Children of Ruin
IT HAS BEEN WAITING THOUGH THE AGES
NOW IT’S TIME...
Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life – but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time.
Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth.
But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed.
And it’s been waiting for them.
Children of Ruin is the powerful follow-up to the award-winning Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
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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 three 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.
