‘Children of Strife’ Is Theology, Not Fantasy

ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY’S Children of Time series begins with a premise so simple it sounds like a B-movie: What if we landed on a planet full of talking spiders? From that jumping-off point, he builds a story spanning star systems and thousands of years with remarkable insight and humanity. Four books in, with Children of Strife ’s 2026 arrival, he is still asking the question driving the whole series—Who is my neighbor?—and still finding ways to make the answer genuinely uncertain.