Supernova Era

A distant store has gone supernova. This has sent particles to earth that cause chromosome damage. All adults will die within a year. However, children are able to repair their chromosomes and will continue to live. The earth needs to plan for children quickly taking over.

The adults detonate all the nuclear warheads and plan for themselves to drive out to caves and remote areas to end their lives and launch the children-led era of utopia.

The utopia is short lived. Immediately after the adults leave, many of the little children start freaking out. The leadership command center is inundated with calls. They eventually get things under control. The climate also causes issues. Sea levels rise, flooding some land.

The US leadership decides the world needs to play a "real" wargame. The other countries think this is a bad idea, but they play along. The games will take place in Antarctica. This begins the "Lord of Flies" phase of the book. (It even acknowledges "Lord of the Flies".) Eventually, the USA keeps upping the ante, settling on nuclear warheads. They seem to have a small stash that were not destroyed. Nobody comes to China's aid. However, it turns out some special observers had codes for the Chinese nuclear missile. The games finally end as the missile is launched. A large number of children do still remain on Antarctica, however, they need to vacate once the earth rapidly cools back to a more "normal" temperature.

As a final action, the USA and China agree to switch land. The book then ends with an epilogue.

It is an interesting story, though it feels somewhat underdeveloped. It is an interesting concept of the children being fully in control that would have a lot of ways to explore. The implication is that they managed to continue a society, but we just see a few small glimpses of what happened.