Title: Children of Time

Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky

From the back: 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?

The gist: I hadn’t realised just how much I’d been missing my science fiction recently, but since I’ve been from William Gibson to Gareth Powell and now Adrian Tchaikovsky it’s been like rediscovering the science fiction of my youth. (I should say, it’s been a long week so my youth feels like a very long time ago). Tchaikovsky takes the best of escapism and adventure and teams it with an exploration into society, personality and what it is to be sentient.

And he does it with spiders.

But I’m not going to say too much because it’s the sort of book where you don’t want to spoil the ride – when you read it you’re along for the journey, and that journey is going to happen one way or another as the fate of human kind will depend on it.

So, be gone, fearless space wanderers.

Do you have your bug spray?

Do you need it?

Favourite line: “then came another generation, devolving, understanding less than before”

Read if: You want a science fiction romp that takes you deep into the psyche of the human society. And spiders.

Read with: All of your spider friends… I know you have them

Get it: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky