Children of Memory, a review by Joanna

Far in the future, a human colony struggles to survive on Izmir, one of the less successfully terraformed planets created by Avrana Kern’s project. Liff is an orphaned child whose grandfather, one of the original colonists from the Ark ship Enkidu, has disappeared, so she is determined to get him back from the witch in the forest – but the adults in charge are more afraid of the strangers arriving in town, including a kindly new schoolteacher called Miranda – who is not what she seems…

In general I have really enjoyed Tchaikovsky’s sci-fi books, and this is still good, it just suffers by comparison to the previous two. As before, we listened to the audiobook, which happily has the same excellent narrator in Mel Hudson. While there is a new “uplifted” species featured, the hilarious corvids Gothi and Gethli, and the return of both spider and octopus characters from the previous books, this one puts the main focus back onto the humans. Cleverer readers than I will appreciate the symbolism, metaphors, and exploration of the meaning of humanity and sentience, but I got frustrated by the jumping timelines and nonsensical eventual reveal. I think I might appreciate it more if I reread all three as written books rather than audiobooks over a shorter period of time, but that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon given the state of my TBR. I would still read or listen to the next one if he does extend the series.