Children of Memory

On the planet Imir, Captain Holt once founded a colony on an empty world, hoping to give his people a fresh start. Generations on, his descendants are barely hanging on. Harvests grow thinner, machinery breaks down and cannot be replaced.

Then strangers turn up in a town where every resident knows every other. The villagers begin to suspect they are being watched, and they are right. Explorers from the stars have arrived in secret, meaning to help the long-lost cousins of Earth's people.

The visitors trust their superior technology and start studying the colonists from a distance. They are not the only ones observing, though. By the time the starfarers grasp how badly they have misjudged the situation, escape is no longer possible.

This is science fiction in the space opera mould, with a scale that runs across generations, species and galaxies. It is the third book in a series, following Children of Time and Children of Ruin, and a fourth, Children of Strife, comes after it. The mood opens in hardship and isolation on a failing colony, then turns toward unease as the watchers close in.