Children of Time
Arthur C. Clarke Award 2016.
A race for survival among the stars... Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome it's dangers?
WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.
Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
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Adrian Tchaikovsky
In the realm of speculative fiction, where the boundaries between science and imagination blur, Adrian Tchaikovsky writes with the precision of a biologist and the curiosity of a philosopher. Known for weaving evolutionary theory into alien worlds and giving sentience to the most unexpected of creatures, he crafts stories that challenge not just what it means to be human—but what it means to be alive.
Tchaikovsky’s breakout novel, Children of Time, didn’t just introduce readers to a distant planet populated by hyper-intelligent spiders—it redefined what readers expect from space opera. Bold, cerebral, and emotionally resonant, the book went on to win the Arthur C. Clarke Award, with its sequel Children of Ruin deepening the saga’s exploration of consciousness, cooperation, and survival. In 2023, the Children of Time series earned the Hugo Award for Best Series, a fitting recognition for stories that dare to look evolution in the eye and ask: what if?
Children of Time
In a distant corner of the universe, a dying planet becomes the crucible for humanity’s greatest experiment—one that will determine whether a new civilization can rise from the ashes of a fallen empire. Children of Time is a science fiction epic that stretches across millennia, exploring the complexities of evolution, intelligence, and survival in a universe where nothing is ever as it seems.
Children of Time consists of four books and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
