Adrian is one of my favorite authors currently publishing. I discovered his work with his fantastic Shadows of the Apt series. Which involved a group of humanoid Insecticides faction utilizing either technology or magic. Which is the main theme of the books. I recommend to those that never read it. It’s a fast and epic series.
Mine too! Weirdly, it actually took me a few attempts to get through Children of Time, but once I had I decided to move on to his other stuff. The Final Architect series is excellent! I'm in the middle of the last novel in the series at the moment, really great. If you have Audible, I recommend getting 'Walking to Aldebaran' which Adrian narrates himself (he's really good! Surprisingly so) - I got it for free, it is a novella rather than a full blown book. Really excellent and v funny whilst also horrifying.
Having recently finished Children of Ruin I must say I'm always pleasantly surprised when an almost certain fight is suddenly taken away and replaced with some amazing diplomacy. The opposite of what you'd find in most films imo, and so much more interesting than getting another action sequence.
I can absolutely relate to when AT said (something to the effect of) he really just wanted a story about giant spiders in space. The natural weaving together of these vast, fascinating, but perhaps ultimately morally neutral ideas with real-world important themes like "empathy" that Tim pointed out, is really the kind of speculative fiction that I've grown to yearn for as I've gotten older. I'm beyond excited to learn about not only the existence of Doors of Eden but a new Children of Time book. This was a great conversation.
I just finished Children of Memory. I loved it! I got so emotional at the end because I got so emotionally invested in that little girl. Also, loved the Norse mythology nods and Gothi and Gethli are such great characters.
I didn't really like the third book. It may have expanded upon the greater themes of consciousness and intelligence, but it was a major swing away from what the first two books were. It didn't feel the same to me, and it never grabbed my attention the way the first two did.
Why haven't I noticed that there was a second channel all this time ???? I just rewatched all the videos of the main channel so many time ! I now have tons of "new" content to watch !!
This is such a great interview. I'm about to start Children of Time, and as someone who has worked to overcome my fear of spiders I'm honestly excited to jump into this world
Same! I've been listening to it while at work, this is only the second one that I've actually gotten really into, the first being "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
It's not in the description or a pinned comment. So, who were the authors that Adrian was recommending? The authors he was talking about around the 29:00 min mark.
I just now finished the 1st and 2nd audiobook in the series and all I can say is "wow". These are such fun, imaginative and honestly horrifying books. I don't think he gets enough credit for the horror aspects of these two books. I won't spoil it but there are sections that will stay with me for a long, long time. Even though he does seemingly wink and nod to well known scifi tropes, he still manages to come across as a true original. I look forward to the 3rd book of the series.
From what I've heard, Tchaikovsky is a biologist (correct me if I'm wrong). A bit of research goes a long way. I'm gonna be using my background in geology to help inform major parts of my worldbuilding :D
I read Children of Time because of your recommendation and it was one of my favorite sci fi stories ever. Just finished Children of Memory and I liked it even more than the first! Adrian really continues to impress me. Great interview!
I'm not surprised! Both of them are two of my favorite authors in sf today and the reason is they both have such a strong, witty voice and such flowy punchy writing. I have often compared Tamsyn's writing to Adrian. And they both have really imaginative creative ideas, I could totally see Tamsyn writing the crazy shit in Cage of Souls and vice versa for The Locked Tomb.
This is awesome to watch from someone that's trying to turn a lifelong hobby into a professional discipline. Artistic expression is so important to me and I've tried to learn about the world in as many ways as possible to cultivate my style and flow. This guys seems down to Earth and very relatable. It must have been so cool to interview someone you're a fan of!
Children of Time was a book and audiobook I picked up not expecting much. Only to be taken aback and astounded by the depth and creativity on display. Adrian's works have since become some of my favorites with CoT becoming a standout for me. A great interview with the brains behind such works.
Spiders, octopodes and birds, oh my! Three of my favorite animals. Can't wait for Children of Memory. We have about a month for it to be out here in the states.
I just finished Children of Time tonight, 4 days after watching your video on it and buying it. I DEVOURED it, thank you so much for the recommendation!
Reading the book now after Tim gave a great review. So far I have only one problem, which is touched on in this interview: how do we know what it is like to be a spider? We can imagine what it would be like for us, with our human cognition, to communicate through vibrations. We can imagine what it would be like for us to have a spider body, spin web, etc. But we don't know what it's like to BE a spider. Now this might be a me problem. The answer may be suspended my disbelief because the author is a human and writing for a human audience so what else should I expect. But it does make me hesitate because I wonder "how could he write from the perspective of a spider?"
I just finished the book and I was waiting until I was done to watch this, but aaaahh, thank you for the recommendation! This book was AMAZING. I'm not alright
One of my favorite authors, thanks so much for the interview, really interesting, I was trying to listen to the names of recommended (and not well known) authors by Adrian, but apart from J.K Bishop, I couldn't make out the names (the sound is not great and English is not my first language). Is it possible to add these names in the comments section? I think it would be worth to spread the word so to speak... 🙂
This is partly based on the automatic captioning and some googeling: Aliette de Bodard, Emma Newman, Autocaption says Pedro Gillen, after some googeling I would say that Gillan is likelier (that's the irish sff author, but I can't find anything about him with this or a similar spelling), K.J.Bishop.
I am convinced that we have underestimated our fellow creatures on our own planet, and until we figure that out we are unprepared to appreciate life on other planets. We have only just started teaching sign language to apes instead of forcing dolphins to talk. And what if we encounter life forms made of completely different states of matter or existence? I am almost done writing a book in which crews need to have members that are fluent in different forms of communication that are already present in our world, such as electrical, chemical, and bioluminescent, in case they encounter such on their travels. I have been planning to get Children of Time and Children of Ruin from Better World Books for a long time now, thanks to your recommendation, and I hope that you will like what I wrote as well. I may not know how to write a blurb but I do know how to describe my works in a handful of words, badly. "We didn't start the fire."
I love bugs so empathy for spiders is easy but it became easier when I learned that some keep pet frogs to kill pests I was extra empathetic for spiders.
I'm in Canada, and we don't often have early releases, so I'm enjoying the fact that this is one thing we did get access to ahead of most of the rest of the world. 😂
I went into this book completely blind on it's release week. It was an amazing experience I'll never forget, I tell everyone I can to read "Spiders in Space". The lack of reviews for the new book is saddening... I didn't even know it was being released until a few weeks before. Publisher shit the bed on the marketing for it imo.
This conversation brought to mind Michael Flynn's Eifelheim. Insectoid aliens crashland in the wilderness near a Medieval, bandit threatened, plague ravaged and remote, southern German hilltop village.
Could some good soul write me the name of the 3rd author Adrian mentioned in example of ppl that deserve to be more widely read? "pedro gillen" or someone like that but i didnt find any books
People are so shallow. Oh look this person has the same skin tone as me, now I can relate to him. If your so shallow that the only way you can relate to someone is if they look like you then you need some personal growth.
