Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time is getting a special edition
Part of Orbit's Gold Edition program
One of the best space opera novels of recent years is getting a snazzy new edition: Adrian Tchaikovsky Children of Time, just in time for its 10th anniversary. (h/t to Mark W. for the heads up!)
This edition looks like a very nice volume: it comes with a slipcase with art by Donato Giancola, gilded edges, endpaper art, foil-stamped fabric cover, bookmark ribbon, and some additional bonus scenes. The copies will also come signed by Tchaikovsky.
It'll be released October 14th, and will be available only through Orbit. It'll cost $70, with a 20% discount on preorders (which knocks the price down to $56), which feels pretty reasonable for an edition like this.
I'm a big fan of this novel. It's set in the distant future, where humanity has been working to send out colonial ships and terraforming missions to various plants in the cosmos. One such mission is headed up by Dr. Avrana Kern, who's putting the finishing touches on a newly-terraformed planet that they've taken to calling "Kern's World". As part of the process, they're sending down a population of monkeys to the surface, accompanied by a specially-devised nanovirus to infect them: it's designed to accelerate their evolution.
Set against the backdrop here is a brewing conflict between anti-technology revolutionaries and those in power back home. One faction has infiltrated Kern's group, and sabotages the experiment: the monkeys perish, and the nanovirus infects a different population: spiders. Back on Earth, the worst happens: war breaks out and devastates the planet, and a pulse is sent out that wrecks most of the colonial infrastructure that the humans have set up.
Andrew Liptak
Without guidance, Tchaikovsky takes us up through the spider's evolution into an intelligent species that takes over the planet with their own civilization, cutting back to a new human mission that crawls out of the ashes from the wrecked Earth, the Gilgamesh, whose passengers are hoping that some of those terraformed worlds are available for colonization.
It's a fantastic read, one in which Tchaikovsky explores how societies evolve and fight amongst themselves, but which is ultimately a pretty optimistic read about the future. Tchaikovsky originally published the book in June 2015, and it earned the Arthur C. Clarke Award the following year. In 2017, Lionsgate optioned the book for a film adaptation, but nothing seems to have come of it as of yet.
He eventually followed it up with two sequels: Children of Ruin in 2019 and Children of Memory in 2022. A fourth installment, Children of Strife, is due out in March 2026. Collectively, the series earned the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2023, which Tchaikovsky later walked back, citing the the controversies over the awards that year.
This new edition is part of Orbit's Gold Editions, which are higher-end re-releases of some of the publishers' best-known works, such as Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga, N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy and Hannah Whitten's The Wilderwood duology. Orbit has also published some special anniversary editions for Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice and James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War and Abaddon's Gate.
Andrew Liptak
These books are part of a much larger trend in the publishing industry: high-end and special editions of existing books, largely aimed at existing readers and fans who want something that goes beyond the regular trade edition.
While these types of editions have been the boon of publishers like Subterranean Press and The Folio Society for decades, regular trade publishers have increasingly gotten in on the game, thanks to the prevalence of influencers on social media and readers looking for something a little different to display, gift, or display. These editions can come with everything from special endpapers, slipcases, original artwork, sprayed edges, and unique covers.