Children of Time (Children of Time #1), by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Children of Time spans several thousand years from the points of view of three main actors: the people on an ark ship, the ambitious scientist who wants to create new life and that of the new life. Adrian Tchaikovsky writes adequately the story of the intersection of interests of these parties while reminding me of some of my favorite books like Accelerando and Blindsight, with a pinch of Xenogenesis, but the book is not nearly as good as either of them. Pretty damn good, though!

  It might have something to do with my very high expectations from people reading the book and praising the hell out of it. The book is good, but not THAT good. Then there are the technical aspects which sometimes were so wrong as to take me out of the story. These are minor points, though.

  The main issue with the story is that you have a very personal point of view for the humans and something akin to a David Attenborough documentary for the lifeforms. The contrast is jarring. The scope of the book, though, and the ideas explored are very interesting and the story is very science fictions, in the sense that it asks that essential "what if?" question and asks it well. The answer is just a little dry, that is all. Also, under that pretext, the book is actually taking a hard look at our own history, future prospects and examines the nature of humanity. Just the stuff I like.

  As proof that I did like the book, despite my usual old man grumbling, is that I have put the other two books in the series in my to read list.