Fiction Reviews
Children of Strife
(2026) Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tor, £15.99, trdpbk, xviii + 678pp, ISBN 978-1-035-05778-8
Oh, this is a clever one. Adrian Tchaikovsky has had four books in to his ‘Children’ series (starting with the Clarke (book) Award-winning Children of Time) and you’d have thought he’d be tripping over himself by now, but far from it. This instalment has a daunting 678 pages so it needs to be full of fresh ideas and intriguing plot twists. And it is.
At the core of the book is an examination of what it might be like to play god, or gods, taken from a number of different perspectives. Without going into any spoiler detail, the early signs aren’t promising for the poor planet they’re focused on, or the unhappy colonists trapped on a world that seems set to make their lives as miserable as possible.
There are four novels full of rich world-building preceding this one but if you wanted to use Children of Strife as a starting point, you’d be fine because there are plenty of deft reminders of past events. This is hard science fiction but there’s a tight focus on a central cast of characters and the technology doesn’t get in the way of the humanity. I say ‘humanity’ loosely, because mechanical spiders, bodies (and minds) made up of thousands of ants and oversized, genocidal shrimps are all part of the mix.
Very briefly, before the Earth died due the usual apocalyptic mix, ark ships headed out for new planets. Terraforming efforts, though, give unexpected rise to intelligent creatures; spiders, octopi and shrimp/mantis stomatopods and Humans with a capital H. A cross-species explorer group heads out to a strange planet where other terraformers have been at work.
This green planet came from the efforts of five narcissistic tech billionaires who thought they could create a new Eden on a new planet. In their own image. And they do. It’s not Eden, though, at least as long as its gods are around. For the unlucky colonists trapped there and the explorer group almost destroyed by it, though, this new world is challenging and deadly, filled with monsters and demanding subservience. The planet itself is as malevolent as its creator gods.
Lots of twists and turns, of course, and plenty of action. Some great characters, too: Kott. The trickster god, who is both enraptured and horrified by the thing she helped create. Cato, the war mongering Mantis Shrimp who constantly has to fight his desire to kill everything around him, even his allies. And Mira, the parasitic entity in human form who in a previous evolutionary stage would have devoured all life on the planet, and in the face of the planet’s onslaught is rapidly losing the humanity that kept her in check.
Tchaikovsky’s nothing if not prolific, so hopefully there’s more to come in this series – for now, there’s plenty to enjoy here.
Mark Bilsborough
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