Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt)

Product Information

Feast and Famine (New Con Press, 2013), ISBN 978-1907069543. This collection contains the stories "Feast and Famine", "The Artificial Man", "The Roar of the Crowd", "Good Taste", "The Dissipation Club", "Rapture", "Care", "2144 and All That", "The God Shark" and "The Sun in the Morning". But just know, that there are flying-machines in here, as well as some sorts of early cannons and guns - at least at times. I absolutely adored this first book of the Shadows of the Apt. I grew attached to just about every main or side character, and I was so intrigued by the creative worldbuilding and was left wanting so much more (not a bad place to be when there are 9 more books in the series!). I am not a fan of how he depicts swordfights, chases, general battles and the likes... It feels disconnected in a way and not "exciting"... But maybe that is just me being spoiled by all the great action-writers I read at the moment...

After an attempt on Stenwold's life by thugs hired by the Wasps he decides to send Tynisa and Salma on the airship Sky Without to the industrial city of Helleron to meet with his associates there. Totho also makes an impression on Stenwold and he includes him in the group, but it is only after the attempted assassination that Stenwold agrees to let Cheerwell go as well, taking his place on the airship so his presence will not endanger the young agents. Once aboard the airship and bound for Helleron Tynisa seduces a Wasp captain on the ship, Halrad, to keep him from investigating them too hard. However, the tables turn when Thalric, a Rekef Outlander agent for the Wasp Empire tasked with ending Stenwold's activities, arrives on board looking for him. Once he discovers them the agents are forced to flee the ship, stealing the flier he arrived in and killing some of their pursuers. They crash-land a few miles from Helleron and are forced to complete their journey on foot, arriving later than planned. By this time the man they were meant to meet with, Bolwyn, has been killed by Scyla, a shape-shifting Spider-kinden working with Thalric, and their rendezvous is a trap. Though all four agents escape they become seperated. Totho is rescued by Scuto, a Thorn-bug kinden and Stenwold's head agent in Helleron who controls his own espionage operation within the city. Tynisa flees through the streets, increasingly taken over by her killing instincts, and ends up among a street gang who her take her in as an enforcer. Cheerwell and Salma make their way to one of Cheerwell's relatives within the city, Elias Monger. While staying at his house outside the city Cheerwell encounters a young Moth-kinden man, Achaeos, who was injured in a raid on Monger's mine workings. Rather than turn him in she overcomes his mistrust and tends to his wound.

Insect-kinden? There are several human races who long ago adapted to prehistoric insects. Examples: mantis-kinden are warriors, beetle-kinden like mechanics, wasp-kinden can fly and use stingers. Tchaikovsky, Adrian (30 March 2008). "The Long Good Lunch". Empire Rising. Archived from the original on 13 March 2012. However, as the possibility of the Polish rights being sold seems extremely viable, there is an epilogue to this tale of Frankish ignorance, for in Poland, one would strongly assume, I may finally see my name in print in its unadulterated form.

This excellent book is about a cruel misogynistic empire in the east that is step by step taking over and enslaving the western lands, while the powers that be turn a blind eye to the suffering and pretend it'll all be OK, it couldn't possibly happen in their lands.Story behind Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky – Entering the Shadows". Upcoming4.me. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014 . Retrieved 8 August 2014. If you don't know yet, the Shadows of the Apt series as its main catch uses all kinds of insects for its races. There aren't big insects running around, if that is what it sounds like, think more of humanity having evolved to share skills and typologies with different types of insects. My experience with fantasy is that every good fantasy has a good setting. In A Song of Ice and Fire you get Westeros and the Known World, in the Old Kingdom trilogy you get Ancelstierre, Dragonlance has Krynn, Lewis has Naria, Tolkien Middle Earth, the list goes on. We follow several characters on this journey and each one is better than the next. First we follow Cheerwell Maker: Stenwold’s niece and student at the collegium. Beetle-Kinden curious about the world and its inhabitants until the war is brought to her front door. Next we follow Tynisa: Stenwolds student and ward. Spider-Kinden who finds that she has no interest in the learning and knowledge of building machines but instead wishes to take up the way of the sword. Then we have Tisamon: Mantis-Kinden and a fierce warrior. Guilted by the betrayal of his once friend, he had lived in isolation for the past 17 years until Stenwold calls for help and the war with the wasps begin. Finally there is Achaeos: Moth-Kinden on a secret mission until it goes horrible wrong, He is a seer in training and his scenes involving his powers were the one of my favorite parts of the story.

The whole story is a phantastic spiderweb and you are the fly. Once you're captivated you only can free yourself by finishing the book. A massive series with worldbuilding, that feels like done by a veteran. Seriously, before starting this book, I looked up some maps and the likes, to get a feeling for the setting and to decide, if it was worth a read right now, and was kind of blown away. This strange melange of humanity for hundreds of years was ruled by a theocracy of Moth-kinden, the most 'magical' of the humans in alliance with the 'mantis-kinden' who provided the muscle with their legendary prowess with blades. 500 years ago, the 'slave races' rebelled and cast off the moth yoke. It seems moths and some of the races possess an inability to employ technology while beetles (what is called the 'apt'), ants and so forth are really good at it. In a way, it was new tech and mass production that lead to the downfall of the moths and company. The moths have been reduced to living in a few scattered cities while the former slave races populate an area known as the lowlands. Whew!Bug people, well sorta bug people. Sounds awesome, right? People who share the aspects of bugs is a pretty cool concept and one that I haven't seen done before on this scale. This was cool and done really well. I was actually expecting just a couple of different types of kinden (bug people, which are as far as I can tell all people except they do refer to humans sometimes in a sense that included the kinden but doesn't actually clarify if there are non-binding humans, this ambiguity is one of the things that did bother me) but there were a ton of different types. (Maybe too many if it's considered taboo to have a child with someone who isn't from your exact kinden; I mean the population of a given city can't be all that large considering the setting so I would expect everyone to have a pretty high inbreeding coefficient.... of course the author never describes the size of the population of the various towns and cities so who knows.) I didn't have an issue with the author’s vague descriptions of the characters that some readers did, I assumed humanoid except in the cases where the text explicitly mentioned bone spurs or claw hands. I imagined wings as not always there, but appearing and disappearing as needed. Tchaikovsky does a great job at making the various kinden unique, giving each species/race different abilities. Mantids (Mantis kinden) are superb fighters that take glory in battle with bone spurs on the forearms they can use as weapons. Wasps can fly (though not as gracefully as moths or dragonflies or other kinden), have dangerous tempers and can shoot energy beams (this is Art, not magic) from their hands, yeah they were the coolest. Ant kinden could link together like a hive mind, etc etc. This was probably the coolest concept in the book, as well as the best executed. Kunde varit så fantasifull med insekterna som utgångspunkt men så blev det som vilken actionrulle som helst med oändligt många och långa stridsscener. Förutsägbar i både handling och persongalleri. Fungerade att ha i bakgrunden när man jobbar och ändå inte lyssnar aktivt. ”Vad händer i insektsvörlden? Jaha, det är dags för strid igen”, eller ”håller de fortfarande på?”