Gosh, this one has felt like a grind which is a shame because there was a lot of good stuff in there. Book ? Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
The book has a two main threads running throughout and it alternates between the perspective of the creatures on the planet and the humans on board the Gilgamesh, an ark ship with the last remnants of the human race fleeing a dying and toxic Earth.
The planet they arrive at is the subject of an ancient terraforming project headed up by Dr Avrana Kern. However ... at the culmination of the project, all sorts of crazy people erupt and overthrow the old order. Humanity is thrown into chaos, all sorts of bad things happen and the original subjects of an accelerated uplift project all burn up in a firey reentry.
Hopefully going to avoid the spoilers !
With the monkeys all gone, what's left to inherit the uplift project ? The book is split up through various epochs, where the crew of the Gilgamesh wrestle with Dr Kern and with themselves in various vignettes.
Similarly, the spiders on the planet steadily evolve into far more complex and intelligent creatures and face their own challenges.
The book ended well and the various challenges were well written. It's a very well written book looking back on it.
But I didn't really enjoy it and found it a bit of a slog to get through to the finish. maybe due to the constant swapping between perspectives ? I don't think so, I've read similar books and enjoyed them. I suspect I formed a low opinion of this one quite early due to the tiredness and general burning out feeling but I didn't want to give up on it.
What's next ? Not sure actually ! I might well go back to an older book. Nah. I've got a few books on the Kindle waiting to be read.
PS That's totally not a Thargoid up there that's hosting Dr Kern's Sentry Pod.
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