The Children of Time series is so great - I think it ranks up the with the very best SF series of all time.

I very much enjoyed Service Model. It's much lighter than the series you just read, but really good; here are my notes for it:

• Charles, a high-end robot valet, finds that he has murdered his master, though he doesn't know why. To find the answer, he heads to Diagnostics, leaving the grounds for the first time. He finds civilization has collapsed, with robots like himself at various levels of functionality. He also meets The Wonk, who believes Charles has become sentient. This book is a treasure. Fans of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams will find something to love here.

Not at all light would be Shroud, but it's truly fascinating. Notes:

• A ship tasked with prepping solar systems for resource stripping to support human expansion in the galaxy encounters a moon putting out tremendous radio signals and goes to investigate. Tchaikovsky shows again why he's becoming my favorite author. Really interesting life forms mixed with really interesting human interactions. Great book.

Honestly, it's hard to go wrong with him. Looking through my notes, the one I liked the least was City of Last Chances, which is the first of his Tyrant Philosophers series. I continued the series and it's really grown on me. It's very different from the Children series, including in that it's fantasy, not SF.

I could go on, but I've probably overdone. Oh, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I started a thread about him around the beginning of the year, so you might be interested in other peoples' comments.