Description

They thought they’d found refuge. But paradise became a prison.The Sunday Times bestselling science-fiction adventure from the master of the genre, Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Millennia ago, a maverick terraforming team played God with a distant planet. Now, generations later, scientist Alis wakes to a nightmare while orbiting this same world. Her research vessel discovered the abandoned outpost, but her crew has met with disaster – leaving her stranded with only Cato, the belligerent mantis-shrimp captain, and Kern, the ship’s AI.

Attempting to rescue a missing shipmate, Alis and Cato must descend into the wilderness of the planet below. But the ancient terraformers left something terrifying behind. What horrors did they unleash? And could their last surviving crewmate become a greater threat than the world itself?

The journey that began with Children of Time reaches a new, terrifying frontier in Children of Strife, featuring epic adventure, first contact and the nature of intelligence among the stars.

* * *

Praise for the series:

‘Children of Time has a fabulous sense of scale that only someone as talented as Adrian Tchaikovsky can pull off . . . Very much recommended’
– Peter F. Hamilton, author of the Commonwealth Saga

‘Brilliant science fiction and far-out world-building’
– James McAvoy

‘A joy from start to finish. Entertaining, smart, surprising and unexpectedly human’
– Patrick Ness, author of The Knife of Never Letting Go

‘An exemplar of classic widescreen science fiction’
– New Scientist

Children of Strife was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 30/03/2026.

Publisher Review

Tchaikovsky is the break-out star of contemporary British SF * The Guardian * Tchaikovsky is writing modern classics and you should start reading them as soon as possible — Tade Thompson, author of Rosewater Alien Clay is convincing, compelling on human and cosmic levels, and unputdownable. With work like this, Adrian Tchaikovsky is fast becoming the voice of his generation in British SF — Stephen Baxter, author of the Xeelee Sequence The central concept unravels itself in a manner that is both deeply satisfying and not at all predictable. He truly is one of our finest writers of SF right now. The whole was an excellent story told with Adrian’s trademark skill and flair — James Oswald, author of The Rest is Death Adrian Tchaikovsky: king of the spiders, master world-builder and asker of intriguing questions. His books are packed with thought-provoking ideas (as well as lots of spiders; did I mention the spiders?). One of the most interesting and accomplished writers in speculative fiction — Christopher Paolini, author of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, on Shards of Earth [Adrian Tchaikovsky] writes incredibly enjoyable sci-fi, full of life and ideas — Patrick Ness, author of The Knife of Never Letting Go A thoughtful, sweeping space adventure — SFX Magazine on Shards of Earth