Childhood's End

Clearly a classic, a very thoughtful piece of work for the time. Had to push myself a bit to get through some parts, but very glad I stuck it through.

Great twisty story told in all the right ways. Writing and plot development are PHENOMENAL.

I'm not sure if this book is supposed to be uplifting or depressing, but I definitely felt it was more depressing, what with the end of the human race and all that. But it was certainly an interesting read. I liked the three-act format that this book was written in, looking at three different time periods of the human race. While normally, I am more interested in good character development than plot, I suppose that older books like this focus on plot more than characters, and I kind of expected it going in. Certainly, there were a few compelling characters, even if I didn't care about them the same way I care about characters that are fully fleshed out. I found the plot fairly interesting, if not a bit confusing at the end with the Overmind and all that.

I also really like the title. I think it fits really well with this book, since the children were the ones who ultimately were ~uplifted, so to speak, but also the human race as a while transcended beyond the first stage of development to become, supposedly, something greater. Titles are usually tricky things, but I was really impressed by how well it tied in with the whole plot of the book.

I thought this had interesting concepts about an alien invasion and I even liked the inversion of time, memory, and religion, but I didn't think it was executed all that well.