Seconded. He crafts their cultures with the environmental and historical aspects of a given creature in mind. They're not simply reskinned humans like in so many science-fantasy worlds. The books are extremely inclusive not by checking off diversity boxes, but by respecting the individuality of a given organism and what its needs, motivations, and abilities are, and how those factors limit communication and understanding between foreign beings. How can we coexist with people so different from ourselves? Can they be trusted?

Also, please don't read the back of Children of Time except as a laugh after you've read the actual text. It makes it sound like an action film about evil aliens. Ruin's is alright, but Memory's is just weird. Like it's not wrong, but I wouldn't mark it correct as a test answer.

Just don't read the backs of books in general, really. I got a pretty significant spoiler off the back of a Robin Hobb book, and that was the end of that nonsense for me.