Details
- Book Title: Children of Time
- Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Publisher: Orbit
- Publication Date: September 18, 2018
- Print Length: 609 pages
- Series: Children of Time, Book 1
Description
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky is an epic work of space-opera science fiction that asks a deceptively simple question: who will inherit a new Earth? The last survivors of a dying humanity set out across the stars and find a green, terraformed world seemingly waiting for them. But the planet is not empty. In the long centuries of human absence, an ancient experiment has quietly borne strange fruit, and a wholly unexpected form of intelligence has risen to claim the place as its own. As the fleeing remnants of mankind and this new civilization drift toward an inevitable meeting, both are forced to reckon with what they are willing to become in order to survive.
Author Bio
Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, and studied psychology and zoology at Reading before, by his own account somewhat improbably, ending up in law and working as a legal executive in Reading and Leeds, where he now lives. A keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor, he has even trained in stage-fighting. That grounding in zoology runs visibly through Children of Time, which went on to win the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award.
What Readers Are Saying
- One five-star Amazon reviewer framed the novel’s central pull perfectly: “If we encountered intelligent life on another planet, would we even be able to recognize it as such? This question is really the driving force of the book.”
- Another five-star reader praised the craft, writing, “I really like the writing style, with the shifting point of view and the different modes of time. The characters were, if not always likable, very realistic.”
- A five-star reviewer called it “an incredible epic spanning thousands of years,” tracking humanity’s desperate search for a home alongside the rise of an unlikely new civilization.
- Another summed it up as “a brilliant story of survival and evolutionary biology.”
Across more than 50,000 Amazon ratings, Children of Time holds a 4.5-star average.
Why We Think It Should Be Your Next Book
Some science fiction dazzles you with hardware; Children of Time dazzles you with patience. Tchaikovsky lets a story unfold across thousands of years and two utterly different kinds of mind, and somehow makes both feel intimate and urgent. It is the rare big-idea novel that is also a genuine page-turner — a book about evolution, empathy, and the strange shapes intelligence can take, wrapped in a survival story you will not want to put down. If you want a space opera that lingers long after the last page, start here.
❤️ Click here to buy Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky on Amazon today. ❤️
Not sure what to read next? Spin the machine at mynextbook.co for a fresh pick — always free, no signup, no purchase required.
Sources: Amazon product page and customer reviews for “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky.