<p><b>In Adrian Tchaikovsky's <i>The Expert System's Champion</i>, sometimes the ones you hate are the only ones that can save you.</b><br><br>It's been ten years since Handry was wrenched away from his family and friends, forced to wander a world he no longer understood. But with the help of the Ancients, he has cobbled together a life, of sorts, for himself and his fellow outcasts.<br><br>Wandering from village to village, welcoming the folk that the townships abandon, fighting the monsters the villagers cannot—or dare not—his ever-growing band of misfits has become the stuff of legend, a story told by parents to keep unruly children in line.<br><br>But there is something new and dangerous in the world, and the beasts of the land are acting against their nature, destroying the towns they once left in peace.<br><br>And for the first time in memory, the Ancients have no wisdom to offer...</p>