Exploration sci-fi stories for the adventurous astronomer.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Children of Time was the first book I read with a story spanning such a long time scale, so much so that it took three attempts before I could fully understand it.
Other sci-fi novels hint at something larger(Contact ) or overwhelm you with their sheer scale(Death's End ). However, Children of Time is one of the few I've read that manages to construct an eon-spanning narrative while keeping up with the characterization.
The story in question bounces between the unintended inhabitants of an Earth-like world and humans on a colony ship looking for a new home. Tchaikovsky does wonders in developing the spider-like beings that slowly conquer the world, showing us their evolutionary path and eventual intellectual triumph. At times I felt eager to get to their section of the story, finding the power quarrels of the colonist humans bland by comparison.
Children of Time captures the most fascinating aspects of astrobiology(the study of life in the universe). Life on Earth resulted from an immeasurable amount of astronomical events and evolutionary developments. The novel accounts for the planet's environmental differences and biological factors in its plot. It shows an alternate path to civilization that is thoroughly unlike, yet oddly reminiscent, of intelligence(and artificial intelligence) on Earth.
I hope to start its sequel, Children of Ruin, after I finish The Songs of Distant Earth(which I'll be reviewing soon).
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
At first glance, Speaker for the Dead is very different from its prequel, Ender's Game(one of my favorites). It follows a village of colonists on a new world that meets a native alien species. They seem less "intelligent" but have a knack for learning languages, quickly familiarizing themselves with the human settlers. They are called pequeninos, or "piggies".
Speaker for the Dead explores many of the theoretical questions SETI researchers and thinkers have posed. Would we ever find a truly "intelligent" species? How would we be able to understand each other? Even if we overcome the language barrier, would there still be cultural differences at the foundations of our societies leading to misunderstandings?
This book does an excellent job of portraying the human psyche when faced with an enigma. Some characters are overly cautious with the piggies to preserve their cultural isolation. Others threaten to massacre them when dire problems emerge. And yet still, others such as Ender strive to understand the piggies at a deeper level before it's too late to save both civilizations from extinction.
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
Mickey—or Mickey7, to be exact—is an Expendable. He's a genetically identical copy of his previous iteration built to carry out dangerous missions in a formidable colony world. But when Mickey8 pops out of the cloning vat while Mickey7 is still alive, the two must find a way to secretly survive in the colony where food is scarce and predators loom in the distance.
Putting the ethics of cloning for dangerous jobs aside, the result of this premise is a fun, lighthearted novel about an ordinary guy just trying to survive in space (which usually makes for pretty good science fiction). Although the plot is less intricate and philosophical than the other two above, it's still enjoyable to read. It also offers a look at the serious dangers of food shortage in an alien biome where Earth-born plants and animals might struggle to grow.
I'm eager to see the upcoming film adaptation, which has Bong Joon Ho at its helm and Robert Pattinson as the main lead.
These are the books I have for you today. I hope I've inspired you to pick up any of them, and I'll see you in the next one!
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