# Recommendation receipt: Children of Time

Canonical book page: https://booksreddit.com/book/children-of-time/#recommendation-receipt
Updated: 2026-07-06T00:00:00.000Z

## Consensus

Children of Time is r/printSF's default answer at this point: 3977 of 4595 total mentions, next to 411 on r/suggestmeabook and 203 on r/Fantasy. Growth has been almost uninterrupted, 412 mentions in 2019 climbing to 840 in 2024, easing only slightly to 723 in 2025. " Threads treat Adrian Tchaikovsky as mid-hot-streak, with a recommender (↑198) calling him an extremely hot streak author right now, alongside Ann Leckie.

## Read if

If you already live in r/printSF, you've probably seen this one three times this month; 3977 of its 4595 mentions happen there. Come for a spider civilization built out believably across generations, not a single adventuring cast. Anyone worried about a non-human-heavy cast should read the preemptive defense in the threads (↑191) before writing it off.

## Skip or borrow first if

The sample shows almost no independent discussion; it mostly rides along inside bigger recommendation-list comments rather than generating its own threads.

## Strongest published evidence

> Probably the best example I've seen is the Children of Time trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Brilliant. I can honestly only think of one other in Chronicles of Elantra, and its really well done but the race is only introduced in the 18th book or so in the series. Really enjoying the race, though!

[r/Fantasy source comment (score 339)](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/18802y3/fiction_in_which_spiders_are_not_necessarily/kbhq7xu/)

## Dissent and caveat

The sample shows almost no independent discussion; it mostly rides along inside bigger recommendation-list comments rather than generating its own threads.

## Sample

- 4,595 tracked mentions
- 3,362 unique commenters
- 8 published source excerpts
- 4 tracked subreddits
- Average sentiment: 0.46 (not a star rating)

## Source comments

- [r/Fantasy source comment (score 339)](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/18802y3/fiction_in_which_spiders_are_not_necessarily/kbhq7xu/)
- [r/Fantasy source comment (score 228)](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1h283zz/im_dying_for_a_good_scifi_read/lzhcsd1/)
- [r/printSF source comment (score 218)](https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/zqqah1/10_best_scifi_novels_of_the_last_10_years/j10cqe4/)
- [r/printSF source comment (score 198)](https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1fg8dru/science_fiction_books_whats_hot_right_now/ln0dno9/)

## Method and limitations

Methodology: https://booksreddit.com/methodology/

- Mention counts describe the tracked Reddit sample, not every Reddit comment or every reader.
- Average sentiment summarizes sampled discussion and is not a star rating.
- Editorial consensus, reader fit, and caveats are derived from the existing sourced book synthesis.