Review: Elder Race
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Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
There’s just something about the way this book brings together different times. I mean, how often do we find a book that has us bouncing between royal intrigues, ancient legends, and then out of nowhere, some wild futuristic concept that feels totally possible? Time just melts together, and honestly, I love that. I couldn’t get enough. The whole time, it’s like time itself is just melting into a puddle, but somehow, it works. It's kind of messy, but totally brilliant. I just wanted more.
What really struck me, though, was how it digs into how we see society. The way groups look at the world through their own weird little filters - traditions, beliefs, old myths - and go up against each other.
We can see how easy it is for people to misunderstand one another, and how those little cracks can change everything: who’s in charge, how power works, even how people deal with stuff they don’t get. There’s this great balance where it’s kind of funny, but also a little sad, with the way old customs get tangled up with new ideas. That’s some classic human messiness right there, I'd say.
Adrian Tchaikovsky gives us all this drama and critique, but never weighs us down. He doesn’t lecture, doesn’t make it all heavy or preachy, but we come out the other side actually thinking about how goofy and complicated people can be.