Julian is your typical spy-behind-a-desk – not as used to action as he likes to think. I really liked Julian: he’s overwhelmed for most of the book but always stayed true to his principles. Julian’s “wait, what?” often gave the readers the chance to catch their breath. Then we have the MI5 agents, Alison and Julian. Alison is also fine. The two of them mostly seem to exist in the story to foil the rest of the characters and argue that strange events the reader knows are happening actually aren’t happening. However, while Alison eventually becomes more integral to the story and has some agency, Julian’s entire deal is to continuously whine about how he doesn’t really love his wife and secretly wants to bone his coworker (Alison). He refers to it as the “unspoken connection” they have, then talks about it in his head constantly. Not a huge fan of him. Lee thought she'd lost Mal, but now she's miraculously returned. But what happened that day on the moors? And where has she been all this time? Mal's reappearance hasn't gone unnoticed by MI5 officers either, and Lee isn't the only one with questions. My garden is very important to me so we need to stop the sun from exploding!” Then we switch to Character 3, As The Doors of Eden is a science-heavy book, specifically physics, there is a lot of mathematics and jargon in the book. I have dyscalculia so I fully understand if that sentence has just made anyone reading this think ‘uh, no this one isn’t for me’. I don’t just dislike numbers; they terrify me. They’re completely alien and unyielding. With that in mind, I still stand by my 5 star rating of The Doors of Eden because while it is a book about calculations, it’s not only about calculations. They are a fundamental part of the plot, and if you finish the book you’ll understand exactly what I mean, but this is still very much a book about life and people.

Wright, Jonathan (September 2009). "Meet a Brit author in the vanguard of the new heroic fantasy…". SFX Magazine. Archived from the original on 8 March 2010 . Retrieved 15 March 2010. Tchaikovsky delivers a very diverse cast. I always enjoy reading about lesbian and trans characters that feel fleshed out and three-dimensional. Tchaikovsky, Adrian (30 March 2008). "The Long Good Lunch". Empire Rising. Archived from the original on 13 March 2012. However, as the possibility of the Polish rights being sold seems extremely viable, there is an epilogue to this tale of Frankish ignorance, for in Poland, one would strongly assume, I may finally see my name in print in its unadulterated form. Lastly, do remember that this is Tchaikovsky’s book, you might as well prepare yourself to meet terrifying creatures. And spiders.Interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Shadow of the Apt series". www.londoncalling.com . Retrieved 23 January 2019. Redemption's Blade (Solaris Books, 2018), ISBN 9781781085790, is the first book in a multi-author series. The series was continued with Salvation's Fire by Justina Robson and published on 4 September 2018. It is noteworthy, however, that on top of all of this the author also managed to include his typical examination of different human psychologies (mostly thanks to Rov). No matter where you look, the story is deep and rich. The Doors of Eden is truly epic is ambition and scale. The novel follows its main characters across many alternative Earths. Each world has changed - and creatures have evolved differently - across these multiple timelines. In Tchaikovsky's science fiction masterclass Children of Time, we were presented with highly intelligent spiders. Here, we're witness to extremely advanced rat-creatures, bird-like tribal dinosaurs, and science-savvy cavemen too. There are even village-sized insects that can act as flying vehicles. Tchaikovsky's imagination is bizarre, mindboggling yet at the same time is utterly brilliant.

This is a lengthy novel with far-fetched events taking place. It needed strong writing, and it delivered.

New in Series

Why not? If this is the road we are offered, I am willing to walk down it and curious to find out where it leads. Most of the book takes place in contemporary London though, dealing with increasing interference in current affairs from those alternative evolutionary universes. And that was the part that left me less than thrilled. A combination of ghostbusters hunting for the Loch Ness monster or BigFoot and of government agencies engaged in high stakes spy games didn’t bring anything new in terms of plot or characterization. The author seemed more interested in playing gender politics and in feeding conspiracy theories than in advancing the story. If you like long, boring science fiction stories that mixes a lot of books and movies you are already familiar with, go ahead. You won’t find any interesting characters, only a happy lot of politically correctly diverse ones, without this bringing anything to the plot whatsoever. The author tries too hard here. Way too hard! If I got it correctly, they even tried to explain “transgender” to an alien entity. Oh, which reminds me, every alien creature from another earth with any kind of intelligence is smart enough to get human language and culture through fancy translation devices. Right. The story is a big one, but it starts off fairly small with Mal and Lee who are a lesbian couple who love to hunt for cryptic/supernatural or weird things. They're the best of friends as well as lovers, and every time they have a chance they go together to explore somewhere that weird things could be, like the Bodmin Moor where they are hinting Birdmen. Once there, things are immediately weird and Lee ends up doubting all her memories, whilst Mal is missing for more than 4 years...

Following the discoveries, the breadcrumbs so to speak, was seriously cool and I adore the author for how he handled the alternate-Earth-trope. As a sci-fi premise, it isn’t entirely new – reading The Doors of Eden, I had echoes of the Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, along with the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer – but Tchaikovsky’s combination of techno-thriller and alternative biology had me hooked. Not gonna lie, Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of my favorite authors, and yet I was unfortunately disappointed in this novel.

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The Doors to Eden is essentially a by-the-seat-of-your-pants hard sci-fi thriller, balanced with mind blowing scientific theory on evolutionary biology and Tchaikovsky's wild imagination. It will make you question your understanding of the history of the Earth, our universe and our place in it, as well as the meaning and significance of sentience. The story is not only thrilling, but endearing and humorous, masterfully written with exceptional balance and pacing. A central driving theme, also shared with Star Trek, is the notion of IDIC - Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations - the idea that we are all made better, stronger and smarter, by combining the diverse talents and perspectives of everyone. The Private Life of Elder Things (2016), ISBN 978-1911034025. Co-authored by Keris McDonald and Adam Gauntlett. A collection of new Lovecraftian fiction about confronting, discovering and living alongside the creatures of the Mythos.

They were all living in what was simply a possibility. All of reality, which had seemed so robust and enduring, was merely the fevered dream of a dying god. In much the same way, a single-celled creature might see its drop of water as a vast and eternal ocean even as the sun came out of the clouds to dry it up. Imagine a universe in which there are myriad Earths. Every parallel Earth is different with different dominant species. Imagine all these branching timelines being done on purpose to find what works best. You know, evolution but on a whole new level. This is the universe of this book. This was a buddy read with Nataliya and Carol and I found it up to Mr. Tchaikovsky's high standards. Tchaikovsky must be one of the most prolific authors in the biz today but thankfully, the quality of his work, and the diversity of it, continues to amaze me. Call me a fanboy!

In Children of Time Tchaikovsky dazzled us with a complex tale of spider evolution (albeit with some inadvertent help from humanity), weaving a rich tale involving spider society's transformation along a similar linear path as humanity- dark ages, enlightenment, industrial revolution and so forth. He does something similar here (albeit much less fleshed out) of each of the dominant species that populated various Earths. I guess the Zoology reading he did at Reading really paid off in the end! He really does make evolution interesting! While Tchaikovsky is spinning this mystery for us, he’s also supplying us with vital information in the form of interludes called excerpts from the book Other Edens: Speculative Evolution and Intelligence by Professor. Ruth Emerson. In these excerpts Tchaikovsky lays out evolution scenarios on various parallel worlds which allowed for different dominant species to develop. On one world are the bird people, another neanderthal, another large rodents and so on. The Doors of Eden is told through multiple perspectives which are all kind of jumbled and layered on top of each other, because this is a novel involving parallel worlds and alternate timelines. We begin with childhood-friends-turned-lovers Lee and Mal, two young women who’d bonded over a lifelong interest in cryptozoology, heading off into the Bodmin Moor to investigate rumors of a creature known as the Birdman. But something strange happened to them out there in the wilderness, something Lee knows she can’t explain without coming across like she’s completely lost her mind. All that mattered was that at the end of the day, only she emerged from the moorlands while Mal was gone, vanished without a trace. You are gullible. Surrounded by people you don’t know, with your leaders even less knowable, and you are gullible. Someone says a thing to you strongly enough, you believe them. You take confidence for truth.”