Supernova Era by Liu Cixin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let me be honest here: we need to accept one major handwavium dance move to enjoy this novel. That being said, if we just go ahead and accept the basic premise that CHILDREN under 13 are naturally resistant to catastrophic radiation exposure, or at least they'll heal up when all the adults around them die off, then we've got a pretty great early dystopian nightmare.

The nearby supernova going off, close enough to do more than annoy and far enough away to not just kill us all, is an awesome macro-scale starter for any kind of SF novel.

Ok, so after that? We've got a pretty awesome setup for a kids-rule-the-world SF worldbuilding extravaganza.

The adults tried to do everything they could to prepare these kiddos, of course, but human nature gets the best of us all.

It's PLAYTIME. The old world was BORING, after all.

It's also almost like Liu Cixin was told to write a YA novel back in 2003 and he nodded sagely, snickered under his hand, and went about writing the ultimate coming of age novel.

Only this YA went ahead and killed off the majority of humanity gave us one of the most horrific wars ever created in the spirit of fair play.

Wow.

Now what I'm saying here is: the ideas are freaking awesome, explores a ton of great avenues, and horrifies the freaking hell out of me. The characters are not all that fantastic, but this SF is very much in the spirit of old-school SF masters who want to run hard with the ball.

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