Children of Strife

I quite liked this fourth book in the Children of Time series. I personally found the first book to be the strongest and then the next two to be enjoyable but not as tight. This fourth book works so well as a capstone to bring everything back together and tell a grippy story at the same time.

Structurally, I really enjoy the three different timelines being interspersed here. The characters and worldbuilding in each bit are all intriguing, and even though they all layer on top of each other, I don't feel like having these multiple perspectives of the same place across time takes away from the tension, either.

What really shines for me in this book are the characters. I love the squabbling five gods. I love Alis and Cato and their band of misfits. I love a tale about an unexpected captain on a generation ship to the stars, fleeing a broken earth.

I didn't know what to expect from a surprise fourth book, but this was way more fun than I could have guessed.

Here's a few extra bonus spoiler-y thoughts.

While keeping this review spoiler-free, I want to tease: We get a new species for our society! Yay! The big downside of book 4 is a shortage of editing, or more so, shortening: Several text passages are redundant, especially in conveying cultural aspects. A smaller downside for me is that a certain character again gets important for the plot; but this character is definitive one of the best parts of the whole series though. So while I found this book to be the weakest of the currently 4 books, it is really relative to its sophisticated environment.