Children of Strife

<h2><b>They thought they'd found refuge. But paradise became their prison.</b></h2><p><b>The <i>Sunday Times</i> bestselling science-fiction adventure from the master of the genre, Adrian Tchaikovsky. </b><br><br>Centuries ago, a maverick terraforming team played God with a distant planet. Out of their vanity and spite, something terrible and unexpected arose.<br><br>Generations later, tormented scientist Alis is among the crew of the research vessel that rediscovers this lost outpost. But Alis wakes from nightmares of her own making to an all-too-real catastrophe on board. The rest of the crew has vanished - leaving only Cato, the belligerent mantis-shrimp captain, and Kern, the ship's AI.<br><br>Searching for their lost fellows, Alis and Cato must venture into the darkness of the planet below. What did those ancient terraformers unleash? And will their last surviving crewmate become a greater threat than the world itself?<br><br><b>The journey that began with <i>Children of Time</i> reaches a new, terrifying frontier in <i>Children of Strife</i>, featuring epic adventure, first contact and the nature of intelligence among the stars.</b><br><br><b>* * *</b><br><br><b>Praise for the series: </b><br><br>'<i>Children of Time</i> has a fabulous sense of scale that only someone as talented as Adrian Tchaikovsky can pull off . . . Very much recommended'<br><b>- Peter F. Hamilton</b><br><br>'Brilliant science fiction and far-out world building'<br><b>- James McAvoy</b><br><br>'A joy from start to finish. Entertaining, smart, surprising and unexpectedly human'<br><b>- Patrick Ness</b><br><br>'An exemplar of classic widescreen science fiction'<br><b>- <i>New Scientist</i></b><br><br><br>^{_{<i>Children of Strife</i> was a <i>Sunday Times </i>bestseller w/c 30/03/2026.}}<br></p>