eBook, 609 pages
English language
Published Sept. 18, 2018 by Orbit.
Who will inherit this new Earth?
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.
Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
I enjoyed this one a lot. The ending left a little bit more to be desired, but overall it was a great read.
Earth is dust, humans are looking for new planets to settle. Generation ships travelling for thousands of years, genetically engineered spiders, failed terraformed planets, first contact, a look into an alien society evolving through the years. Even though there are wars and the classic conflicts for power, I liked the optimistic ending.
The Book starts out with the human interstellar empire at its peak, and the greatest human scientist, Dr. Avrana Kern, is watching the disastrous end of an experiment to terraform a planet that is several light years away from earth, and try to recreate human evolution there.
Unknown to her, a catastrophe is about to befall the empire she knows, plunging humanity into the dark ages and relegating her experiment to mere legend.
After they are able to salvage a ship from the ruins of the old world, the last colony of humans are on their way to that same planet, seeking a place to set down roots and grow once more.
This sets up a scenario where you are watching an alien invasion from the point of view of the aliens (the human beings). I found myself, very much like Dr. Kern, rooting against that ship that represented the …
The Book starts out with the human interstellar empire at its peak, and the greatest human scientist, Dr. Avrana Kern, is watching the disastrous end of an experiment to terraform a planet that is several light years away from earth, and try to recreate human evolution there.
Unknown to her, a catastrophe is about to befall the empire she knows, plunging humanity into the dark ages and relegating her experiment to mere legend.
After they are able to salvage a ship from the ruins of the old world, the last colony of humans are on their way to that same planet, seeking a place to set down roots and grow once more.
This sets up a scenario where you are watching an alien invasion from the point of view of the aliens (the human beings). I found myself, very much like Dr. Kern, rooting against that ship that represented the last of our kind, hoping against hope that humanity goes extinct.
If you want a new point of view on evolution, intelligence, empathy and what it means to be human, Tchaikovsky's space epic is the book for you. I found myself wiping a few tears from my eyes at the climax of the book, and while it's not a page turner, it is a poignant, thoughtful story
