Children of Memory
Notes
Ultimately I found that the end fizzled out, which is pretty typical for scifi. It posed a pretty good mystery but the resolution (SPOILER: it was a computer simulation all along) was disappointing.
Noted on July 21, 2026
Also there are pairs of talking ravens; one who observes facts and one who draws conclusions; together they work like a single brain but they deny they are conscious. Loved them.
Noted on July 21, 2026
The third in a scifi series, which I felt cool enough that for each book I wasn't sure I was going to read the next. But I enjoyed this one the best, even if it was ultimately unsatisfying. Partly that's because the outlandish complicated nature of the last two books was already understood (terraformers from earth accidentally created giant intelligent spiders who worshipped a scientist who uploaded her consciousness to the last surviving satellite before she died, then realized she wasn't a god but befriended her and then also helped raise humans to Humans, a higher-consciousness species. Who then met a planet where something similar happened with octopuses and also an all-devouring mold that can reconfigure itself to include consciousness/es.) When the book starts, we meet a NEW planet of desperate terraforming humans, but now our heroes are really the a multi-species community of spacefaring utopians (spiders, cephalopods, humans, AIs, molds) who have technical prowess indistinguishable from magic. So it's actually kind of fitting and nice that he bulk of this story takes place in a more fairy-tale-like world.
Noted on July 21, 2026
Quotes
[the corvids talking to each other] Why it is that beetles in particular should be prone to explosive speciation is worthy of speculation. We posit that the combination of being able to endure abrasive environments and also travel great distances on the wing may be involved. One species has become as large as the mice we remember from home and is a serious pest of stores for the human colonists, who have no cats.
We profess an inordinate fondness for beetles.
The bluish-green ones, in particular, are delicious.Quoted on July 21, 2026