrower field of view, than a lot of the other work of his that I've read, enable Tschaikovsky to develop it into something quite special.
      - HelloMcFly 2y ago
        I can agree with all of this
atombender 2y ago
You may enjoy Peter Watts, especially Blindsight and its sequel, Echopraxia. Watts is himself a biologist, with a refreshingly unromantic perspective on humanity's place in the universe. (His other great story sequence, The Freeze-Frame Revolution, is some of the darkest sci-fi I've read since Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream".)
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Good call. That said, it was only on a second reading of each, a few years after the first, that those two books clicked for me.
- globnomulous 2y ago
  This is an excellent recommendation! I read Blindsight earlier this year. Easily one of my favorite sci-fi novels. It and Canticle for Leibowitz are in a class by themselves when it comes to sci-fi that deals with "philosophical" issues. I'll check out The Freeze-Frame sequence next, thanks! First I just need to finish Consider Phlebas, which I'm finding pretty weak. Transference is also on the to-do list. Watts says it is almost diametrically the opposite, intellectually, of Blindsight, but he also praises it.
  - atombender 2y ago
    The Freeze-Frame stories are officially called the Sunflower series. While different, they have the same alien creepiness that Watts is so good at, the extreme time frame (millions of years) makes it all the more chilling. It's a novel plus one prequel short story ("Hotshot"), two sequels ("The Island" and "Giants"), and two short fragments. All the shorts can be found on his web site, I believe. I also really enjoyed Echopraxia, the sequel to Blindsight. I think some people thought it was too different from what they expected; it doesn't pick up Siri Keaton's story, but tells a vaguely concurrent one. There's a Portia connection there too, by the way. Consider Phlebas is one of my favourite Banks novels, but I know many people dislike it. If this is your first Banks book, don't write off Banks completely. Finishing Phlebas is a great stepping stone to read Look to Windward, which I personally think is Banks' best Culture novel. What's Transference? The Ian Patterson book?
enriquto 2y ago
> The second and third books leave something to be desired Also got this feeling on the first read... but now I remember them very fondly! I like to think that this trilogy happens in the same universe as Dune, being a prequel to the events of Dune. The homage to the Dune universe by the author is obvious (the names of the books, the notion of "other memories", etc). But many notions fit together, with some effort in your imagination. The second book of the trilogy provides a mechanism to explain the other memories in the form of nodal biology. The octopi ftl technique is reminiscent of the guild navigators. The third book hints subtly at a reason why the butlerian jihad could have happened.
geden 2y ago
I thought the second and third books were also great, but different flavours, he didn’t just repeat. The second goes for more of a horror angle and has some incredible moments. The third is one of the most ambitious books SF novels I’ve read. Blurry and confusing on purpose, which is a fine line to tread (reminiscent of the latter Jeff Vandermeer Southern Reach books). Recently went to a book reading and Q&A for his new one Shroud, really smart and humble chap. Deeply into his research. Also, notably, he wrote a book a year for 17 (one seven) years before being published. And then it took 12? more novel before he had a hit with Children Of Time. He didn’t seem to have a shred of resentment about that which felt remarkable and and incredible example of perseverance and enjoyment of process over result. A fourth Children Of book is imminent.
- globnomulous 2y ago
  My exchange with another commenter in this thread led me to reconsider the Children of Time series, and I'm now inclined to agree with you, putting the second and third books, books, particularly the third, ahead of the first. (And as I said elsewhere in the thread, I'm really impressed, and delighted, by the quality of the responses people have offered to my offhand comments). "Because we're going on an adventure." Funny, it hadn't occurred to me to think of the second book as horror, but you're right. I had no idea Tschaikovsky's career arc was so grueling. I agree that he seems incredibly smart. I just, for the life of me, can't understand why he had anything nice to say about Fractal Noise. That misfire alone (Just the result of his good manners, politics, or kindness to fellow writers?), I think, tarnished my view of his work. I'll add Vandermeer to my to-read list, thanks!

yencabulator 2y ago

Yeah, same thing with his Final Architecture series, promising but in the end middling. Great alien/synthetic mind concepts, but as the story goes on most of them behave just like humans except with funny ways of talking. Tchaikovsky's concepts are amazing, but he needs to pair up with another author who's better at aliens as characters.

globnomulous 2y ago
That's a terrific point, and I agree completely. This also explains my most recent sci-fi misadventure: a novel by Christopher Paolini, Fractal Noise, that earned glowing praise from Tschaikovsky. It is a dreadful novel -- wooden, stilted, repetitive, unimaginative -- but, hey, the concept is mildly interesting, so I guess it gets the Tschaikovsky seal of approval. Peter F. Hamilton doesn't get a ton of praise for characterization (and I found his latest novel strangely, uncharacteristically vulgar and puerile), but I think he has a lot of the chops that Tschaikovsky lacks -- especially when it comes to language. Tschaikovsky's writing is at times awfully clunky. Hamilton's prose, by contrast, in my view at least, is in its own category among living sci-fi writers for its polish and effective use of the countless tools the language offers.
- HelloMcFly 2y ago
  Interesting. I basically feel the opposite - I love Hamilton's ideas and plotting but really think he writes characters that don't feel real, they feel too much like archetypes. I can think of a few exceptions to this, but almost all of his characters feel like programmed automatons to me. And boy has he MISSED BIG when writing female characters at times. Unlike the others, I think Tchaikovsky's best writing is in Children of Ruin. I know it's not as popular as Children of Time, but I admired the way he didn't rinse/repeat and instead created a wholly different view of humanity's legacy intersecting with alien life. I though the "antagonist" in that book was far more alien and creative.
  - globnomulous 2y ago
    Man, I'm impressed by the quality of the responses my offhand comments have received in this thread. I keep getting corrected and find myself agreeing with the corrections. You're absolutely right that female characters are, uh, not his strength, and mostly I think you must be right about characterization in his work as a whole. That being said, when I ignore the male characters who seem like wish fulfillment of some adolescent power fantasy (Nigel Sheldon -- immortal genius, intergalactic industrialist, undisputed patriarch, and virile keeper of the harem? Please.) and the female characters who are, you know, young, "nubile," and hyper-sexual, the remaining roster is, I think, solid. Even the characters who are archetypes worked for me. (Edit: sorry, I confused Children of Ruin and Children of Memory.) And I find myself agreeing with your assessment of Children of Ruin. In some ways I think it's not well constructed, sort of stumbling through the mystery, winding up much longer than it needed to be, but the main character (no spoilers) has a psychological richness that I can't recall encountering in his other books and is the only of his characters to whose fate I've felt emotionally attached. The ending, too, is among the best and most affecting I've read in quite a while. And, yes, the antagonist and setting is, I think, incredibly well conceived and well drawn. So maybe I've changed my mind. Despite some structural issues that, I think, weaken the novel (and I think recall feeling that the 'reveal' came too early or just that the clues leading up to it were too obvious), it may be my favorite book in the series. Its more modest cosmic stakes and narrower field of view, than a lot of the other work of his that I've read, enable Tschaikovsky to develop it into something quite special.
    - HelloMcFly 2y ago
      I can agree with all of this

atombender 2y ago

You may enjoy Peter Watts, especially Blindsight and its sequel, Echopraxia. Watts is himself a biologist, with a refreshingly unromantic perspective on humanity's place in the universe. (His other great story sequence, The Freeze-Frame Revolution, is some of the darkest sci-fi I've read since Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream".)

alistairSH 2y ago
Good call. That said, it was only on a second reading of each, a few years after the first, that those two books clicked for me.
globnomulous 2y ago
This is an excellent recommendation! I read Blindsight earlier this year. Easily one of my favorite sci-fi novels. It and Canticle for Leibowitz are in a class by themselves when it comes to sci-fi that deals with "philosophical" issues. I'll check out The Freeze-Frame sequence next, thanks! First I just need to finish Consider Phlebas, which I'm finding pretty weak. Transference is also on the to-do list. Watts says it is almost diametrically the opposite, intellectually, of Blindsight, but he also praises it.
- atombender 2y ago
  The Freeze-Frame stories are officially called the Sunflower series. While different, they have the same alien creepiness that Watts is so good at, the extreme time frame (millions of years) makes it all the more chilling. It's a novel plus one prequel short story ("Hotshot"), two sequels ("The Island" and "Giants"), and two short fragments. All the shorts can be found on his web site, I believe. I also really enjoyed Echopraxia, the sequel to Blindsight. I think some people thought it was too different from what they expected; it doesn't pick up Siri Keaton's story, but tells a vaguely concurrent one. There's a Portia connection there too, by the way. Consider Phlebas is one of my favourite Banks novels, but I know many people dislike it. If this is your first Banks book, don't write off Banks completely. Finishing Phlebas is a great stepping stone to read Look to Windward, which I personally think is Banks' best Culture novel. What's Transference? The Ian Patterson book?

enriquto 2y ago

> The second and third books leave something to be desired Also got this feeling on the first read... but now I remember them very fondly! I like to think that this trilogy happens in the same universe as Dune, being a prequel to the events of Dune. The homage to the Dune universe by the author is obvious (the names of the books, the notion of "other memories", etc). But many notions fit together, with some effort in your imagination. The second book of the trilogy provides a mechanism to explain the other memories in the form of nodal biology. The octopi ftl technique is reminiscent of the guild navigators. The third book hints subtly at a reason why the butlerian jihad could have happened.

geden 2y ago

I thought the second and third books were also great, but different flavours, he didn’t just repeat. The second goes for more of a horror angle and has some incredible moments. The third is one of the most ambitious books SF novels I’ve read. Blurry and confusing on purpose, which is a fine line to tread (reminiscent of the latter Jeff Vandermeer Southern Reach books). Recently went to a book reading and Q&A for his new one Shroud, really smart and humble chap. Deeply into his research. Also, notably, he wrote a book a year for 17 (one seven) years before being published. And then it took 12? more novel before he had a hit with Children Of Time. He didn’t seem to have a shred of resentment about that which felt remarkable and and incredible example of perseverance and enjoyment of process over result. A fourth Children Of book is imminent.

globnomulous 2y ago
My exchange with another commenter in this thread led me to reconsider the Children of Time series, and I'm now inclined to agree with you, putting the second and third books, books, particularly the third, ahead of the first. (And as I said elsewhere in the thread, I'm really impressed, and delighted, by the quality of the responses people have offered to my offhand comments). "Because we're going on an adventure." Funny, it hadn't occurred to me to think of the second book as horror, but you're right. I had no idea Tschaikovsky's career arc was so grueling. I agree that he seems incredibly smart. I just, for the life of me, can't understand why he had anything nice to say about Fractal Noise. That misfire alone (Just the result of his good manners, politics, or kindness to fellow writers?), I think, tarnished my view of his work. I'll add Vandermeer to my to-read list, thanks!