Adrian Tchaikovsky

Hugo and Clarke Award-winning author of 35+ books. Creator of Children of Time, Shadows of the Apt, and The Final Architecture. Prolific master of alien consciousness, AI, and spiders. Zoologist turned full-time writer. Honorary doctorate recipient.

Adrian Czajkowski (spelt as Adrian Tchaikovsky for his books; born June 1972) is a British fantasy and science fiction author. Heavily influenced by the natural world, his books frequently deal with themes of artificial intelligence and alienness, often in the context of non-human characters. He is best known for his series Shadows of the Apt, and for his Hugo Award-winning Children of Time series.

Born in Lincolnshire in Woodhall Spa in June 1972, Tchaikovsky is of Polish descent. He cites the natural world as an early influence, along with naturalists such as Gerald Durrell and David Attenborough, and he was fascinated by the Natural History Museum. He studied zoology and psychology at the University of Reading, then worked as a legal executive specializing in debt collection, litigation, and landlord/tenant law.

In 2008, after Tchaikovsky had spent fifteen years trying to get published, his novel Empire in Black and Gold was finally published by Tor Books (UK). On 23 January 2019, Tchaikovsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts by the University of Lincoln. He lives in Leeds with his wife and son. By 2018, his books were earning enough that he became a full-time writer, and he has since published over thirty-five books including novels, novellas, and short story collections.

Children of Time was awarded the 30th Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2016. Author James Lovegrove described it as "superior stuff, tackling big themes – gods, messiahs, artificial intelligence, alienness – with brio". He won a 2017 BFA for Best Fantasy Novel for The Tiger and the Wolf, as well as a 2019 BSFA for Best Novel for Children of Time sequel, Children of Ruin. His novella Saturation Point won the 2024 British Science Fiction Award and is being developed by Universal Pictures for film.

Beyond Children of Time, Tchaikovsky has written the ten-book Shadows of the Apt series (2008-2014) featuring insect-kinden civilizations, The Final Architecture space opera trilogy, the iron age fantasy Echoes of the Fall series, and numerous standalone novels including Doors of Eden and the Tyrant Philosophers series. Tchaikovsky still uses role-playing games to help develop his stories, but now also uses live action role-playing, which assists in describing the numerous action and battle sequences in his books. Trained in stage fighting and historical combat, his versatility spans from dying Earth tales to Warhammer 40,000 novels, always exploring consciousness, evolution, and what it means to be alien—often featuring his beloved spiders.