Time lord
Adrian Tchaikovsky tells us about winning the Arthur C Clarke Award...
This year was a special one for the Arthur C Clarke Award, which celebrated its 30th birthday in September. And in a time when SF lit is pushing more boundaries than ever, it’s fitting that the top award went to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s utterly original “spider space opera” Children Of Time, which award director Tom Hunter described as possessing “a universal scale and sense of wonder reminiscent of the novels of Sir Arthur C Clarke himself”.
“I feel my profile as a writer has ‘levelled up’ somewhat,” Tchaikovsky tells Red Alert of his Clarke success. “To actually get on the shortlist was mind-blowing; to win has been so far beyond previous experience that it took me a long time to process. It’s a huge accolade and I’m inordinately proud that my little book about spiders was judged worthy of it.”
Set in the near future, Children Of Time finds humanity leaving a withering Earth behind and setting a course for a fresh start on Eden – but things don’t exactly go to plan. Tchaikovsky won’t be resting on his laurels in the wake of his win, though – he’s currently putting the finishing touches to Echoes Of The Fall, the second entry in his fantasy series, and the author admits “I’ve kind of exploded this year with extra projects”, including short novel Spiderlight and a short story in The Private Life Of Elder Things.