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The Doors of Eden by [Adrian Tchaikovsky]

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Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Doors of Eden Kindle Edition

by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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From the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Doors of Eden is an extraordinary feat of the imagination and a page-turning adventure about parallel universes and the monsters that they hide.
They thought we were safe. They were wrong.
Four years ago, two girls went looking for monsters on Bodmin Moor. Only one came back.
Lee thought she'd lost Mal, but now she's miraculously returned. But what happened that day on the moors? And where has she been all this time? Mal's reappearance hasn't gone unnoticed by MI5 officers either, and Lee isn't the only one with questions.
Julian Sabreur is investigating an attack on top physicist Kay Amal Khan. This leads Julian to clash with agents of an unknown power - and they may or may not be human. His only clue is grainy footage, showing a woman who supposedly died on Bodmin Moor.
Dr Khan's research was theoretical; then she found cracks between our world and parallel Earths. Now these cracks are widening, revealing extraordinary creatures. And as the doors crash open, anything could come through.
"Tchaikovsky weaves a masterful tale... a suspenseful joyride through the multiverse." (Booklist)

Print length

609 pages
Language

English
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Orbit
Publication date

August 18, 2020
File size

2453 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Inventive, funny and engrossing, this book lingers long after you close it"―Tade Thompson, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of Rosewater

"Full of sparking, speculative invention . . . The Doors of Eden is a terrific timeslip / lost world romp in the grand tradition of Turtledove, Hoyle, even Conan Doyle. If you liked Primeval, read this book"―Stephen Baxter

"What a ride . . . talks like big-brained science fiction and runs like a fleet-footed political thriller"―John Scalzi

"With The Doors of Eden, Tchaikovsky has created a fantastic and highly imaginative new genre: evolution SF"―Peter F. Hamilton

"Tchaikovsky weaves a masterful tale about how each version of Earth diverged during the various Epochs of its billion-year history. A frozen world computer mind, peaceful brilliant Neanderthals, family-friendly weasels out of a steampunk nightmare, gargantuan spacefaring trilobites, and even feathered dinosaurs combine for a suspenseful joyride through the multiverse."―Booklist

"Tchaikovsky's world-building is some of the best in modern sci-fi and now he has made an enchanting multiverse of parallel Earths"―New Scientist --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Adrian Tchaikovsky is the author of Children of Time, Children of Ruin and many other novels, novellas and short stories. Children of Time won the Arthur C. Clarke award in its 30th anniversary year. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B087C3G2T3
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orbit; Illustrated edition (August 18, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 18, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2453 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 609 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #112,841 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #427 in Genetic Engineering Science Fiction (Books)
- #495 in Genetic Engineering Science Fiction eBooks
- #1,216 in Space Opera Science Fiction (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
2,444 ratings

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Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire before heading off to Reading to study psychology and zoology. For reasons unclear even to himself he subsequently ended up in law and has worked as a legal executive in both Reading and Leeds, where he now lives. Married, he is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor, has trained in stage-fighting, and keeps no exotic or dangerous pets of any kind, possibly excepting his son. Catch up with Adrian at www.shadowsoftheapt.com for further information about both himself and the insect-kinden, together with bonus material including short stories and artwork. Author Website: http://shadowsoftheapt.com/

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

2,444 global ratings

5 star		52%
4 star		31%
3 star		12%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Karen B

always such surprises, a great pleasure

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 27, 2022

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The author is definitely one of the more creative writers in this genre. No standard plots for him, so always a treat to start one of his books.

Interdimensional aliens, both humanoid and not. Detailed world building for several Earths.

The characters are drawn well, they really come alive as the readers lives through the shocking events that change our world and our understanding of our universe, ourselves and our place in this universe forever.

Enjoy!

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Brendan Davis

Inconsistent characters, padding a meter thick, and "doing the science!"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 28, 2020

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Every other Tchaikovsky fan seems to love this book so I guess I'm the voice of dissent.

Very mild spoilers outside of spoiler tags.

The good thing first. The parallel earths were incredibly compelling. Every one was fascinating and felt organic. Each felt like there was a Children of Time hidden within the details, that we could have spent a whole book exploring the depths of divergent evolution and the stories only hinted at. I devoured the interludes, and the brief chapters we spent in the other worlds were fascinating.

Now the bad.

First of all, I just did not find any of the characters interesting, or care in the slightest what happened to them. None of them felt real to me, they felt like characters in bad Golden Age sci-fi who ostensibly exist with internal motivation and are supposed to be subtextually indicative of a worldview or point the author is trying to make but in reality are transparent plot devices whose feelings and motivations are inconsistent and entirely dependent on plot necessity. (view spoiler)

Then we have the enormous amount of padding in the book. A lot of it felt like the worst of Lost. Weird things are happening. The reader, and viewpoint character, don’t know what’s going on and desperately want answers. There are people around them who have these answers, and the means, motive and opportunity to share that information. But since the mystery needs to be maintained for the reader and answers slowly dribbled out there are absurd contrivances or an inexplicable reluctance for the people with the answers to share them with the viewpoint character. Vague things are implied, but no concrete information when there is no motivating reason for the characters in the know not to share concrete information, and it would in fact make their lives a lot easier to do so. The number of times characters take a long journey somewhere, or rest for an extended period of time, and obstinately provide oblique explanations was frustrating. (view spoiler)

Further padding is by the author’s weird fixation on having all six viewpoint characters be briefed on the exact same information in lengthy separate sections in ways that contribute nothing to the readers understanding of the information, or modify the characters motivation in any interesting or important way. It’s like the worst filler anime episodes, where 15 minutes of each episode are spent explaining the events of the last episode in a slightly different way that adds nothing.
As a fake example, the book would have a few pages on character 1 finding out the sun is exploding. Typical reactions ensue. “Oh no, the sun is exploding!” “If the sun explodes the world I live on that revolves around the sun would not have a son!” “How do we stop the sun from exploding so the world I live on will have a sun?” Then after that character does a few more things to try to stop the sun from exploding, we’d switch to character 2 finding out the sun was exploding. “But if the sun explodes my garden won’t have sunshine!” “My garden is very important to me so we need to stop the sun from exploding!” Then we switch to character 3, “What do you mean the sun is exploding?” etc. Almost all of the time it could be an aside that the character learned offscreen that the sun is exploding, and their reaction is exactly what you would expect.

Finally there’s the inane non-science. I’m not a scientist. Hell, I’m not even good at science. I know enough to make me think science fiction solutions sound reasonable even when they’re probably not. And I don’t expect strong science in science fiction. Science fiction, to me, is all about exploring about how big changes would affect the world that people live in. Small changes can lead to butterfly effects that might not occur to you but seem natural once you think about it. But this book is nothing but tautologies. One character is the multiverse’s greatest mathematician and she’s doing science and math fix problems. That’s not a summary, that’s the complete extent of the information we’re provided. When other characters talk to her she says things like “Well I used math to talk to the aliens.” “I’m trying to fix the problem of the sun exploding with math, but the math of science is very hard math.” I tried doing a search for “math” in my Kindle Web Reader so I could pull some direct quotes but it’s not enabled for searching yet. Might update this later. Most of the time it’s as bad as a character saying “The problem with space travel is you can’t go faster than light. But we did math on some light and found out with math we could mathematically go faster than light.” None of this is helped by the fact that literally every time the mathematician is in a scene the, or someone else, use the word “math” at least once. Usually in conjunction with “science.” I don’t know if that’s true earlier in the book, but I got the suspicion late into the novel and it held true. It’s especially baffling since the author clearly knows more about science than I do. The sections on the parallel earths had science I didn’t know before, and I felt like I learned some things. It’s just that there are vast sections that are just “doing the science!”

If you stuck with me until now, thanks. This book really bugged me because I know the author is capable of so much more. And there were some good ideas in here, just horribly executed. In a lot of ways it felt like a first book crammed with too many ideas, no focus, and no authorial voice.

143 people found this helpful

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DED

Interstitials more interesting to me than the main story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 27, 2022

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This is my third Tchaikovsky novel, and the first one that fell short for me. It could be that the first two that I read, "Children of Time" and "Spiderlight," were so good that the bar was set too high.

The main story had an interesting premise, but the execution didn't work for me. I felt that it dragged at times, too many scenes with people wondering what's going on or not believing what their eyes are telling them. What I really enjoyed were the interstitials: excerpts from other timelines where different species rose to prominence on alternative Earths. The world-building in these mini-documentaries really demonstrated Tchaikovsky's love for zoology. I wanted to read stories based in these worlds or their interaction with ours.

Which brings me to the characters. I really didn't care for them, well the humans anyway. The non-human characters were the interesting ones. Khan, the foul-mouthed, chain smoking physicist was the best of the humans. Lee and Mal were ok. Any scene with Julian was disappointing. The blurb makes it seem like he carries the story, but he was more of a passenger. He really couldn't handle anything outside a narrow British box of expectations. I couldn't wait for his scenes to be over with. His co-worker, Alison, was ok by the end but took a while to get there. Even the villain was dull, there to be the foil to the underlying message of inclusion.

There's a big reveal towards the last quarter of the book that explains how all of this came about. It got my hopes up for a strong finish, but then we got more navel gazing. The execution of the last part, well, I've seen Star Trek do it better. And the end left me like, "Oh, that's it?" If it wasn't for the world-building, I'd rate it lower.

4 people found this helpful

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Keith Harris

great book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 14, 2023

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Excellent book by one of my favorite authors. This definitely deserves prequels and sequels. We need to know more about the Nissa.

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AJK

One of his better ones.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 17, 2022

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Very original and interesting take on the multi worlds theory. A pretty good successor to the Children of Time series.

One person found this helpful

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John Lehman

Flawed sci-fi with a few fun ideas.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 7, 2022

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The weakest of Tchaikovsky's novels that I've read. There are a fair number of point-of-view characters, and as a result they all felt a bit shallow and unrealized. They would sometimes think / mention how ridiculous their situation was in a humorous way, which to me undermines the tension and gravity.

It's still a Tchaikovsky novel, so it's still pretty good.
The overall plot is fun, and there are tons of interesting creatures and speculative history. I really liked the chapters about alternate earth evolution, and that came together in a satisfying way towards the end.

Overall, it's worth reading if you like Tchaikovsky. If you're unfamiliar with the author, try Children of Time or Cage of Souls first.

2 people found this helpful

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josephmm

simple British fun

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 1, 2022

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Ya know British secret bureau spooks and multi worlds and well some wonder thrown in

Fun romp for a froth nights read

One person found this helpful

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Kathy

Complex, entertaining, highly original

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 21, 2022

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I have read this book twice. First in April of 2021 and then again a year later. The first time through I really wanted to find out what happened to “our” earth and the main characters. For this reason I skipped over most of the alternate world building. There is no doubt that the premise and the assorted characters in this book results in a complicated story line. After a year I went back and re-read the book. Having an understanding of the book’s overall structure made it much easier to appreciate all of the clever and original ideas Tchaikovsky has put forth. The 5 star rating I have given reflects the enjoyment I had in re-reading this book.

One person found this helpful

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M. Clare

Overtly political allegory wrapped in multiverse storyline

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 26, 2020

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Was interested in the concept of the book and the core storyline is interesting from a scientific and evolutionary perspective. However the book is an allegory. It's an pro trans / LBGT, anti brexit (the villain's surname is Rove (I.e Gove) who wants to save England) storyline where the only solution is a world (multiverse) of completely open borders. There's nothing wrong with allegories and authors expressing their underlying political and social beliefs but be aware of this when reading.

58 people found this helpful

M. King

Uh oh...not for me

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 30, 2020

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Adrian has been one of my go to authors for quite some time. I love his inventiveness and humour and the epic scale of his work. Seeing him on Social Media I agree with the vast amounts of his politics.

For me this was awful.

It’s basically an unsubtle treatise on some of the evils apparent in our modern (capitalist) society with very little balance and a bad guy who is an establishment figure displaying every phobe known to man. Then (and I hate when people say this normally) there is a deliberate wokeness around LGBTQ which feels cynical because the characters introduced are primarily defined by their sexuality e.g. a trans woman who happens to be a genius scientist rather than a genius scientist who happens to be a trans woman.

There are a huge number of characters who basically are just witnesses to events taking place and in fact nobody does anything of note that influences events in the book. It’s a rambling story of “the universe is breaking down what can we do to stop it’ in which you will be disappointed with the answer.

The multiverse concept is interesting but again, other than intellectually interesting, it doesn’t add to the story, and in fact drags it down.

It’s a non event of a story in which the situation at the end of the book doesn’t feel to have moved on much from the beginning other than we understand what’s going on. The characters are wasted (what the point of Mal and Lee is, heaven knows) and nobody does anything of note.

I felt the science explanation for what was going on was a bit shonky as well.

54 people found this helpful

Woo Hoo

Pretty awful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 20, 2020

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If a Guardian writer wrote a sci-if book this would be it. It’s themes of same gender relationships, transsexual genius and diversity are all very worth while. But it’s just gets in the way of the story.

It’s feels like I’ve just been bludgeoned to near death with a copy of the Guardian newspaper.

Take my advice, if you are after some decent science fiction, look elsewhere.

42 people found this helpful

Captain Book

A virtuoso piece.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 27, 2020

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I've read and enjoyed other science fiction from Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I expected to enjoy this - I've been looking forward to its release. I didn't expect it to be so very good though. It's the best thing of his I've read. The breadth of imagination is just spectacular. (Think Iain M Banks, think Octavia E Butler - really!) I enjoyed the recurrent 'interlude' motif where the wider picture is revealed episodically, in parallel with the unfolding story. It's paced beautifully - one of those page turners you don't really want to finish. Another reviewer took issue with the politics of the story and the worldview does come from an inclusionary standpoint. So deal with that or don't. I don't quite see how having LGBT characters in it makes it 'pro' anything. They are just some of the people in it. I mean some of the people are giant arthropods and techno-prairie dogs. So? Anyway... Brexit allegories aside. Allegories, I accept, may well be there. I cared about the characters, which is always a good sign. Even the giant woodlouse thing. Not so much the Little Englander, isolationist-Bond-villain-baddy with the ironic surname, to be fair. But come on, every story's got to have an antagonist - and at least he was Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

24 people found this helpful

ac

Highly entertaining read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 18, 2020

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I have to admit I was in two minds about purchasing this book due to reviews by other readers about it's pro trans/woke narrative. I'm strongly anti-woke and don't care much for the rabid trans activists on the go right now. However, AT is one of my favourite authors and his books are more about the world building than the character which is my personal preference with sci fi anyway so I thought I'd give it a go.

It's quite different from his 'Children Of' series but I can honestly say I loved it almost as much. I particularly loved the descriptions of the alternate histories of the parallel earths. I didn't feel at all that the author was pushing any kind of trans/LGBTQ or woke agenda at all, in fact I particularly liked the trans scientist's character in the book. She ended up being one of my faves, along with the trilobites.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining read!

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