📖 Children of Time

For a long time, many authors from many different places and many different times have tried to imagine what aliens might look like. They've done this for so long that generally, there's several different flavors of them. You got the humanoids, some of the earliest media interpretations. Completely based on humans. I'm talking E.T., I'm talking about the guys from Mars who think Earth has too much oxygen, Megamind, technically. Then you got the somewhat more realistic interpretations, more based on animals. Things like bugs, jellyfish, marine life. Then you have the really bizarre types, like the aliens from Humanity Lost and the things people used to make in Spore. Luckily, Children of Time skips all of that. Let's talk about it a little. The general concept of Children of Time is already pretty cool. Far in the future, when humanity is exploring the stars, terraforming planets, doing all their cool things, an experiment is being conducted by a Doctor Kern on a far off planet. It is being terraformed, and humans are sending animals onto it before infecting the vertebrates with a virus. This virus will hyper-advanced their evolution, making them extremely intelligent, with some certain failsafes in place. This virus is to primarily ensure the speedy evolution of monkeys. This would make them the perfect servants for when their human overlords come to take over the planet. Unfortunately, civil war breaks out and almost all of humanity dies. In desperation, the last survivors send out the Ark ships, in order to preserve the last humans alive. Unfortunately, over at Kern's project, one of the last planets suitable for human civilization, the monkeys have all died because a certain type of 8-legged bug has taken over. Children of Time was quite the story. It took an interesting concept and ran with it. I enjoyed its interesting reflection on human nature, and the perspective of how aliens might view it. I also liked the certain mountain of metaphors hidden within the character of Kern. After so long isolated from other humans, is Kern an alien? Is Kern a traitor? What does alienation mean at the end of human civilization? Children of Time is also told through this really interesting kind of split-screen narrative: one of our intrepid heroes is human (of course) but the other is always one of the hyper-evolving spiders that inhabit the terraformed planet. Recommended for enjoyers of sci-fi and any epic adventure.

长期以来,许多来自不同地方、不同时代的作品作者都在试图构想外星人究竟长什么样。因为探索的时间太久,外星人的形象大致分化出了几种不同的"风味"。 首先是类人型外星人,这是早期影视作品中最常见的设定。这类形象完全建立在人类的形态之上——比如《E.T.外星人》、那些觉得地球氧气过剩的火星人,严格来说还有《超级大坏蛋》(Megamind)。其次是相对更现实的设定,它们更多地以真实动物为原型,比如昆虫、水母或海洋生物。最后则是极度离奇的类型,比如《Humanity Lost》里的外星人,或者大家以前在游戏《孢子》(Spore)里捏出来的奇形怪状的生物。 幸运的是,《时间的孩子》(Children of Time)绕过了所有这些陈词滥调。让我们来聊聊这本书。 《时间的孩子》的核心设定本身就非常酷。在遥远的未来,人类探索星空、改造星球,做着各种高科技壮举。在遥远的一颗星球上,柯恩博士(Dr. Kern)正在进行一项实验。这颗星球经过了地球化改造,人类将动物投放上去,并用一种病毒感染了这些脊椎动物。这种病毒会加速它们的进化,让它们变得极其聪明,同时设定中还包含了一些安全防范机制。 这种病毒最初主要是为了确保猴子能够快速进化,从而让它们成为人类领主前来接管这颗星球时最完美的奴仆。 不幸的是,内战爆发,几乎所有人关都走向了灭绝。在绝望中,最后的幸存者发射了"方舟"号飞船,以保全人类最后的火种。然而,在柯恩博士的项目所在处——这颗最适合人类居住的星球之一——所有的猴子都已死亡,因为一种八条腿的虫子接管了这里。 《时间的孩子》是一个相当精彩的故事。它采用了一个有趣的构思并将其发挥得淋漓尽致。我很喜欢它对人性做出的深刻反思,以及从外星人视角审视人性的独特维度。 我也很喜欢柯恩这个角色身上蕴含的大量隐喻。在长期与其他人类隔绝之后,柯恩算是一个外星人吗?她是一个叛徒吗?在人类文明的终点,"异化/疏离"(alienation)究竟意味着什么? 《时间的孩子》还采用了非常有趣的"分屏式"叙事结构:我们的一位勇敢的主角是人类(这是自然的),而另一位主角则永远是栖息在那颗改造星球上、正在超速进化的蜘蛛之一。 强烈推荐给科幻爱好者以及所有喜欢史诗冒险故事的人。