I will try and avoid spoilers for the first two books as much as possible, but with the third in a series, it is increasingly difficult to not mention important plot points in the first two books. Children of Memory, although a continuation of the Children of Time series, seems like a departure from the formula that the two previous books employed. Where the first two books concentrated mainly on the difficulties of communication between people, spiders, octopi, and an alien virus, the third book does introduce a new species but there is no tension with that introduction.
The new species are corvids and their unique adaptation is that they live their life in pairs. In each pair, one of the corvids is interested in what is new, and the other is interested only in cataloging what is known. There is some time spent exploring how this species evolved, but the majority of the novel takes place in a human colony established on a harsh planet. The portids, virus, corvids, and humans have inserted themselves into the struggling human population of this colony. As external threats make life in this new colony more and more difficult, the people start to fear the other settlers that they left on their ark ship to die. What if some of those condemned escaped? The colony never grew to the size that they could have supported the entire population of the Ark ship, but the crew was running out of resources, and wouldn’t a planet able to support some life be preferable to one not able to support any life?
Children of Memory explores the concepts of the other and what happens in civilization when a society becomes so afraid of infiltration of that other that they persecute anyone they think is different, even if those different people have all the solutions to their problems. It really reminded me of Star Trek episodes where the prime directive was to not influence a society’s evolution and to document and witness without interference. Although the new species, the corvids, are important to the plot, not much time is spent on documenting the trials and tribulations this species endured to become an intelligent species. Still, Tchaikovsky does not disappoint in having a new species with a completely different way of problem-solving and conflict resolution.
I’ve heard conflicting accounts on how this book holds up to the first two. I enjoyed it, but I enjoy most books I read. If you’re looking for something just like the first two books, you may be disappointed. If, however, you just like the sci-fi universe Tchaikovsky has created and are willing to see a different story without the same themes as the first, then I think this is a book worth a look.