Children of Strife

Children of Time #4

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

From the award-winning master of sci-fi Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Strife is the unmissable follow-up space opera to the highly acclaimed Children of Time, Children of Ruin and Children of Memory.

In this epic adventure, we visit a far-future after earth fell, where ark ships had hunted for a new home. They sought lost worlds terraformed in earth’s forgotten past. We follow a ship crewed by maverick humans, spiders and a spectacularly punchy mantis shrimp captain as they rediscover one such world, and an ark.

Then human crewmate Alis wakes to discover that she, her captain and the ship’s intelligence are the only ones left on their ship. But what happened to those who left to explore the ark . . . and the world below?

Children of Strife is the extraordinary next volume set in the Children of Time universe, featuring epic adventure, first contact and the nature of intelligence among the stars.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Aliens, Audiobook, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space

496 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 2026

About the author

ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY was born in Lincolnshire and studied zoology and psychology at Reading, before practising law in Leeds. He is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor and is trained in stage-fighting. His literary influences include Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, China Miéville, Mary Gently, Steven Erikson, Naomi Novak, Scott Lynch and Alan Campbell.

Reviews

[Jugger Blade · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am soo sorry i accidentally misclicked the star and it wont go off i didn't mean to.

[Val 𓍯ᥫ᭡.ִֶָ𓂃 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn’t a bad book, but I think that with the first book it was enough, the rest was a little bit messy.

[Nafisa King · Rating 5 out of 5]

i genuinely didn’t expect to love this more than children of time, but here we are.

adrian tchaikovsky just does not miss for me. his books always pull me out of my day-to-day brain and force me to think bigger, stranger, and honestly… more creatively than i normally allow myself to. and right now, that kind of thinking feels necessary.

children of strife feels like the most emotionally layered entry in the series so far. where time felt novel and expansive, and ruin leaned unsettling, this one carries a quiet sense of tragedy under all the chaos. it’s still wild. still ambitious. still very much “what if evolution went completely off-script.” but there’s something more human sitting underneath it.

and yes… mantis shrimp.

the way tchaikovsky plays with intelligence, perspective, and what it even means to “be” something continues to blow my mind. there’s a kind of fantastic planet energy here. alien, slightly disorienting, but deeply reflective once you sit with it. and there’s also this underlying thread that reminded me of blood diamond in a strange way. not in plot, but in that same uncomfortable awareness of systems, survival, and what people (or species) are forced to become within them.

the timelines weaving together. the slow convergence. the feeling that everything is spiraling toward something inevitable. it’s chaotic, but intentional chaos.

and somehow, through all of that, he still makes these completely unfamiliar beings feel… recognizable.

this series makes me speculate more. question more. imagine more. and i think that’s exactly the kind of storytelling we need right now.

adrian could honestly write anything at this point and i would read it.

thank you Orbit for the ARC!

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An epic continuation of Tchaikovsky's saga about humanity's efforts to terraform the stars, Children of Strife is by turns fascinating and deeply unsettling. The novel weaves together three separate timelines to tell the story of a planet where terraforming has gone disastrously awry, giving rise to a thriving, hyper-adaptable form of interconnected life that is both wholly unnatural and subtly malevolent. Born from a flawed process overseen by a group of deeply flawed people led by a sociopathic megalomaniac, the planet becomes yet another sharp expression of Tchaikovsky's enduring theme: mankind's hubris, and the chaos it leaves behind. Along the way he also has some profundities to share that touch on identity, consciousness and godhood.

[Alex Sarll]

Like many, the first Adrian Tchaikovsky I read was his uplift epic Children Of Time. Impressive as it was, I liked the sequel Children Of Ruin even more, not least because octopuses are better than spiders, but third book Children Of Memory felt like a mis-step, its decaying loops and dying world far too reminiscent of lockdown. As such, I was gratified when this fourth installment began by pretty much dismissing Memory's macguffin as a colossal dead-end, a rabbit-hole good for little more than making people lose all touch with reality (though I was a little sad that that book's redeeming feature, the sapient corvids, merit even less mention).

As it turns out, though, rabbit-holes are a big theme here; appropriately, the closest thing to a protagonist is called Alis, and there are a few supplementary nods to the correspondence. It's always been a series in which identity has been mutable; after all, the longest-standing character was already, before the first book was done, a human scientist who got uploaded into a computer before being copied from that operating system into one running on ants. But the sheer variety of ways in which the self of one or another character gets tweaked, branched, merged, shifted or dissolved this time out is dizzying.

The obvious way to play that would be as identity horror, and early on that seems to be what's happening. But as the story progresses, it twists. Because the two new elements added to the mix this time are the ones justifying that Strife. First off, a rival terraforming mission to the aforementioned Kern's, run by a consortium of self-proclaimed brilliant, genius, innovator, disruptor billionaires (or probably trillionaires at this point, actually; that part of Tchaikovsky's timeline is too close to our present for comfort, but certainly not close enough for the ultra-rich to still be bravely getting by on a mere twelve figures). Now, I'm getting a bit tired of this as a fictional motif, not least because the likes of Mountainhead always end up making the fictional analogues far more rounded and likeable than their factual originals. Tchaikovsky, though, manages to catch the utter emptiness of the bastards, yet with enough variation between the five of them that these sections remain blackly comic, rather than becoming a slog like Memory. And the notion of a planet built on their half-grasped Darwinism, personality flaws and overconfidence in their own abilities...well, I won't say it turns out about how you'd expect, because it is eventually sort of habitable, and I wouldn't trust Musk to keep a fishtank going. But it's pretty bad.

In the other corner, though: we've had passing mention before of the stomatopod culture which evolved in the seas of the spiders' world. Now, we get to meet one. And he is a delight. I think this may be the closest the series has come to playing evolution for laughs, but come on, mantis shrimp are pretty funny, a brightly coloured little critter with a lethal punch that's been known to die because of punching a hole in their own tank. Now picture a giant one that has guns too, and communicates in gnomic poetry, mainly expressing its exasperation that the current situation can apparently not be resolved by punching something. It's every SF 'warrior culture' thought through to the point of absurdity. And as we open, one of those, Cato, has to work with Alis to find out what exactly has happened to the rest of their spaceship's crew on what we but not they know to be the planet the rich dickheads built.

Obviously the plot from there involves a lot of daring rescues, dangerous biology, shit blowing up, and even punching (though never as much as Cato would prefer). But under that it's a story about restraining one's own worst appetites, about how treating identity as a fortress can easily mean letting it be a prison, diminishing the so-jealously-guarded self even before one considers the effect on others. One could certainly talk about it in terms of ego and id, except I think Freud would have been horrified by the shifting sands of personhood which Tchaikovsky instead sees as full of potential. And ultimately it all comes down to a rousing reminder that doing the right thing is the right thing to do. Which could easily be dismissed as the sappiest and most obvious of all the sappy, obvious morals, if the novel hadn't been so perfectly engineered that it reads as emerging organically, rather than clumsily superimposed, in a mirror image of the way the tycoons' ghastliness naturally emerges from the world they made. And given the way we're all trapped down the rabbit-hole their models and precursors have wrought, that moral feels far more vital and surprising than it ought.

(Netgalley ARC)

[Denise Ruttan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series is just so incredibly satisfying. I hate how publishers have decided that sci fi doesn't sell these days because this is just the kind of sci fi that I want to see more of, true science fiction that is thoughtful, sweeping, and innovative, both character-driven and plausibly science based. The kind of sci fi that I would devour if only we had more of it. I usually hate series but I love this series so much that I would read 10 more books in this amazing universe if they were to exist. I really do hope they will exist. These books should also be a movie or TV series, as they had a cinematic scope and feel to them.

You don't technically have to read each of the books in order because they take place in different generations, planets, species, and characters, but I'm glad I did because I think I would have been a lot more confused about the worldbuilding if I hadn't, and there are some recurring background characters that go through remarkable transformations over the course of the four books that you have to read in order to fully appreciate.

In this universe terraformers take to the stars and some are set on bio-engineering other species. After Earth dies of poison and conflict, the mad genius terraformers mean to infect monkeys with a virus that can speed up their evolution, but things go wrong and the virus infects invertebrates instead. On this world Avrana Kern is its arrogant lord and master. I really loathed her conceited attitude at first and thought her change into a AI sentience that cared about others was remarkable, especially contrasted with the even more despicable billionaires of this book.

This book takes place on the planet Marduk, run by terraformers in the vein of Elon Musk who are evil, spoiled billionaires who fancy themselves geniuses. This planet went wrong, as they use it for their playground of monsters. But when an ark ship of humans finds it, all hell breaks loose. And when the spacefaring spiders, shrimp, octupus, enhanced Humans who can relate with the spiders, and an intelligent parasitic slime mold from the last book find this monstrous planet, the hell might become something truly livable.

The other remarkable transformation was in the form of Mira, the slime mold, who starts off as a Borg-like creature intent on devouring worlds, and then Kern persuades it that its curiosity would be better served by consent and accommodation. Mira then strives to become singular and more sentient, and she might be the only one who can save this evil world infested with the godlike intelligences of four evil, bored geniuses. There are some fascinating philosophical questions of sentience and self examined here, but it didn't get too bogged down in philosophy; the pace could often be relentless, even over such long books.

The characters in this were flawed, often unlikable and unrelatable, but I found them complex and fascinating and I found it compelling how I could go from loathing them one minute to rooting for them to succeed.

The science in this was also flawless, which I found utterly absorbing. While the premise was a bit silly- a virus can't change the evolutionary biology of invertebrates in quite those ways - I found if I suspended disbelief over that bit, the civilizations that all these creatures developed were incredibly plausible. It was fascinating to watch each species evolve in their own unique ways, and overcome communication and cultural barriers to interact with each other. This is the kind of sci-fi book that truly teaches empathy.

In short this series is an impressive achievement. With such an immense cast of characters and intricate worldbuilding, I'm finding it hard to do it proper justice in a short review. I feel like I have a book hangover after finishing this series. No other series will compare quite so easily. You just have to read these to understand!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Ryan]

there's a date now!

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky, the fourth book in the Children of Time series, brings together elements from the previous three books, and introduces a mantis shrimp to Tchaikovsky’s group of uplifted and intelligent creatures. In his newest entry, we are gifted another look at Tchaikovsky's brilliance with a host of fascinating concepts and wild science fiction ideas. However, the choice of splitting the novel into three separate narratives, and relying on an assemblage of unlikable characters leaves us with a bit of a slog and no sympathetic protagonist to latch onto.

The story is told in three distinct ages, the First Age, the Second Age, and the Third Age. The First Age tells the story of a rival group to Avrana Kern when humanity first set out to terraform planets. This is a group of second place failures, losing their ideal pick of a planet to Kern, and led by the egotistical Gerry Hartmand. On their targeted planet they unleash round after round of evolutionary failures, growing life into an endless nightmare of bugs, wiping the planet clean, and starting over again. They are stuck in this rut, until Redina Kott and Pil find a way out of the mess and turn themselves into a godlike pantheon over Life on this planet. The ideas in the First Age are truly fascinating, though at times, a bit of a stretch to accept the small time scale in which planetary terraforming and the evolution of life is taking place. The unfortunate part of this story is that every character in this Age is incredibly unlikable, and, at times, can feel like a slog to read through their insufferable attitudes.

The Second Age is the most enjoyable story of the three ages, sadly, it is also the shortest. It tells the story of an arkship leaving Earth after Earth’s collapse due to war and strife. This narrative has the most likable characters, and the interesting plot of arriving at Hartmand’s planet from the First Age, and playing victim to the horrors unleashed upon that world. We see some really interesting concepts at play, and a touch of scifi horror. If only the story lasted longer and we were able to have more time with these characters.

The Third Age picks up from where Children of Memory left off as we follow a ship of misfits with Kern, humans, portids, the Nodan entity, and the newest entry into the series, Cato the mantis shrimp. The nanovirus from the first book that uplifted the portid spiders also made its way into the ocean to uplift a species of mantis shrimp. Cato’s character is really interesting and Tchaikovsky puts a great amount of thought into the psychology and culture of an intelligent mantis shrimp; a great addition to the growing cast of uplifted beings in this series. The beginning of this narrative spends some time with Alis, wrapping up events from the previous book, and it was a rough beginning indeed. We get the whole “are they in a simulation/not in a simulation” routine far too long at the start of this that it quickly becomes tedious.

The three ages wrap up together as the story goes along, as one age affects another and so on. Unfortunately, the stories are told out of place and this often has the effect of destroying any narrative tension built up from one section to the next.

Overall, Children of Strife is full of interesting science fiction ideas, and introduces us to the uplifted mantis shrimp. The story brings together events from the previous novels, and interweaves three separate narrative “ages” into a cohesive story, though with the downside of having to slog through some unlikable characters and a lack of tension within the plot. If you liked the Children of Time series so far, you’ll probably enjoy this book as well. It certainly has enough of Tchaikovsky's incredible imagination on display to be worth the read.

[Isabelle reads a book a day because she has no friends]

I JUST FOUND OUT THIS EXISTED LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! March cannot come soon enough

[Saif Shaikh | Distorted Visions · Rating 5 out of 5]

Advanced Review Copy provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Orbit Books and Netgalley.

Score: 🕷🦑🌱🌍🦐

Since this is an ARC, the review aims to be as Spoiler-free as possible.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series is what made him a household name among many Science Fiction and Fantasy readers. We thought the adventure was over at the end of the third entry, Children of Memory. However, the children are back, and they are as testy as ever. This time they want to play God.

Let’s go on an adventure!

As with many others, my first foray into what would become my ardent support of Adrian Tchaikovsky, started with the first entry in this series, the self-titled, Children of Time. Even for someone that feels comfortable navigating esoteric concepts and far-flung future fungibles, this book tested every neuron of my imagination and flexed every muscle of my internal imagery creation engine. I was deeply impressed by the scale, and sheer chutzpah of Tchaikovsky’s maniacal creativity in the two sequels, Children of Ruin, and Children of Memory. So it is no surprise, that I snagged an opportunity to review the latest entry, which came as a surprise to me, the fourth in the series, Children of Strife.

The Children of Time series has dealt with the practical and philosophical quagmires of the survival of humankind after the inevitable collapse of our Earth, where the best and brightest have carried forth the hopes of humanity to far-off planets and systems, to terraform them to continue the species. But the Universe worships Chaos! Things don’t go according to plan, and extra-planetary, extra-species shenanigans ensue.

In every entry in this series, Tchaikovsky has highlighted a key species through which to weave his grand tale. In Time it was genetically-modified, uplifted, intelligent spiders, in Ruin it was octopuses and an all-consuming multicellular matrix, and in Memory it was uplifted corvids/ravens. Part of the reason many have held on to this series, because we (definitely I) are curious about which species, the mad entomologist would feature next.

In Children of Strife, we get mantis shrimp! Yup! Together with plants/botanical species, and well, Nature itself! Talk about raising the stakes!

“They shall come to know us. They shall fear us. We are the dark within the trees. We are the wind’s whisper. We are the plagues in their bellies. We are the padding step behind them on the road. We are the gods of this world, and they shall worship us!”

Children of Strife runs in parallel to Time in that it regales the story of another group of renegade geniuses as they escape a dying Earth to travel to the far reaches of space, and terraform a planet, making it habitable for successive generations. These events happen in parallel to Avrana Kern’s spider-uplift sequences narrated in Children of Time. In classic Tchaikovsky fashion, Strife is also told across different timelines, which only converge towards the end of the book, with seemingly disparate stories and characters crashing together… literally and violently!

Narrated through the perspectives of the “trickster” in the terraforming scientists group, Redina Kott, the innocent-but-broken Alis, and the warrior mantis shrimp, Cato, Children of Strife plays with facets of creation and the power of godlike power. Faced with eternity, is the core of creation destined for anything except the titular strife, even if it means mutually assured destruction and the promise of oblivion?

To dive into any further detail would wade into spoiler territory. Needless to say, Tchaikovsky is at his wryest, his dryest, his wittiest, and his most profound in Children of Strife. His ability to conjure up alien worlds and fill it with creatures unheard of in the science-fiction space, and to give them personalities, motivations, and interactions, that feel simultaneously eerie and off-putting in their strangeness, yet altogether familiar in their underlying humanity is a feat to behold!

Like many others, I struggled with the sheer imaginative load that Children of Time imposed on its readers, as the author stretched the “what if” of SciFi to its breaking limit. A challenging read to be sure. The ante was only heightened with Ruin and Memory, the latter of which felt a tad disconnected from the series. While the first three entries could be read as standalones, Children of Strife does require previous knowledge of the series, especially, Time and Ruin. Perhaps, I was more prepared, or I have become more comfortable with Tchaikovsky’s dense writing style, but I managed to get through Children of Strife easier than previous entries. This is also a testament to the author’s growth over the series, because the concepts are just as dense and frankly wacky as the others.

“You discover, in the fullness of time, you weren’t that funny or that clever, but you still have to live with all the punchlines”

Children of Time felt altogether novel, Children of Ruin was just downright creepy, and Children of Memory felt oddly nostalgic. In this regard, Children of Strife combined these feelings, wrapped up with a sigh of tragedy. In a world of aliens, millennia in the future, at the very edge of our imagination, a very human, a very familiar feeling.

Have I said that after reading the Children of Time series, his grimdark fantasy Tyrant Philosophers series, and a smattering of other standalones, Adrian Tchaikovsky has shot up to my favorite authors of all time? At this point, I will read nearly anything with his name on it, and Children of Strife only further cements my fervor. A strong contender for a favorite-of-the-year entry.

I cannot wait to see where the adventure takes me next!

Read this review and more on my Medium page: Distorted Visions

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[Joe Wolff · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC received from NetGalley.

The 4th entry in the Children Of trilogy! And I got to read it before all of ya's!

It was a pretty solid book. Better focus than book 3 as it is back with a better focus on the scifi type ecosystem that books 1 and 2 excelled with.

Divided across 3 galactic ages, there are a diverse range of interesting happenstances. You get to see the description of neat technological concepts and the human/non-human reaction to those.

The Structure
The book is divided into alternating parts over each of 3 galactic ages. In execution, I would say this was not done too well. Though each part on its own is quite engaging, there are multiple times where all tension is removed, since we know exactly what is going on, either from a previous or future age. This could have been remediated if the alternating was skewed in favor of revealing more about age 2, then 1, then 3. But overall, not a huge complaint. The story is the same regardless, but I felt that maybe about 10% of the book suffered as a result.

Age 1
Age 1 is tied for my favorite galactic age. Here, we get some jerks trying to terraform a planet. It introduces a new interesting terraforming concept, different than those in prior books in the series.

This age excels at that terraforming concept, which is tough to visualize but is fairly engaging to see in practice. A main focal point of the chapter is the jerkiness of the characters, which was somewhat fun to see. Though Tchaikovsky's character writing leaves something intangible for me to desire. We get a lot of internal dialogue, but something seems lacking. Perhaps the internal dialogue is more descriptive than emotive, so we never can get a great sense of what the main character of this age is actually like. As this is the case with characters of other ages as well, I will not mention it again in my next 2 sections.

Age 2
Age 2 is tied for my favorite galactic age. This age, we are introduced to last, though I think it would have been beneficial to introduce most of this first to give us something to wonder about ages 1 and 3.

This is probably also the shortest age, but short and sweet. Pretty optimistic, as we get a pretty decent portrayal of a beaten up earth, the desperation, yet great resourcefulness demonstrated in a blind quest to seek a new home.

Age 3
Age 3 is tied for my favorite galactic age. Here, things culminate, and they culminate somewhat satisfactorily. Unique to this age, is a Kern unit including a punchy shrimp that is interacting with the setup of this book.

The punchy shrimp is great. Probably the best part of the book. He is crude, will punch anything that gets in front of his "zone", and speaks in blunt poetry (or at least that is how it is translated).

In conclusion
This was a solid entry in the Children Of series. It does what prior works has done well, though not much more. Certainly worth a read if the first 2 books were your cup of tea.

3.8/5

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️ a book that really lived up to its name. There was a whole lot of strife in here that’s for sure. For the most part it’s unsettling, some of the concepts Tchaikovsky covers really is so relevant to today. Especially with the idea of human bioengineering & AI. I didn’t click with the characters the same way I did the last three books, and felt like this one meandered. It was a bit choppy for me and I pushed through. The last 30% was a good time for me!

[eden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tchaikovsky is beginning to remind me of Stephen King: obviously talented and amazingly imaginative but reaching a level of success and output which defies refinement and reining in by editors. Alien Clay, his standalone novel from 2024, was really quite bad, so it’s a relief that Children of Strife isn’t similarly terrible — but I do think it has some weaknesses.

The first third is deliberately opaque and, let’s face it, rather dull. That means you have to slog through 150-200 pages before things really come to Life and there’s even the slightest sense of a character you actually want to read about. It took me almost a month just to get through the first third of this, whereas I read each of the first three installments of the series in less than a week.

I found the narrative voice a little inconsistent. It’s not just omniscient third person; the Narrator is a presence in himself, who calls characters “our Alis” and makes literary and cultural references that the characters obviously don’t and can’t know, considering their milieu. It’s distracting enough that I’m always aware I’m reading a tale told by a nerd full of sly winks and Science ™. It makes everything feel a little false.

The intentionally disorienting way the book presents the main protagonists means you don’t really get to know or care for them until it’s basically too late, book’s over. Whereas you are forced to spend quite a lot of time with the reprehensible cadre of antagonists and get to know them more than you would ever desire.

Finally, in regard to the plot, it’s all build-up and no real climax. What is meant to be the big threat at the end of the book holds no narrative tension whatsoever because the truth of the characters has been purposefully withheld for so long, for no other reason than to drag out the “mystery”.

In that sense, I suppose it’s fitting, as even though Children of Strife does eventually grow quite interesting and even enjoyable (hence three stars), I was never invested. Much like a minor deity with nothing better to do might idly observe the tussles of a pile of creepy crawlies.

*Advance Review Copy provided by NetGalley*

[Lex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a little iffy on the beginning but this book was incredible! If you enjoy the concepts in Shroud and Alien Clay, youll absolutely adore this book too.
I got a bit excited and read all the First Age terraformer chapters out of order, but that didn't ruin the experience by any means.
I'd give this 4.75★ it was truly great!

[Aidan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strife is a worthy addition to Tchaikovsky’s Children novels and a bit of a return to form after Memory, but doesn't quite recapture the magic. At its best, the book echoes the just-plausible-enough, madcap inventiveness that made uplifted spiders such a fresh addition to the genre ten years ago, but it’s not strong enough to step out of its predecessors’ shadow.

——————

To be fair, one of Strife’s biggest problems is the sheer size of the shoes it has to fill; in Time Tchaikovsky managed to reinvent heroic space opera (mostly) without humans, and then in Ruin he effortlessly switched the series to cataclysmic horror. The only catch is that by the end of Ruin, we are effectively left at the End of History. Sure, our spiders and rump Humans have countless new horizons to explore, but now that they’ve enlisted both Kern’s benevolent omniscient AI and the nigh-unkillable Nodans it’s hard to fit any more medium-scale stories into the setting: once you have nigh-omnipotent heroes, meaningful conflicts can only exist at the personal scale or in the form of unimaginably huge threats.

Faced with this choice, Strife opts for “both” and more besides. In the main branch of the story, our protagonists turn out to be just one very isolated tendril of the Federation Panspecific alliance, powerful but under-resourced and beset by a host of personal demons. On the other hand, they are pitted against planetary-scale intelligences that are effectively the gods of myth, animated by technology the book doesn’t really even try to explain in detail. And on the other other hand, maybe the real threat was themselves all along? These are all interesting angles, but even a writer as capable as Mr. T seems to struggle with following them all at once, never mind fitting in two additional prequel plotlines, showy perspectival tricks, and obligatory callbacks to the other three books in the series.

Unsurprisingly, this all leaves Strife feeling a bit overstuffed, or at least big-boned, but the back half of the book pays off handsomely once we get some momentum going. A few storylines are tied off a bit too neatly, mind you, and I have some serious quibbles about the gods’ super-secret form of communication that any modern physicist could have guessed at. Yet on the whole Tchaikovsky makes the plotting and character work satisfying and occasionally surprising, with just enough time given to building out various redshirts and historical figures and even outright villains that you can't escape the personhood of everyone on page, even if we necessarily spend more time with some people than others. And I mean, it’s hard begrudge a book that reimagines Commander Worf as a punchy space crustacean.

Strife doesn’t set a new bar for the series, and I’m not entirely convinced it justifies another outing after this one, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good time. I just hope Tchaikovsky can slow down enough to make sure he delivers a great time in the future.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

All hail the Bugman. Best entry in the series since the first one and a return to form after Children of Memory - which I liked but is definitely the odd one out for the series.

Tchaikovsky does non human POVs one of the best in the genre and he really goes wild with the ideas and world building in this entry. It already had a wild level of imagination in the series that's built up more and more with each book, so it's cool to see him be able to build off of that in a way that explores new ground. Just a really masterful handle on what makes a story work and what makes sci-fi in general so compelling.

The way I'd describe this series in general is a celebration and exploration of the variety of different lifeforms and how crazy biology can and might get, how the initial conditions and influence of the environment and different chaotic conditions affect these lifeforms, and how that affects sentience and cognition as it develops across huge scales of time and space.

This one sort of returns back to first principles of the series in really cool ways and explores the consequences of terraforming from interesting angles. In many ways it's sort of a soft reset in one storyline because previous books have gotten so wild that we need to go back in order to go forward.

The amount of books Tchaikovsky outputs continues to be insane and I was beginning to be skeptical that the quality would continue to be high, but this is one of my favorites of his. Love the way this man's brain works and I will continue to keep an eye on his many new releases in the future.

[Dan Wachal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a bad book, but it reminded my why I didn't really enjoy books 2 and 3 of this series... it feels unnecessary. There are the same concepts explored in Children of Time and nothing new that sparked my imagination. If this is the only 'Children of Time' book you read, I'm sure your experience would be better.

[Petra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Adrian Tchaikovsky book I dive into is an absolute feast for the imagination, and Children of Strife is no exception to that rule.
A complex combination of moral questions and dilemmas, interwoven with science, in an unforgiving fight for survival where playing God leads to dire consequences.
An absolute masterclass in building a story that develops over time and across multiple generations, presenting all the key points and problems flawlessly.
In the last instalment, we tackle again the results of the terraforming projects and all the questions that were left.
We have a familiar character returning to the scene in the face of the ship's AI assistant, Kern, and her presence brought a really nice balance to the chaos.
Alis - a scientist plagued with nightmares that feel almost like they are predicting events and tie beautifully with everything happening around them.
And of course it won't be an Adrian Tchaikovsky book if there isn't an amazing non-human character that grabs your attention and doesn't let go.
I absolutely loved the part-mantis, part-shrimp, violent, grumpy captain Cato, and his character arc and story just hooked me in.
The story's vibe was so anxiety-inducing and suffocating at times that it shows how immersed and invested you get without even realising it.
Although the book can be read without having your toes dipped into the previous books, I wholeheartedly suggest going through them first because the depth of this spacious story is so much more fulfilling knowing the past.
Loved this book and always a fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky.

[Rob McMinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Netgalley ARC review.
The last time I read a volume in this series, it was Children of Ruin, the second in the series. I didn’t enjoy it much. Rich in ideas, it was nevertheless a bit of a drag to read and felt (at 576 pages) over-long.
Which is where I would have left it. In fact, I completely skipped Children of Memory, the third book (512 pages in paperback) with no regrets. But then, somehow, I persuaded myself to read a Netgalley ARC of the fourth in the series, Children of Strife, and here we are.
I did feel as if I’d missed an episode, so don’t go thinking this will be easy to pick up if you haven’t read the previous three. We’re still with uplifted octopodes, and there’s some kind of uplifted shrimp, too, and there’s still the uploaded intelligence of Kern. We begin in the confused point of view of a woman who has spent a lot of time inside a simulation and died multiple times (see book 3, I assume) and she now struggles to tell the difference between reality and simulation. She has been in therapy with the something else we encountered in book 2, the creature who just grew and absorbed and became other forms of life, but has now been somehow domesticated into its own individual person.
All of which was a struggle, because it was mixed in with other narratives about humans of the Second Age evacuating a dying Earth a long time after the First Age terraformers, who were the ones with all the uplifting technology and more. But wait, we’re also in a rogue terraforming ship with some terraformers who hated Kern and were kind of exiled and stuck with each other. There are five of them, and they are trying to terraform a planet, but they’re a bit shit at it, so they cheat.
First Age, Second Age, and also Third Age, which is our present day team of explorters who encounter a planet they don’t know, which seems to have ships in orbit that have been colonised by plant life from the planet below, which seems able to survive in the vacuum of space. Part of their own team, the other half of their ship, has been invaded by this thing, and they fear for the lives of their colleagues…
So we’ve got three time periods, multiple narrative viewpoints (more than three) and of course the narratives converge, but it all takes a long time to happen. Once again, I found myself struggling to get through something that was too long and too detailed. Beneath all the exposition is an interesting plot and some fascinating ideas, but it’s hard to stick with its, yes, 704 hardback pages.
If you love the previous volumes, you might love this, so dive right in. If, like me, you swore off after the second book, then my advice would be to steer clear.

[Reece Dinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great instalment of the Children of Time series. While a bit slow and overly complex in places, the overall plot arcs were really fascinating and going back to see some of the other terraformers and seeing their attempts at creating a new world.
It was a little disappointing at first to discover that the exciting discover at the end of the last book was quickly undone but I really enjoyed where the story went so my disappointment was short lived.
This was a marked improvement over the previous book and I really enjoyed it. There still feels like there are so many more ideas for more books and scope for the series to keep going for quite a long time.

[Viv (vivianneslibrary) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is hard to rate because I can’t deny that Adrian is a talented writer but I just couldn’t get into it compared to the other installments. I found myself zoning out while reading and having a harder timing grasping what was happening in this story. I’ve always loved the themes that he writes about and I wish I loved this as much as the other ones. :(
3.25⭐️

[Lachlan Finlayson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am grateful to NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. 

‘Children of Strife’ is a new science-fiction novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It is the fourth in his ‘Children’ series of books, set in a future where Earth is a ruined planet, distant worlds are identified to be terraformed into habitable environments as ark-ships of humans prepare to depart a dying Earth in an attempt to propagate mankind.

Much later, spacefaring humans, alongside other intelligent creatures, cooperate, share knowledge and explore galaxies in the hope of finding remnants of the Human diaspora, perhaps other intelligent life and planets with liveable environments. For some this is purely exploration and research; a quest for knowledge. I have read the previous three books in this series and have loved them all. Full of wondrous worlds, compelling plots, captivating characters and mind-boggling science.

It is not necessary to have read the previous books to enjoy ‘Children of Strife’, but frankly, why wouldn’t you ? They are all great reads. They introduce concepts, characters and worlds that form a continuous narrative throughout the series. It is a delight to directly and indirectly reconnect with some of these beings in this new book, meeting their distant descendants and seeing the impact they have had on planets, species, space travel and exploration.

For anyone who decides to read this book before the others, the author provides a summary of the three previous books in a preface entitled ‘What Has Gone Before’.
These document the main events of the three Ages of the previous books: Age of Terraformers, Age of Ark Ships and Age of Exploration. Also provided is a ‘Dramatis Personae’, listing the characters in the current book, the Age and space-ship they inhabit and their role onboard. Both are useful references to bookmark as it is easy to get confused and disorientated in the worlds created by Tchaikovsky.

‘Children of Strife’ takes place over the same three Ages, multiple generations of earth-time apart. The book is written with each chapter set in one of the Ages, helpfully labelled in the chapter title. Each Age has distinct groups of mostly new characters although remnants, influences and descendants overlap from previous books and between the Ages. The reader is advised to pay close attention to the people and events portrayed ! Some note taking may be useful to keep on top of things.

In this new book, the First Age (Terraformers) concerns a rebel group of space-faring scientists who have escaped from a failed Earth, loaded up with technology, going ‘off-grid’ to play God in creating their own habitable planet. They hope that one day followers in ark-ships will arrive and populate their terra-formed planet. What could possibly go wrong ? A reader expecting ‘Heart of Darkness’ scenarios will not be disappointed. Tchaikovsky writes stunning and frighteningly compelling dialogue. A character reflects on a scientific development on Earth in the past:

“…environgineers had tried to code for microbes to eat plastic…when they succeeded , the plastic-eating microbes had quickly matured to eat any damn thing.”

Amongst the cynicism and bravado, Tchaikovsky instills some characters with deeply moving thoughts on their destroyed planet:

“For a moment a spike of bleak sadness jabbed at her. It was towards what Earth had possessed and then squandered”

In the same paragraph Tchaikovsky invokes a chuckle:

“But of all the things she was, a hand-wringing hippy wasn’t one of them. What was done was done.”

A later period of time, the Second Age, begins with a team of spacefarers departing Earth, transporting a ‘cargo’ of human beings in deep-sleep, to a viable terra-formed planet that may or may not even exist. Tchaikovsky presents a crew member’s thoughts on the process:

“An opportunity to depart for the unknown, not particularly believing there was an habitable destination where you are headed”

and later, thoughts about the ‘cargo’:

“They’d have climbed into their suspension couches down on the ground, been put under, frozen into something that was death’s closest cousin”

The reader will sense a number of conflicting emotions amongst the crew. Desperation, excitement, uncertainty and of course the inherent danger of such an expedition. There is no return planned. One chilling aspect is ‘wastage’ as a certain percentage of the ‘cargo’ is expected not to wake-up for one reason or another. Amongst the wondrous scenarios Tchaikovsky presents, there are darker moments such as this which may cause the reader to pause, reflect and take a deep breath before continuing.

The Third Age is a much later period of time. Earth is but a distant memory, in time and space. A diverse crew of space-farers are navigating the universe, surviving, exploring and somehow surviving. Whereas the First and Second Age are populated with human beings, or at least some recognisable derivative, the Third Age is where Tchaikovsky’s characters really get interesting. Humans are somewhat hybrid beings, implanted with various enabling technologies. For readers of the previous ‘Children’ books, our old friend Avrana Kern returns, albeit in an AI form, but nevertheless, a welcome presence. The Queen of the Terraformers is still snarky, cynical and manipulative but also somewhat endearing in an odd way. Perhaps not the ‘adult in the room’ but far from the unhinged megalomaniac of the previous books.

And our old friends the Portids also make a welcome return (look away now if you have an aversion to these extra-large spiders that Tchaikovsky features prominently in previous books !). A new aquatic being also originally from Kern’s World, plays a prominent and most interesting role in this book. Given his deeply embedded tendency for violence, he is surprisingly a most appealing character. He is a Stromatopod, a marine crustacean that evolved in parallel with but separate from the spiders of Kern’s World. In Tchaikovsky description he :

“…personified a warrior breed…they thrived on hierarchy’s, conflict, aggression…Strife.”

and reflecting on his evolution, our Stromatopod:

“…is distantly aware that Humans …are the origin point of all this. His people derive from Human science. Having met Humans, he can only assume they lost a great deal over the millennia. They seem a hapless and poorly designed species.”

A little later when addressing a Human colleague he:

“…is trying to be nice and not inadvertently or instinctively kill her.”

Tchaikovsky addresses inter-species communication invoking both science and humour. A description of one Human, who is:

“…waving her hand around vaguely in a way that wouldn’t communicate much to another Human, let alone to him.”

Nevertheless, during a stressful situation, a tender moment between species is evident:

“…she visibly takes hold of herself, and he appreciates that. Courage. The willingness to risk harm, crosses species boundaries.”

Without revealing any spoilers, the situations and dynamics within the Ages change. Habitats evolve. Characters develop, mutate or regress. Conflicts arise and are addressed in one way or another. Seldom diplomatically. Little goes according to plan.

The overall plot is complex but satisfying. This is one of those books I read slowly towards the end. Prolonging the pleasure. Perhaps what I found most satisfying or at least most memorable are the smaller plot elements. The challenging situations where ‘Human’ traits come to the fore. Compassion, bravery, fragility, hubris and so on. And of course Tchaikovsky does not limit humanity to Human beings. Kern is a wonderfully developed character. At times hilarious, at times blunt, sarcastic and manipulative but also clever, skilful and protective.

The spiders, a dominant Portia and a subservient Fabian, come to an accommodation, an understanding between equals. The new character, the Stromatopod, is a welcome addition from Tchaikovsky vivid imagination. Think of a human-sized being, with barely repressed aggression, in a powerful, augmented body. Asset or liability ? It’s a fine line. He is hilarious, scathing in his worldview and a scene stealer. But also surprisingly philosophical, exhibiting elements of atonement for his past along with a fondness for some of his shipmates. A practical crew member who gets thing done…

Other powerful scenes are particularly well presented by Tchaikovsky. For example the severely depleted ‘cargo’ of humans quickly evacuating their failing spaceship and somehow finding their way to a terraformed planet, not really knowing where to land, what to expect. Memorable scenes with leadership, bravery and tenacity coming from unexpected places. Quite something to read and take in; the wonder and awe of such an event.

The Three Ages come together in the final chapters. Tchaikovsky elegantly wraps up several plot lines as the various characters, at least those that survive, come to terms with their lives. Amongst this diverse group, we see fine examples of charity, magnanimity, tolerance and acceptance. Tchaikovsky quietly and convincingly presents the cast of characters as deeper, richer beings with closer, warmer relationships, within and across species boundaries.

It is a mostly optimistic and uplifting conclusion, albeit tempered with warnings about technology and unintended consequences. What if planet-scale terraforming and bioengineering goes wrong ? A character offers a warning on “creation by committee”:

“…what should have been a stately and measured dance of biochemical interaction turned into a mosh pit…a thousand different experiments blossoming and dying…Unrestrained biological chaos on a global scale.”

Some characters in ‘Children of Strife’ are less formed than others. Some are slightly shallow and one-dimensional. The reader will care little how they fare. They add relatively little to the plot developments. Others, those characters more deeply portrayed are quite something. Endearing and memorable. Revealing or perhaps developing qualities considered of little value or worth to their species. It is one of Tchaikovsky best skills, introducing non-human characters that the reader will accept, warm towards or at leat understand and tolerate.

I recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed Tchaikovsky science-fiction work in the past, either in series format or as stand-alone novels. This may not be his very best work; my expectation of a new Tchaikovsky book is always very high. Tchaikovsky’s future worlds and fascinating inhabitants are a delightful experience for anyone new to his writing. The splendour and awe he creates is hard to maintain indefinitely and is perhaps slightly diminished in this book. Nevertheless I think it is a fine addition to the ‘Children’ series. Perhaps a bookend ?

I wish the author and publishers great success with this fine book; a worthy addition to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s body of work.

[Michael Price · Rating 3 out of 5]

Children of Strife was a book I had tempered expectations for but was still excited to read, especially after Children of Memory and how different I felt that one was compared to the first two.

Well here it is..... and it's a lot. Ideas of the first three books show up in this one and original ideas so this book does feel the most dense of the series.

I wasn't a huge fan of the writing structure with this story as we are split up into 3 Ages and so it does feel blocky but those segments don't over stay their welcome and so the pacing does not feel bad, although I did enjoy seeing some of the struggles with the earlier Ages that were not covered in the previous books.

His characters all still suck.... not his writing of those characters, but they are all flawed and love to smell their own farts.

Overall, I am still impressed with his storytelling and his ability to be so flexible with this writing for all of his books(that I have read so far). Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dissenter, a ship carrying a collection of misfits from various species travel to another world that was left to fend for itself for centuries after a devastating computer virus disabled most technology, leaving terraforming efforts to evolve from its early stages... perhaps with a little help from a engineered biological virus that accelerated evolution. This one, however, is different, operated independently by a rival to Kern who was more a billionaire CEO than a scientist, and a team of less successful underlings of mostly the same character mold, the type who would happily backstab each other to reach the top, if that were possible. What life would they usher into the one world they were allowed to work on? Centuries after whatever they started, visitors find that life is plentiful, and extremely hostile, even to ships in orbit... and, on the Dissenter, Alis is brought out of theraputic stasis to find that half of the crew have gone missing, thanks to this hostile, invasive life. Of course, some of the crew of the Dissenter are pretty hostile and aggressive themselves, at least in potential, including a captain whose people evolved from a mantis shrimp that wants to immediately punch any perceived threat, even Alis if she gets too close, and Alis' therapist, an example of the Nodan life they fear may be going feral on the planet. If that happens, the whole biosphere is in danger.

Disclaimer: I was able to read an advanced readers ebook of this from the publisher through Netgalley. I don't think it affected my review, but be aware anyway.

Of course, this is the fourth book in the author's Children of Time series, and I didn't request an early look at this one randomly, I'm already a big fan. Presumably, you are too. The books all build on previous books, with some familiarity with life forms detected in previous books being welcome, maybe even necessary, and some plot threads directly building off the last book (although they're mostly for setting up one character's initial predicament). So, I imagine you want to know if you'll get that same pleasure as previous books. For me, I mostly did, however with an acknowledgement that it did feel a lot less ambitious of a story. This might be deliberate effort because in the last book I spent a good chunk of it with no clue what was happening or how he was going to wrap it up in a way that made sense... he did, by my count, but I could easily see some readers finding it TOO complicated and the author resolving to correct that issue. This book, by comparison, is fairly straightforward (by the standards of the author... it still qualifies as ambitious science fiction that broadens the mind). As a reader of the rest of the series and familiar with SF tropes in general, I had a decent guess at what was going on pretty early that turned out to be more or less on the mark. Even one of the hallmarks of the series, a new alien viewpoint to explore, was pretty tame by the standards of the previous book, one of several viewpoint characters and who is interesting but could also fit right in as the Klingon-stand-in for a space opera universe. That said... I still really enjoyed reading this installment and pretty much raced through it with constant interest. Tchaikovsky's become one of my favorite authors, and even if I'm pretty sure I know where the story's going, that doesn't significantly ruin the enjoyment for me... it's a bit like reading a book you once loved but can't remember many of the actual details of... but better, because there still is genuine novelty and surprises, and even if I guessed at some of the big high concept reveals, aspects of the denouement were still interesting enough to keep me turning pages wanting to see how it would all turn out. His handling of ordinary character interaction has gotten better since the first book, as is the strength of the prose, to the point where I actually really liked the last few paragraphs just as writing.

If this was to be the last book, it might be a little bit of a disappointment, but only in the sense that it doesn't feel like it especially advances the overall universe and thesis statement like previous books did, it's just "another book in the setting." If there are more books to come, this is a perfectly good middle segment. I feel like at this point, at least for me, the author would have to really screw up to earn less than a 4 star rating for books in this series. And no such screw-ups occurred, so that's what I'm scoring it, 4 stars. And, although I got an ebook version for review purposes, this is absolutely a book I will buy in paperback when that option becomes available, just so I can have physical copies of all the books in a series I love.

[Mac S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book (expected publication date of March 19th, 2026) in exchange for my honest feedback!

In this series, the first book focused on the evolution of spiders to sentient beings. The second book discussed a truly non-earth-based lifeform, as it learned to understand life as it evolved on Earth. The third book covered a planet full of contradictions, that ultimately was attributed to a foreign machine trying to allow life to thrive where it couldn’t. And now, the fourth book covers a planet that was terraformed by another set of earth-based humans, with nothing but selfish, malevolent, and self-aggrandizing intents.

Children of Strife follows exiles, refuges, and mavericks from three different ages, all running towards a world that has the potential to be primed for Earth-based life. The sly and selfish inhabitants of the Pancreator, fed up of living in the shadow of Avrana Kern, snatch up a planet that has strong terraforming potential, hoping to make a safe haven for mankind, so long as they accept these rebels as their omnipotent leaders (first age). The desperate humans onboard the Marduk are hoping to restore humanity on a world they believe might be terraformed, since their home planet Earth is dying and will not be able to support life for long (second age). And the misanthropes aboard the Dissenter have stumbled upon a previously unknown terraformed world, and half of their crew, having gone ahead to investigate, are sending a distress signal without any further information (third age).

To be frank, I have no idea how to review this book. It is wild. It covers various ways humans could be immortalized, through uploading their consciousnesses as data sets, allowing them to be sentient AIs, and act as gods. It compares the umwelts of different species, such as humans, spiders, and shrimps, as they try to understand one another, and bridge communication gaps. It shows how kind and loving humanity can be when at its best, and how devastating their reach can be at their worst.

I get that this is science fiction. I do. But, like, having a plant that can evolve to live in the vacuum of space, that seems like a step too far past the plausible. I don’t know exactly where that line lies, but I can accept two sentient spider beings uploaded into the same robotic brain, having to coexist as something between an individual and two unique beings; I can (somewhat) accept mankind playing god over a planet like it’s Age of Mythology, living past the expiration of their physical bodies and brains; I can even accept that a non-earth-based life form can absorb earth-based life and master all of their complexities and mimic them seamlessly and develop a consciousness that is comparable to human sentience. But plants living and thriving in the vacuum of outer space is just too much for me.

Further, this book was just a lot. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just think it was a lot to keep track of. I copied the character list from the beginning of the book, and annotated it heavily, which is the only way I was able to follow anything. There was just too much going on. It was satisfying how the stories all converged, but wow, it was dense. This would have been much more digestible as two or three separate books, where the scenes are first set, and then the convergence of those stories are their own book. (This is a criticism I’ve had with previous books in this series as well.)

I have absolutely no idea how the author is able to come up with these ideas. These books are definitely some of the most “out-there” stories I’ve ever consumed. But wow, it was a fascinating read. Once again, you just have to go with it. Don’t try to follow every single scientific complexity or character motivation. It won’t work out well for you. But go with the story, just accept that you won’t follow the entire thing, and this is a magnificent epic.

[Stephanie Ravenscroft · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to receive an Advanced Reader Copy of Children of Strife from NetGalley. I'm a pretty big fan of the Children of Time series, and I was not disappointed by the latest entry.

The characters of this instalment were phenomenal. I'm always impressed by how Tchaikovsky is able to create an authentic character befitting the body of the creature the character is. In this book, Cato was very interesting to me, his manner of speaking, the kinetic way he communicates, and the hierarchies and such were just so interesting. It's always been something Tchaikovsky has excelled at; it was a memorable feature of Dogs of War too.
I do feel that Tchaikovsky does recycle the same villain in different skins throughout his work. The antagonist of this book is very similar to the antagonists of Bear Head or Cage of Souls, but that is not a criticism. Tchaikovsky is describing a real problem we face in the world today, of a minority of people in power putting their pleasure above everyone else's survival. It is understandable that this villain of a thousand faces recurs again and again. It's a problem we chew on with fiction.

Every Children of Time book is taking on the question of what consciousness is. I feel like each entry in the series is essential supplementary reading to a Peter Godfrey-Smith work to help you internalise the information. I often feel like these books are directly tackling themes from Metazoa and Other Minds on a sci-fi stage. Children of Strife pairs very well with Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World, but I shant say more to avoid spoilers. Needless to say, I think it was handled very well and the concepts at play were really interesting, but the characters steal the show over the concepts this time around.

This entry felt especially dense. It was the first time in a very long time that I had to look up multiple words, and it did trip me up in places. It was mostly hyper-specific words relating to the viscosity of plant and fungal life, and a few about worship. Still, I found it quite the page turner, though admittedly experience with his prior work makes me an eager reader. I do feel we have gotten to a point in technological advancement in the series that we may break free of science fiction if it goes further and becomes indistinguishable from magic.

My specific ARC reader copy had some formatting issues that broke up the reading awkwardly, lots of mid-sentence paragraph jumps that Cormac McCarthy'd my reading experience more than I would have liked. I wouldn't say it is a particularly emotionally stirring book compared to the previous entries, but it does have a satisfying karmic element to it that crunches deliciously.

For returning readers of the series, this is another thought-provoking and rewarding entry that continues to stretch what science fiction can explore.

[Eva_812 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC! I requested it having read book 1 and being absolutely blown away by it. I didn't actually expect to receive the ARC, so when I did, I did firstly have to read book 2 and 3 (oops). But turned out to be good: they were still very fresh in my mind! Unfortunately, I had expected the book to pick up where it left off in book 3. And while we did (sort of?) start back on Imir, it did not look back on the ending.

The first part is... pretty confusing. Most of it is slow and it took me literal days to get into the flow of this book, and it only really picked up when the crew landed. After which I finished it relatively quickly. It starts of slow, because there are a lot of new things, concepts and characters we have to learn about. We've got Kern, and well, that's it, that's who we knew from the previous books. I did really miss the presence of spiders and octopuses, and was very surprised to learn about the addition of Cato. For me it felt like 'oh we HAVE to have a new species in every book, so let's see what I haven't tapped into yet' instead of an actual logical addition to the worldbuilding. I did grow to like him, especially with his funny speech patterns and when learning about his background, although it was very convenient that he was there for the ending.

I do think this book is just too much. It has the first, second and third age, and the second and third both have multiple POVs. The amount of times I went 'wait where and who are we?' was a sign that it was difficult to keep track of it all. Which was a shame, because there were some POVs I'd happily have spend more time with (Neco, Cosimir, Mira, Cato), but instead we get a lot of screentime with Kott and her nasty crewmates (also, the first age sounds like an allaround pretty bad place? From Hartman to Kern, we have not met one single likeable person from that time?) That did make me feel like we did spend too much time in that age, as not a lot happened, there was a lot of repetition, and because none of these people were likeable (which, I know, was the point but still). I just didn't want to be there. However, I did really like being back in the second age. I find that I enjoy that age the most, which I also really liked in book 1, but lacked in the 2nd and 3rd book. They just didn't have the grittiness and desperation that came with fleeing Earth, and the characters in the second one didn't come from a place of privilege and had such perseverance. But book 1 does remain the greatest in the series still, because while this was more in line with book 1, the solutions were too neat and too convenient. Maybe it's me, but there's a repetition in the way the storylines are finished up that is starting to almost feel like a gimmick. It feels like we've reached the limit of what can be done with this world and storyline.

I did like the new world, how it was build, what was done to it to make it progress, while simultaneously holding it back. And stylewise this was just as good as I'd expect from Tchaikovsky. He really does know how to paint a picture, which is especially impressive with all the non-human characters and different ways of communication. I do always like to see the limits of what can be done with them.

I'd give it 3,5 stars, rounded up to 4.

[Book Club of One · Rating 4 out of 5]

Children of Strife joins the Children of Time series taking us to another planet who's story unfolds across three time spans. The first arrival of the humans bent on terraforming it to suit their purposes (the First Age). The second age embraces the ark ship of more desperate humans looking for a new home after the collapse of Earth. And the final age, the present one that embraces the events of all the other books in the Children of Time series.

As with the other books, a single new species it the critical focus and key to the book, this entry offers us mantis shrimp. The representative, the warrior Cato, is belligerent, impulsive and focused on action and doing, but uses their senses in a unique manner that opens new planes of perspective.

Parts of the narrative unfurl in parallel with other books, particularly the first and second ages. We see competitors to Dr. Avrana Kern (the uploaded brain that brought civilization to the Spiders in book #1) head to space to build something of their own, free from her. Unfortunately for them, they are callow, back biting opportunists led by a pompous fool cossetted by wealth and power, Gerey Hartmand. He leads four scientists or brilliant tech entrepreneurs to secretly establish his own world. After many failures, they eventually establish life on the planet, but it is tinged or strained by the creators before they learn a greater method of control.

The Second Age sees Earth rebuilt but ecologically unsound following the wars of the first age. Here it is the story of the crew that will pilot the ark ship to the planet at our center. Earth is functional, but it is clear that the long term survival of humanity lies elsewhere, and not everyone will be able to reach the ships. Everything is focused on building the ark ships and sending them off to what terraforming projects are known. They work mostly on rumor and hope.

Our third age, is the one built up book by book. The computer Kern has over the series helped uplift many different species programmed by her fellow age of human. As the series has continued it has developed into a Panspecfic confederation embracing all species and their technologies have meshed and become stronger for the different strengths and potential.

Picking up from the prior book, the crew is a lose society of the casts offs or loners of the confederation members. The sole human Alis is a researcher, but in book #3, spent so long in the simulated world of Imir her mind was broken and she has troubling telling if what she witnesses is true or not.

Tchaikovksy starts these three threads separately, but deftly hints and foreshadows before bringing the narratives together for a resolution of sorts.

As a series, these books explore themes of what makes intelligent life intelligent? What does could the future look like through the long scale of time based on today's decisions? Can or should we control evolution?

Recommended to readers of hard science fiction, stories across multiple time spans or the evolutionary potential of uplift.

I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.

[Julie Storing (thefoxyreader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 stars but rounding down because I just didn’t feel the connection to this one like I did the others.)

I just really wish that Tchaikovsky would get back to featuring our space spiders more. I miss them.

SYNOPSIS: Three different timelines involving a group of egotistical scientists terraforming a planet, a group of Earthlings desperately fleeing their dying planet in search of a new home, and Kern and a ragtag group of adventurers that includes an aggressive shrimp as they search for their lost and dangerous friend

Just based on that synopsis, you can probably tell there’s A LOT going on in Children of Strife.

Like, A LOT A LOT.

And I would be inclined to say that it’s a little too much. There are things that I think Adrien Tchaikovsky is just slam dunking, and then there are other things where I wish he would reread Children of Time in order to get back to the magic in that book.

So I guess let’s start with what I like:

1.) I love that this book series as a whole does capture the feel of Star Trek without outright ripping it off. The whole traveling through space to seek out new planets and new alien life is just really cool, and Tchaikovsky handles it in a way where it is very science forward and each new species they encounter is really interesting and has a basis in science.
2.) I like the group of crazy egotistical scientists terraforming the other planet and think they provide a nice comparison to Kern. I can’t quite say a “foil” because geez Kern is also kind of the worst, but in our current world where it’s pretty clear that billionaires are only concerned with doing things to bring themselves renown and honor, this plotline felt especially poignant.
3.) I don’t know. I do think having shrimp as the evolved species is both kind of funny and kind of interesting.

What I didn’t like:

1.) Ugh, the pacing. This book is just shy of 500 pages and yet felt like it lasted for 900 pages. I think it could have been edited way down. And I question why we needed the timeline with the group traveling to the planet. I felt like they could have been their own novella. Tchaikovsky just never gave us enough of them to make them central to the overall story.
2.) As much as I enjoyed the evolved shrimp species, I think Cato himself was underwritten. He was really missing a core emotional journey. Our boy got lost in the sauce.
3.) While I appreciate how science forward this book is, I gotta admit that a lot of it went straight over my head. When those bitches were colonizing the planet using the bugs as computers and their own minds, I was totally lost. Like…huh?

So, overall, I did enjoy the book, but it felt like work reading it. I appreciate that Tchaikovsky isn’t dumbing his stories down, but he needs to work on the pacing to keep my attention.

And as mentioned before, I hope he gets back to our beloved space spiders. We went through so much with them that I hate to see them take the backseat to newer species and characters.

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for the gifted eARC!

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Supremely enjoyable and eminently thought-provoking. I had an absolute blast with Children of Strife.

*This will be a spoiler-free review.*

Thank you to the publisher, Pan Macmillan for sending me an ARC.

Book #4 in the "Children of..." series is, to my mind, the perfect summation of book #2 (Ruin) and #3 (Memory).
This will undoubtedly elicit different reactions from different people, because opinions on those entries vary, and while I myself didn't love Children of Memory, Children of Strife actually made me appreciate it more in hindsight.
It used the more questionable elements introduced in Book #3 extremely well and it fed the narrative in very interesting ways.

This book really does have a bit of everything I wanted from a new book in this series.
We see new uplifted species and worlds, we see experimental bio-engineering, we see both a breadth and depth of philosophy and understanding that comes in all shapes and sizes, literally.

The book alternates between three distinct ages of humanity.
The First Age is the first wave of terraformers who fled Earth, those from the same era as the original Avrana Kern, some of whom turn out to be her rivals.
The Second Age is where we see the fallout of what was left of Earth after the collapse. Humanity dragging itself up and out of the ashes of its dying world.
The Third Age is the fledgling space opera and Panspecific Galactic Culture that we know of as "the present".
The way Tchaikovsky brings all these plot lines together is absolutely superb. What we see and learn from one era informs and enlightens upon the others. It's very satisfying, and requires (and rewards) careful and deliberate reading.

Tchaikovsky is a phenomenal writer, and getting better all the time it seems. His output is incredible, his imagination is vast, and you can tell just how much research and passion goes into his stories.
There were a few instances in which a word was used that pulled me out of the story a bit, some modern vernacular that stuck out to me as weird, such as the term "hella", and the concept of "Cosplaying" within the mind of a Mantis Shrimp.
I'm aware that I'm reading a proof copy and those words choices could be subject to change, but considering this is almost 700 pages and only two words felt out of place - I'd say that's pretty good going, even if they make it to the final version.

That being said; Children of Strife will be released on March 26th 2026. Thank you again to Pan Macmillan for sending me an early copy for review. I absolutely loved it, and I will forever be open to reading whatever Tchaikovsky you fancy sending my way.

5 stars, top marks.