Why people recommend it
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s ambitious science fiction novel, Children of Ruin, explores complex themes of first contact, evolutionary biology, and intelligence through the lens of an advanced civilization built by octopuses. The author himself discussed the book extensively on How I Write, explaining how he combined multiple disparate ideas, such as uplifted aquatic creatures possessing spaceships filled with water, to create a cohesive narrative. Tchaikovsky noted that roughly half of the novel is dedicated to the arduous, scientifically grounded process of figuring out how humans might actually communicate with an alien aquatic species, contrasting this hard science approach with traditional space opera conventions. On The Ezra Klein Show, Ezra Klein brought up the novel after receiving numerous enthusiastic listener recommendations following a previous episode centered on real-world octopuses. Klein praised the book for its inventive premise and detailed world-building, cementing its reputation among readers and writers alike as a standout work of modern speculative fiction that pushes the boundaries of imagination and biological plausibility.
Who recommended it
- Adrian Tchaikovsky Discussed
- Ezra Klein Discussed
Adrian Tchaikovsky — 3 mentions
“So for example in Children of Ruin, which is the second of my kind of big sci-fi books in that series, I wanted to write about uplifted octopuses because they are very fascinating creatures, but that felt like half a book.”
“Yeah, so I mean, for example, um Children of Ruin again. Okay. In Children of Ruin, the octopuses have spaceships and the spaceships are full of water because they're octopuses.”
“Whereas, if you look at Children of Ruin, 50% of that book is people working out how the hell you talk to an octopus.”
Ezra Klein — 1 mention
“so a while back I did an episode on octopuses and I immediately got all these emails from you saying have you read Adrian Tchaikovsky's children of ruin children of her and when I looked it up turns out to be a Sci-Fi book about an advanced civilization built by octopuses which sold completely sold immediately on that”