Children of Strife: Review & Analysis
- Apr 21
- 7 min read
AI psychosis, tech oligarchs, samurai shrimp and the search for empathy
What is Children of Strife?
Children of Strife is a new 2026 release by Adrian Tchaikovsky, prolific author of science fiction & fantasy. It is the fourth novel in his sci-fi Children of Time series, begun in 2015, but could also probably be read on it's own, if you're determined and imaginative enough! Tchaikovsky does helpfully summarize and reintroduce important concepts from the previous books, and only one character can be said to be a continuation from those stories.
This section up top will be spoiler-free, comprising general thoughts and feelings about the book and who it's for. To the surprise of no one, I love it! An essential facet of this series is the sheer wonder it evokes in my mind about what human, posthuman and inhuman life could look like in the universe. Each book is incredibly imaginative in bold new ways, and Children of Strife is no exception.
At the same time, and while it certainly contains all the hallmark components of books in this series, Children of Strife is also remarkably relevant to our lives in the world today. As I hinted at in the subtitle and will go into further below, Tchaikovsky explores ideas surrounding AI & reality, the evils of oligarchy & unchecked ego, and above all the difficulty of changing instead of clinging to the things we've always known and been told.
I highly recommend this book, series, and author! Here are a few other pieces I've recently written, if you're curious to learn more before reading it yourself:
Spoilers for Children of Strife ahead.
Alis, Cato, and escaping the past
An aspect of Adrian Tchaikovsky's writing I always appreciate is that while his books are focused on the wondrous concepts, he manages to do so through the lens of relatable characters and narratives – which certainly isn't the case for all writers of 'big idea sci-fi'.
Children of Strife's protagonists (an ill-fitting term, given how many timelines and perspectives are at play, but as close as it gets) are the misfit crew of the Dissenter, a Panspecific ship captained by Cato and managed by Avigael Kern. Everyone aboard –including this instance of Kern, who has taken on a new name and identity for herself – feels isolated from the utopian Panspecific society and so has found their way here.
Alis' backstory follows directly from Children of Memory, though she herself didn't appear in that book. She was a scientist exploring the depths of the Imir Machine, an alien device capable of simulating complex worlds for minds uploaded therein. We learn that the Machine slowly shifts and bends its narratives to the user's will, in an effort to keep them comfortable and engaged – thus Alis and her team's many and impossible discoveries about Imir and the Machine are ultimately meaningless, fabricated for their amusement.
After spending untold lifetimes under the Machine's spell, Alis was finally removed and taken immediately to therapy, because she could no longer recognize the real world – forever waiting for the Machine's narrative to kick in, having learned its quirks after so long. From Alis' perspective, we see her relapse multiple times in moments of anxiety, and even question whether she ever even had a team or whether those personalities were invented for her benefit. AI psychosis was clearly an inspiration for Tchaikovsky in telling this story, and I love the way he extrapolates the dangers of a people-pleasing chatbot to the horror of a people-pleasing reality simulator.
Cato is a stomatopod (mantis shrimp) from Kern's World, uplifted to intelligence by the same nanovirus which gave rise to the Portiid civilization. Tchaikovsky mentioned the stomatopods back in Children of Time, but finally gets around to exploring them in-depth here – as he did with the spiders, octopuses and ravens in the first three books respectively. Tchaikovsky has imagined uplifted stomatopod society as being feudal and militaristic, based off the real animal's physiology and behaviour. (And he clearly did serious research, because everything from their ultra-deadly 'punches' to their unique light sensitivity is apparently true!)
We learn that Cato's people asked the Panspecific for a solar system of their own, along with all the technology they wanted and some breathing room from the other species – and that this request was easily granted, this being a community always looking for ways to help and communicate with each other. Cato's species then learned a horrifying lesson about remote warfare, as compared to the claw-to-claw combat they were used to. Of the two hundred thousand stomatopods to colonize their new solar system, only a few dozen exemplary killers are left by the time Portiids come to check in on the society.
Cato is one of those elite killers, possibly the greatest warrior his people have ever produced. And despite how much glory he seemed to attain through bloody conquest against his own people, he is now stricken with guilt and trying to change his ways – even though doing so goes against all he has ever known, against everything heightened evolution has selected for in his species. It's amazing to watch him slowly change, through the relationships he develops and by coming to his own internal resolutions.
True-to-life villainy
A fun aspect of Children of Strife I mentioned last week is that we get to see a little more of the past ages of the universe: both in our near future, in the age of the first Terraformers, and thousands of years later when the survivors of total warfare manage to limp into space on the ark ships.
We learn that while Avrana Kern led the main Terraforming movement, backed by mainstream science and politics, she had rivals who wanted to do it their own unproven way – and who had the funds to do so, unilaterally. Honestly, the only slightly unrealistic thing about Hartmand and the other billionaires is that they were all in biotech and that they actually have their own clever ideas sometimes.
We spend a fair portion of the book watching their story play out, all from the eyes of Kott, a weaselly woman constantly scheming for her survival beneath the tread of project funder Hartmand and his heavily bloated ego. The five fail to terraform their chosen world a number of times (each working from their own incompatible theories) before Ken Pill has the idea to use Kott's self-learning algorithm alongside other techniques.
(Maybe I'm missing some semi-plausible explanation for this process, but I think we just have to go with Tchaikovsky on this idea of them uploading programs and later minds into the biosphere of this planet. I get that once things are set up it's a lot like Kern running on her ants, but at the start? ... A leap of faith, and probably the biggest I've taken in the series so far.)
This miraculously causes blindingly fast evolution on the planet, with complex organisms developing from bacteria in a matter of hours. Terraforming accomplished! Except that no matter how hard the billionaires try to stomp it down, the planet is intent on developing an ecosystem of disgusting bugs, rather than anything resembling the Earth life they desire. So, they learn they can put their minds into the biosphere-program and consciously steer the tide of evolution. Still stepping on each other's work every time they take up the reins, though they learn to work together a little bit when two are playing god at once.
Eventually, their human bodies die and they all individually choose to live on as sole god of their world... which means five gods, constantly at war and shaping Creation as they see fit. They're truly awful, especially once an ark ship arrives and they gain a population of pet humans to bully into subservience.
We see the biotech billionaires-turned-gods are fairly miserable and hateful throughout, which is nice, but the real payoff is when the crew of the Dissenter arrives and they're forced to remember their humanity and mortality. Both in being confronted with their millennia-ago rival Avrana Kern and with the Nod Parasite in the form of Mira, who easily takes the reins of their stunted and inbred biosphere. (Though she has her own serious conflict with her monstrous past, as I referenced last week.)
I enjoyed seeing these villains get their desserts: Hartmand being far too egotistical to let power go, even if it meant death; mad Ken Pill accepting the end on his own terms, and Kott and the others being sent to play god in the Imir machine where they won't do any further harm to anyone.
Capable of Change
Alis' recovery, Cato confronting his nature, Mira and Kern choosing new identities, Portifabian learning to exist as a single mind, Kott recognizing the evil of her world & fellow divinities, and far more – this book has a lot to say about the importance of change. Of recognizing when things are wrong, or when they can't go back to the perfect past we imagine, and taking steps to adapt ourselves, our beliefs and values, to the world we find ourselves in.
It's a topic I discuss a lot around here, and I think Tchaikovsky chose it for a reason. We live in a world where we are constantly pigeonholed into certain categories, and things like adaptive algorithms make it increasingly difficult to see beyond those boxes – let alone escape them. I wrote here about the idea of queer theory as an important tool for seeing beyond the false dichotomies, and have dozens of articles which conclusions about the importance of mindfulness and taking active steps to live the lives we want.
I certainly highly recommend this book & series, as well as Tchaikovsky's other work – his Tyrant Philosophers series is some of the best stuff I've ever read. If you so choose!
Thanks for reading and until next time <3
Comments