As brilliant as I have come to expect from Tchaikovsky. However, I wasn't a huge fan of the past/present split in this instance. The way that Tchaikovsky writes about these

octopuses

can read like a science/anthropology nonfiction text - captivating, but not as propulsive as the actual storytelling. The rest of the book kind of reads like a space opera/horror. Switching back and forth between past/present meant your brain would have to shift modes from one manner of storytelling to the other, and it would take me quite a while to adjust. Children of Time benefitted from being more straightforward. The linear time-jumps were easier to get used to, unlike the combination of forward and backward (and forward within the backward) time jumps you get here. It wasn't difficult to keep track of, just disrupted my flow as a reader. Ultimately happy to have read this though. I was craving a good science fiction escapade, and this satisfied that craving. Despite the hopeful ending, I will never read the phrase

"We're going on an adventure"

without some level of horror. 😂