The Doors of Eden

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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] For them, the true catastrophe is the realization that “we’d lost our place at the centre of the universe.” . The novel offers us numerous glimpses of what the future of our planet might look like. Most of these alternative Edens are wastelands, grim monuments of hubris and self-destructive cultures. If there’s a lesson to be drawn from the speculative exercise offered here, it’s this one: Following the discoveries, the breadcrumbs so to speak, was seriously cool and I adore the author for how he handled the alternate-Earth-trope.

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. Dude wasn't even trying to make an engaging plot and God forbid he took time out to write characters that would even try to be engaging. Lee and Mal are a fun pair. Lee is in over her head as soon as world starts colliding, but she knows what she wants: Mal. She’ll deal with anything if it means she stays by Mal’s side – even if she doesn’t know what’s going on. And for every beginning there also usually is an ending. Seems natural — but a bit chilling when what you talking about is the universe. 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.

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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. 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] For the only way to save the universe is for all the beings in it to get along. Co-existence not isolation will have to be the path forward. Something it would do all of us well to remember. 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.

Really should have clued in on the trajectory this book was aiming for, when the endorsement on it was from a science publication. 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. Here’s another divergence point, budding away and writing its own timeline. This is another Earth we never knew, which gave rise to something that could know itself. The tension in our story comes from reality collapsing (no biggie, obviously). A group of scientists across the parallel Earths realize that realities are starting to bleed into one another and citizens from different Earths are leaking into non-native parallel worlds and scaring the locals. They also realize that these leaks are heralding the end of all existence entirely, and decide to band together to see if they can maybe stop it.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. The Doors to Eden is essentially a by-the-seat-of-your-pants hard sci-fi thriller, balanced with mind blowing scientific theory on evolutionary biology and Tchaikovsky's wild imagination. It will make you question your understanding of the history of the Earth, our universe and our place in it, as well as the meaning and significance of sentience. The story is not only thrilling, but endearing and humorous, masterfully written with exceptional balance and pacing. A central driving theme, also shared with Star Trek, is the notion of IDIC - Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations - the idea that we are all made better, stronger and smarter, by combining the diverse talents and perspectives of everyone. All that build up lead to an absolutely amazing final quarter. It looked to be heading one way, then he'd magician another possibility out of the sci-fi hat. What a pleasure it must have been for a writer, getting to play with all those possibilities! (spoiler!) Seriously, mind blown starting at the space-faring trilobites. And Fungus as God. Oh, and what an eye-roll at that pandering cat-world! Everything more I could say would be spoilers, so I won't. As an aside, if you thought Dark Matter failed to live up to the sci-fi premise, this is the book for you. I went from considering abandoning it, to a better mood, to wondering if it was another entry by T. into Sci-Fi Canon.