A thrilling, page-turning standalone adventure, set in the distant future, from master sci-fi author and Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Adrian Tchaikovsky.

The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival he discovers that Kiln has a secret. Humanity is not the first intelligent life to set foot there.

In the midst a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem are the ruins of a civilization, but who were the vanished builders and where did they go? If he can survive both the harsh rule of the camp commandant and the alien horrors of the world around him, then Arton has a chance at making a discovery that might just transform not only Kiln but distant Earth as well.

The journey that began with Children of Time reaches a new, terrifying frontier in Children of Strife, from the award-winning master of sci-fi Adrian Tchaikovsky, featuring epic adventure, first contact and the nature of intelligence among the stars.

They thought they’d found refuge. But this paradise became their prison.

Centuries ago, a maverick terraforming team played God with a distant planet. Out of their vanity and spite, something terrible and unexpected arose.

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.

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?

In a city of sunshine and secrets, the shadows belong to the animals.

In a solar-powered future, humans live in luxury, served by unseen Little Helpers – artificially enhanced animals who maintain their perfect green cities. The animals’ number one rule: ‘do not bother the humans’. Yet, beneath this tranquil facade, a complex underworld of animal politics, crime and conflict thrives.

Enter Skotch, a freelance raccoon investigator. Until now, his biggest problem has been a lack of work. Now, his work may get him killed. His latest case? Finding a fugitive mouse scientist. But powerful forces are also after Doctor Meece, and they’re willing to kill for his secrets.

Can Skotch navigate this treacherous web, outsmart rat gangsters, beat a deadly weasel assassin and keep his pelt intact? More importantly, can he find his quarry before the elusive rodent breaks Rule One in the most apocalyptic way – and shatters their fragile world.

For those who loved John Scalzi's Starter Villain and Adrian Tchaikovsky's Service Model, Green City Wars is a crime-inspired adventure that will draw you deep into an incredible new world . . .

A commercial expedition to a distant star system discovers a pitch-black moon alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is deadly to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances can a human survive Shroud’s inhospitable surface – but a catastrophic accident forces Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne to make an emergency landing in a barely adequate escape vehicle. Alone, and fighting for survival, the two women embark on a gruelling journey across land, sea and air in search of salvation.

But as they travel, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s unnerving alien species. It also begins to understand them. If they escape Shroud, they’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all . . .

Murderbot meets Redshirts in a delightfully humorous tale of robotic murder from the Hugo-nominated author of Elder Race and Children of Time.

To fix the world they must first break it, further.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away.

Fleeing the household they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is having to find a new purpose.

Sometimes all it takes is a nudge to overcome the limits of your programming.

They travelled into the unknown and left themselves behind . . .

Professor Arton Daghdev has always wanted to study alien life in person. But when his political activism sees him exiled to the planet Kiln, condemned to work under an unfamiliar sky until he dies, his idealistic wish becomes a terrible reality.

Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem. Its monstrous alien life means Arton will risk death on a daily basis – if the camp’s oppressive regime doesn’t kill him first. But, if he survives, Kiln’s lost civilization holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it – and might just set him free.

From the author of the thrilling science-fiction epic Children of Time, which won the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award. Eyes of the Void is the second high-octane instalment in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture space opera trilogy.

What waits in the shadows as we fight our greatest foe?

After one great battle, the Architects disappeared. Yet humanity’s fragile peace is brief. For, forty years later, the galaxy’s greatest alien enemy has returned. This time, the artefacts that preserved entire worlds from destruction are ineffective. And no planet is safe.

The Human Colony worlds are in turmoil as they face extinction. Some believe alliances with other species can save them. Others insist humanity must fight alone. But no one has the firepower or technology to ensure victory, as the Architects loom ever closer.

Idris spent decades running from the last war’s horrors. Yet as an Intermediary, altered to navigate deep space, he’s one of humanity’s only weapons. He’s therefore forced back into action. With a handful of allies, Idris must find something – anything – to stop the Architects’ pitiless advance. But to do so, he must return to the nightmare of unspace, where his mind was broken and remade. What he discovers there will change everything.

'My most anticipated book of the year' - Peter F. Hamilton, Britain's no.1 science fiction writer

Children of Ruin follows Adrian Tchaikovsky's extraordinary Children of Time, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award. It is set in the same universe, with new characters and a thrilling narrative.

It has been waiting through 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.

Shortlisted for The British Science Fiction Association Awards 2020.

Welcome to Alkhalend, Jewel of the Waters, capital of Usmai, greatest of the Successor States, inheritor to the necromantic dominion that was the Moeribandi Empire and tomorrow’s frontline in the Palleseen’s relentless march to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world.

Loret is fresh off the boat, and just in time. As Cohort-Invigilator of Correct Appreciation, Outreach department, she’s here as aide to the Palleseen Resident, Sage-Invigilator Angilly. And Sage-Invigilator Angilly – Gil to her friends – needs a second in the spectacularly illegal, culturally offensive and diplomatically inadvisable duel she must fight at midnight.

Outreach, that part of the Pal machine that has to work within the imperfection of the rest of the world, has a lot of room for the illegal, the unconventional, the unorthodox. But just how much unorthodoxy can Gil and Loret get away with?

As a succession crisis looms, as a long-forgotten feat of necromantic engineering nears fruition, as pirate kings, lizard armies and demons gather, as old gods wane and new gods wax, sooner or later Gil and Loret will have to settle their ledger. Just as well they are both very, very good with a blade…

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

They dreamed of a new home They woke to a nightmare.

On Imir, Captain Holt founded a new colony on an empty world. In the process, he created hope and a new future for humanity. But generations later, his descendants are struggling to survive. As harvests worsen and equipment fails, strangers appear in a town where everyone knows their neighbour. Now the inexplicable lurks in the woods and the community fears it's being observed - that they're not alone. They'd be right, as explorers from the stars have arrived in secret to help this lost outpost.

Confident of their superior technology, and overseen by the all-knowing construct of Doctor Avrana Kern, they begin to study their long-lost cousins from Earth. Yet the planet hides deeper mysteries.

It seems the visitors aren't the only watchers. And when the starfarers discover the scale of their mistake, it will be far too late to escape.

WINNER OF THE 2022 BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL 'Endlessly creative... so much invention peeking around every corner' Patrick Ness Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller Adrian Tchaikovsky's triumphant return to fantasy with a darkly inventive portrait of a city under occupation and on the verge of revolution. There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse. What will be the spark that lights the conflagration? Despite the city's refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood – that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and distant shores. Ilmar, some say, is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places. Ilmar, City of Long Shadows. City of Bad Decisions. City of Last Chances. 'Ilmar is vividly alive with ideas, conflicts, and a sense of its own history – a truly breathtaking fantasy city, down every street a compelling story.' David Towsey 'A master at the height of his powers. This is epic symphonic fantasy, weaving a breakneck plot through a sumptuously dangerous world.' Ian Green 'A wonderful twisty stew of a book with a cast of fascinating characters, set against the brilliantly realized city of Ilmar.' Django Wexler 'A triumph of a book: wildly imaginative, immediately immersive and hypnotically compelling.' Sharon Emmerichs

Winner of the 30th anniversary Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel. Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed novel Children of Time, is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet.

Who will inherit this new Earth?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.

In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive.

As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

In Adrian Tchaikovsky's Elder Race, a junior anthropologist on a distant planet must help the locals he has sworn to study to save a planet from an unbeatable foe. Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way. But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she's an adult (albeit barely) with responsibilities (she tells herself). Although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as long as her people have lived here (though none in living memory has approached it). But Elder Nyr isn't a sorcerer, and he is forbidden to help, and his knowledge of science tells him the threat cannot possibly be a demon.

Making friends could mean the difference between ruin and great reward . . .

Welcome to Fountains Parish – a cesspit of trade and crime, where ambition curls up to die and desperation grows on its cobbled streets like mould on week-old bread. Coppelia is a street thief and a trickster with a small talent for magic. She also has something other thieves don’t . . . tiny puppet-like companions: some made of wood, some of metal. They don’t entirely trust her, and she doesn’t entirely understand them, but their partnership mostly works. But can it survive a far bigger challenge than picking a pocket or two?

A local crime lord has noted Coppelia’s success and compels her to assist in a high-stakes heist: breaking into a mage’s palace to plunder its treasures. She knows this illicit adventure could either break her or make all their fortunes. But a surprising discovery shakes their world to the core – and Coppelia and her friends are forced to face a threat to the great city itself.

Includes the bonus short story, ‘Precious Little Things’!

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

They dreamed of a new home They woke to a nightmare.

On Imir, Captain Holt founded a new colony on an empty world. In the process, he created hope and a new future for humanity. But generations later, his descendants are struggling to survive. As harvests worsen and equipment fails, strangers appear in a town where everyone knows their neighbour. Now the inexplicable lurks in the woods and the community fears it's being observed - that they're not alone. They'd be right, as explorers from the stars have arrived in secret to help this lost outpost.

Confident of their superior technology, and overseen by the all-knowing construct of Doctor Avrana Kern, they begin to study their long-lost cousins from Earth. Yet the planet hides deeper mysteries.

It seems the visitors aren't the only watchers. And when the starfarers discover the scale of their mistake, it will be far too late to escape.

He's found a way to end their war, but will humanity survive to see it?

Idris Telemmier has uncovered a secret that changes everything – the Architects’ greatest weakness. A shadowy cartel scrambles to turn his discovery into a weapon against these alien destroyers of worlds. But between them and victory stands self-interest. The galaxy’s great powers would rather pursue their own agendas than stand together against this shared terror.

Human and inhuman interests wrestle to control Idris’ discovery, as the galaxy erupts into a mutually destructive and self-defeating war. The other great obstacle to striking against their alien threat is Idris himself. He knows that the Architects, despite their power, are merely tools of a higher intelligence.

Deep within unspace, where time moves differently, and reality isn’t quite what it seems, their masters are the true threat. Masters who are just becoming aware of humanity’s daring – and taking steps to exterminate this annoyance forever.

After two scientists crash on a hostile moon, they must use every tool at their disposal to survive. Shroud is a tense, atmospheric voyage into the unknown from sci-fi master and Arthur C. Clarke Award Winner Adrian Tchaikovsky.

New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists—and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is pitch black, but alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is anathema to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances should a human end up on Shroud's inhospitable surface. Except a catastrophic accident sees Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne doing just that. Forced to stage an emergency landing, in a small, barely adequate vehicle, they are unable to contact their ship and are running out of time. What follows is a gruelling journey across land, sea and air. During this time, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud's dominant species. It also begins to understand them.

If they escape Shroud, they'll face a crew only interested in profiteering from this extraordinary world. They'll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all.

A commercial expedition to a distant star system discovers a pitch-black moon alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is deadly to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances can a human survive Shroud’s inhospitable surface – but a catastrophic accident forces Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne to make an emergency landing in a barely adequate escape vehicle. Alone, and fighting for survival, the two women embark on a gruelling journey across land, sea and air in search of salvation.

But as they travel, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s unnerving alien species. It also begins to understand them. If they escape Shroud, they’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all . . .

Humanity clings to life on a dying Earth in an epic, far-future science fiction novel from an award-winning author. The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity. Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan Advani: rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in the verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will meet with monsters, madman, mutants. The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?

The astonishing sequel to Children of Time, the award-winning novel of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet.

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.For more from Adrian Tchaikovsky, check out:

Children of Time