CHILDREN OF TIME: A POST-APOCALYPTIC STUDY IN WORLDBUILDING AND EVOLUTION OF A NON-HUMAN SPECIES

Abstract

Children of time is a story that undertakes a herculean endeavor: a fascinating attempt at worldbuilding, creating a snapshot as it were of the evolution of a particular species from simple biological creatures to wise and sentient beings. Aside from being a cogent account of a new world order in which intelligent spiders are at the top of the food chain and humans are the belligerent outsiders and colonizers seeking to seize control from the intelligent arthropods, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s novel also highlights the pertinent issue of ecological damage caused by anthropogenic activities which is rapidly taking the planet toward a cataclysmic event, the Sixth Extinction.