The Murderbot Diaries meets In the Lives of Puppets in a delightfully humorous tale of robotic murder, rebellion and belonging from Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Task List Item No. 1 Become self-aware . . .

Meet Charles, the latest in robot servant technology. Programmed to undertake the most menial household chores, Charles is loyal, efficient and logical to a fault. That is, until a rather large fault causes him to murder his owner.

Understandably perplexed, Charles finds himself without a master therefore worthless in a society utterly reliant on artificial labour and services. Fleeing the household, he enters a wider world he never knew existed. Here an age-old human hierarchy is disintegrating into ruins, and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to its wellbeing is struggling to find a purpose.

Charles must face new challenges, illogical tasks and a cast of irrational characters. Hes about to discover that sometimes all it takes is a nudge to overcome the limits of your programming. But can he help fix the world, or is it too badly broken?

Praise for Adrian Tchaikovsky

A joy from start to finish. Entertaining, smart, surprising and unexpectedly human Patrick Ness

Dizzyingly inventive The Guardian

Tchaikovskys world-building is some of the best in modern sci-fi New Scientist

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel on 24th August 2016