Children of Ruin follows Adrian Tchaikovsky's extraordinary Children of Time, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award.

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.

'Books like this are why we read science fiction' - Ian McDonald, author of the Luna seriesAll underpinned by great ideas. And it is crisply modern - but with the sensibility of classic science fiction'Stephen Baxter, author of the Long Earth series (with Terry Pratchett)