The master of children's fantasy returns with a thrilling science fiction adventure.

The clock is ticking for the children of the world, and the key to survival rests in the hands of Shade's Children...In a futuristic urban wasteland, evil Overlords have decreed that no child shall live a day past his fourteenth birthday.

On that Sad Birthday, the child is the object of an obscene harvest resulting in the construction of a machine like creature whose sole purpose is to kill.

The mysterious Shade - once a man, but now more like the machines he fights - recruits the few children fortunate enough to escape.

With luck, cunning, and skill, four of Shade's children come closer than any to discovering the source of the Overlords' power - and the key to their downfall.

But the closer the children get, the more ruthless Shade seems to become!