He's a class act.
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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I got into Tchaikovsky after reading thought Dennis E. Taylor's Bobiverse series and while I liked those books, they were always very lacking in creative alien designs. The Pav, Deltans and Quinlans are all pretty much just different flavors of human-like.
Children of Time on the other hand had some truly alien aliens, even though they technically aren't even aliens. The way the spiders society and industry functions is so different from humans and more interesting for it.
I know the second book of the CoT series isn't as highly regarded but I love the antagonist and how it works. Fair to say that I have lost all interests of "going on an adventure"
I enjoyed Children of Ruin. I think the only reason people don't rate it as much is because of just how good CoT is. Children of Memory feels like the kind of book that'll be better (and make a lot more sense) on a second read.
Good. The Hugos need to be dissociated from Worldcon and have the rules revamped so organizers have less influence on the process, this incident makes that obvious.
In the spirit of this post, I would also like to hand back my prestigious award as Time's 2006 Person of the Year. You should, too!
Ccp censorship in Europe. Shameful.
Good the authors have morals at least.
... But it was the organizers self censoring their entrants based on just the idea that the Chinese govt would take interest in/offense to some of the stories from what I can read. Haven't seen any reporting suggesting the Chinese govt was actually involved at all. My thought is, why would the organizers hold the event in China if it was going to cause them to act the fool like this?
Given how many people I've forced at nag-point to read Children of Time over the years, this is quite a relief. Good guy Tchaikovsky!
The ants getting into the one person's suit and their screams and death iis still a nightmare I have a hard time dealing with....
That was bad but at least short. I can't ever hear "we're going on an adventure" again without flashing back to that nightmare of a sequence of events.
Then there's the spiders. The GIANT spiders.
Based Tchaikovsky. If anyone reading this hasn't read his stuff, you're missing out.
I tried reading the Cage of Souls series after absolutely loving the Children of Time series, but I couldn't really get into it. Do you recommend any of his other works?
I've enjoyed his Expert System short stories. Reading Shards of Time right now and having a hard time getting hooked.
I'll check them out, thanks!
If you want something short and easy, try Elder Race. It's a novella, but very well done. The good thing about him is that he's so prolific, there's a lot to choose from.
Thank you! Yes, but with so much to choose from it can be hard to get through the weeds. I will check that out.
Also "One day all will be yours" - short, fun and quite clever.
He's one of the absolute best.
What's his work like? Reading some of the descriptions on his site it sounds like it has some horror elements.
I would also throw in Dogs of War and Bear Head, but really everything he writes is great.
There's some horror bits, but it never over shadows. I'd say he's one of the best sci-fi authors alive today.
Btilliantly written and wonderfully evocative. Children of Time is so full of feeling, creativity and imagination.
Definitely a lot of horror elements in the few I've read (Children of Time + sequels, Cage of Souls). I've only just scratched the surface, the man is a writing machine, but it does seem to be a trend so far.
He blends genres a lot and even his own work is kind of eclectic and all over the place, but his worldbuilding and the ability to take a totally alien concept and make it utterly believable are just top notch.
Children of time is a great series, and this would have been a well deserved win, but the man shows great integrity by withdrawing himself/decking the award given what seems to have happened in the contest.
The very easy to link summary included at the very top of the article, before the quote OP gave.
- Several works receiving large numbers of votes were ruled ineligible for unstated reasons, which from leaked emails appears to be the US-based administrators unilaterally deciding that they might cause political offence.
- A number of Chinese-language nominations appear to have been entirely disallowed.
The second, in what seems to be a mass disenfranchisement of Chinese voters, means that the composition of the shortlists, as they were presented to be voted on, was entirely unreliable, with an unknown number of Chinese nominees denied their chance at contending.
Based on this information, I cannot consider myself a Hugo winner and will not be citing the 2023 award result in my biographical details, or on this site.