The book features, among other things, an octopus civilization.
It's the second book in the series; the first features a spider civilization.
I highly recommend both; they explore concepts of what civilizations would look like with intelligences very different from our own.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Children-Ruin-Time-Adrian-Tchaikovsky...
Especially since the dialog can be a bit boring imo (each character has some quirk and all their lines / actions tend to be predictable when taking this into account). IIRC, the Children of Time books aren't so bad in this regard (less drama, more reverse-engineering alien tech), but I definitely think the newest book for The Final Architecture kinda suffers from this.
But yeah nonetheless I really enjoy how creative the world building / overall plots are and would definitely recommend his stuff to anyone who likes sci-fi.
Nothing turns me off an author who can write prose well faster than switching perspectives every chapter - you're throwing out one of, if not _the_ biggest advantage of long-form narrative : the ability to get deeply into the head of a character.
I had to stop reading Cloud Cuckoo Land because of this. And while I'm shouting into the void, this goes for you too, TV/movie producers:
Just tell the damn story straight. If you can't do that and make it interesting, you need a better story.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-many-plura...
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-many-plura...
tl;dr there’s no right answer, and consequently no way to say “more than one octopus” on the internet without yours being the first response :-)
Hi, OctoPi!
I knew it was a series but everyone said the others weren't as good, so I just never bothered. But that sounds interesting enough that I just placed a hold on it in my library app (81st in line?! Children of Ruin is that popular? shh I also placed it on hold in a different library app).
https://podcasts.apple.com/br/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id...
https://overcast.fm/+oiPVWKYM0
Couldn’t get a direct link to the show at the NYT that didn’t involve a paywall.