I've been told, by a mostly reliable source, that as long as your ending is satisfying, you just can't complain too much. As much as my instinct is to argue, I've mulled it over and find myself unable to substantially disagree. Perhaps it all comes down to preferences: is it the lure of a story that arouses emotion through admiration and joy, or one that uses the frisson of aggravation as a road to pleasure? The Doors of Eden most definitely chose frustration as it followed a group of mostly exasperating humans as they attempt to decipher strange incursions into their lives. I was well-impressed from the very start; the prose is lively, its tone thoroughly modern, its message one of inclusion and acceptance. No one to illustrate this better than Kay Amal Khan, the star physicist of a theoretical branch of physics so alien and new to the science that no more than three scientists in all the world can wrap their heads around it. Kay is trans, and her representation is on point throughout – her portrayal has inspired me, in fact, to write an essay on identity in the book, on the attempt of certain characters to muzzle who Kay is through force, and her retaking it. This is the kind of book The Doors of Eden is, a novel that inspires you to deconstruct and analyse in search of deeper understanding. Note (plus marked spoiler): It would be disingenuous for me to not mention the treatment of Kay by other characters in the story, as I worry it may make some readers, especially trans readers, uncomfortable. She's a trans woman and while I thought Tchaikovsky did a great job of making her a complex and fabulous character, some of the side characters misgender and deadname her throughout the book in passing. This is meant to show the ignorance of these characters, but I wanted to give a heads up about these moments.

I received an uncorrected proof copy of The Doors of Eden in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank Adrian Tchaikovsky and Tor for the opportunity. The writing takes you to these other worlds, introduces the inhabitants. You care for the characters; you fear for the universe. What more can you want? Final thoughtsOn the plus side, Tchaikovsky is still fascinating when he engages in his favorite game : anthropomorphic presentation of our evolutionary partners. Whether you believe in spacefaring trilobites the size of aircraft carriers or not has little relevance to the actual story. Early science-fiction had a similar cavalier attitude to rigorous scientific arguments, being more concerned with the BIG ideas and with the fate of humanity as a whole [they were also often sketchy about character development]. By those early standards, mr. Tchaikovsky has written a classic of the genre, a daring feat of imagination and an engaging call to arms to save our own Eden while we still can. Kidnapped scientists, „wayfarers“ between the Edens, mysterious lectures as interludes between the chapters - this book was full of great scientific concepts and fascinating what-ifs. Finally there’s the inane non-science. I’m not a scientist. Hell, I’m not even good at science. I know enough to make me think science fiction solutions sound reasonable even when they’re probably not. And I don’t expect strong science in science fiction. Science fiction, to me, is all about exploring about how big changes would affect the world that people live in. Small changes can lead to butterfly effects that might not occur to you but seem natural once you think about it. But this book is nothing but tautologies. One character is the multiverse’s greatest mathematician and she’s doing science and math fix problems. That’s not a summary, that’s the complete extent of the information we’re provided. When other characters talk to her she says things like “Well I used math to talk to the aliens.” “I’m trying to fix the problem of the sun exploding with math, but the math of science is very hard math.” I tried doing a search for “math” in my Kindle Web Reader so I could pull some direct quotes but it’s not enabled for searching yet. Might update this later. Most of the time it’s as bad as a character saying “The problem with space travel is you can’t go faster than light. But we did math on some light and found out with math we could mathematically go faster than light.” None of this is helped by the fact that literally every time the mathematician is in a scene they, or someone else, use the word “math” at least once. Usually in conjunction with “science.” I don’t know if that’s true earlier in the book, but I got the suspicion late into the novel and it held true. It’s especially baffling since the author clearly knows more about science than I do. The sections on the parallel earths had science I didn’t know before, and I felt like I learned some things. It’s just that there are vast sections that are just “doing the science!” Also it just hit me that it really must be nice to be an established popular author cos how did they even manage to market this book as a good one? Must be nice.

These creatures could meet a thing as alien as a human on their home turf and be curious, not murderous.’ How many times can you watch the world end, after all, even if it’s not your world?”It’s only natural - and very conceitedly tempting - to think of humanity as if not the pinnacle of evolution then at least the inevitable and logical result of its natural progression. From the unicellular organisms deciding that strength is in numbers to the ill-fated trilobites of the Cambrian explosion, to Devonian Age of Fishes, to the devastation of the Great Dying of the Permian extinction, to the ill-fated dinosaurs side-eyeing that mercilessly approaching asteroid, to mammalian dominance until finally, elbowing out of the way our less fortunate Neanderthal cousins we, humans, emerge onto the global scene as the ultimate lottery winners. There's also dinosaurs, evolution, biology and more. The interludes of the book tell us about all sorts of changing cultures and creatures throughout the ages, and eventually we see how these research interludes connect into the overall plot too.This was a buddy read with Nataliya and Carol and I found it up to Mr. Tchaikovsky's high standards. Tchaikovsky must be one of the most prolific authors in the biz today but thankfully, the quality of his work, and the diversity of it, continues to amaze me. Call me a fanboy! Tchaikovsky still uses role-playing games to help develop his stories, but now also uses live action role-playing, which assists in describing the numerous action and battle sequences in his books. He is currently involved with the LARP game Empire. [15] The Earth tried to kill us in our cradle, but the timelines you have seen survived it, or at least bequeathed a relic of themselves to the future. Why not? If this is the road we are offered, I am willing to walk down it and curious to find out where it leads. Most of the book takes place in contemporary London though, dealing with increasing interference in current affairs from those alternative evolutionary universes. And that was the part that left me less than thrilled. A combination of ghostbusters hunting for the Loch Ness monster or BigFoot and of government agencies engaged in high stakes spy games didn’t bring anything new in terms of plot or characterization. The author seemed more interested in playing gender politics and in feeding conspiracy theories than in advancing the story.

Then we move to the lesbian teenagers in love, Lee and Mal. They are fine. Their story isn’t particularly interesting, and they don’t feel like they mesh well with the urgent narrative – but their budding relationship is still enjoyable and they have relatable personalities. They felt like they were around to catalyze a few “aha” moments for other characters and I wish they had a little more agency in the actual story. We start hunting monsters. We end up deep in space with three different species trying to save the world by stopping dimensions crashing into each other. Adrian Czajkowski (spelt as Adrian Tchaikovsky for his books; born June 1972) is a British fantasy and science fiction author. He is best known for his series Shadows of the Apt, and for his Hugo Award-winning Children of Time series. [1] Every other Tchaikovsky fan seems to love this book so I guess I'm the voice of dissent. Very mild spoilers outside of spoiler tags.

New in Series

There is also a Very Bad Villain who refuses to accept her identity and forces her to masculinise in a small part of the book. Tchaikovsky strikes the right note in terms of humour, too, which goes a long way to help deal with (at times) tense and heavy subject matter. This novel contains within it the funniest example of a man really needing his phone. Beyond that, I admire that Tchaikovsky makes his political allegiance present and clear. It is the writer’s prerogative to illustrate his view of the world; authors of sci-fi, always with their eye to the future, are well-suited to the task. The Doors of Eden is truly epic is ambition and scale. The novel follows its main characters across many alternative Earths. Each world has changed - and creatures have evolved differently - across these multiple timelines. In Tchaikovsky's science fiction masterclass Children of Time, we were presented with highly intelligent spiders. Here, we're witness to extremely advanced rat-creatures, bird-like tribal dinosaurs, and science-savvy cavemen too. There are even village-sized insects that can act as flying vehicles. Tchaikovsky's imagination is bizarre, mindboggling yet at the same time is utterly brilliant. Imagine a tree trunk with many branches – and all the branches, wherever they arise on the stem, all reach up to the same height. That’s because they’re timelines and that height is the present moment, and that’s how time works.