Let me say this upfront. Both of these books are fantastic and well worth your read. On a rating scale I'd say Children of Time for me is a 9/10, I think Children of Ruin is a strong 7.5/10 maybe an 8. I'm not trying to diss anyone or dismiss anyones enjoyment of the book, it's a dissection of why the books did or didn't work.

The stories are similar. There's variation, however the emotion throughline remains the same. Mr. Taichovsky has said that he believes strongly in the power of empathy, and I believe that. But here's the thing, Empathy has a cost to it, and I don't know that Children of Ruin appropriately expresses that.

For a quick summary, Children of Time follows basically 3 perspectives. The first is that of Dr. Everana Kern, a scientist who is attempting to uplift monkeys on a terraformed world. The second is that of the Gilgamesh, a ship fleeing the wartorn ruins of earth. And the last is the Spiders that have taken up residence on Kern's terraformed world. These perspecitves are followed over thousands of years, and it maintains both it's pace and it's tone over that time. This is in part because the stakes remain high throughout. Explicit and at the forfront.

The many variations of Portia and her broodmates are followed through time, each appearance a fight for survival, a snapshot of the challenges the spiders face as a culture. The Gilgamesh on the other hand suffers defeat after defeat, constantly on the edge of destruction from just about every side, while the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. And at the center of it all is Dr. Everana Kern, the woman who is slowly losing her mind.

It's a fantastic book and while the ending was wrapped up more quickly than I would have liked, it told it's story well. The stakes remained high throughout, and it concluded itself in a way that while a little handwavy for my taste, fit.

In contrast stands Children of Ruin. It is still a very good book, but while Children of Time has 3 basic stories split over 7ish character perspectives, Children of Ruin has 3 basic stories split over 15 or so character perspectives and in almost the same word count.

Let me compare the cast and the emotional weight of each perspective with the problems it has to solve for a moment.

Children of Time:
Portia, Fabian, and Bianca: Equal amounts of emotional weight, worldbuilding and technical problems to solve.
Dr. Everana Kern: Some emotional weight, is the fulcrum on which the plot sits.
Holsten: Good amounts of emotional weight, world building and technical problems to solve.

Children of Ruin
Disra Senkovy and his team (Terraformers): Carries most of the emotional weight of the story, and probably a quarter of the book's plot.
Yusuf Baltiel and his team (Researchers): Carries a good amount of emotional weight and probably another quarter of the books plot
Paul, Salome, Ahab, Noah, Lot: Maybe an 8th of the books plot, and there is never a really good emotional scene with these characters. There's scenes that are sad, sure. But nothing that sticks long term. A good chunk of world building rests with these perspectives, but I don't get the feeling that they are doing much when I'm not looking.
Helena and Portia: Probably another 8th of the books plot. Lots of technical problem solving but not much emotional context.
Fabian, Viola, Zaine, and Artefabian: Probably another 8th of the books plot. Again lots of technical problem solving, but not much emotionally.
Meshner and Kern: Another quarter of the books plot there about? A suprising amount of emotional depth, much more than I expected from the last book.
The Many: Like maybe 1/16th of the word count for the book if that. Impressively plot relevant, and a solid emotional component (mostly horror), but I feel the need to keep things vague here.

Do you see the difference in these lists? There just isn't enough emotional baggage for everyone to get a piece of the action. Not in 150,000 to 200,000 words. Most of the emotional weight is split between Senkovy, Baltiel, and Kern. The technical issues are distributed more evenly, but without the emotional weight I have a hard time caring.

The best parts of the book all took place in either the distant past with Senkovy and Baltiel, or in the last couple of chapters with Kern and Meshner. Because of that distrobution though, I always wanted more Senkovy, and less of the Lightfoot. I didn't care about the present, I wanted more of the past, because that was were the answers were. I was interested in how the tragedy of Senkovy would go down, much more than I was interested with what the modern day crew was doing. Children of Ruin was far more plot focused than the first, I think to it's detriment.

But for all of it's flaws, I still enjoyed my time with it. The sci-fi elements were facinating. The aliens actually feel alien. The science was interesting, the worldbuilding fantastic, specific scenes will haunt me for years. I just wish it had been able to maintain that level of excellence throughout the rest of the book. I still can't wait to read the third book next month.