Anyway:

All maps are the work of Hemesh Alles.

The Lowlands, showing the Three City Alliance

The East-Empire and the Exalsee

The South and West-Empire and the Dominion of Khanaphes

The Spiderlands

And last, for now, the Commonweal, as a sneak preview from Heirs of the Blade.

Firstly, I will be at Fantasycon 2011 this year (1) and I've been asked to sit on a panel on Trends in Fantasy Fiction, 10am Saturday. I will hopefully be essaying a reading too, as the five people who came to the last one at Alt Fiction seemed to enjoy it (2). Reading, if it goes ahead, will either be the section of The Air War or a new short story.

Secondly, cheap kindling!  In that there is an Amazon offer for the Kindle version of Empire in Black and Gold that can be found here. Ideal present for someone who hasn't read it, might like it, and has a Kindle thingie.

Finally, and most momentously…

NEW COVER ART

Although mentioning the above in the header probably killed that as a surprise reveal, the earlier Shadows of the Apt volumes are getting something of a remodel. The new editions will be trade paperback format (to fit with the the upcoming release of Heirs of the Blade and feature completely new art by Alan Brooks. So far designs for Empire and Dragonfly are in the pipeline:

The new editions should be out around March 2012.

And finally finally finally, and just so I've not been blowing my own trumpet for the whole post, I have just finished reading Dan Abnett's recent novel Embedded, and good lord it is good. Go get yourself a copy if you haven't already.

(1) because being at Fantasycon 2011 any other year would be stupid.

(2) In all fairness that was about how many the room sat.

Just behold, that's all.

Courtesy of the very talented Mr Sullivan.

Enjoy!

As posted elsewhere, Kekejefferis has painted Cheerwell Maker on Deviantart here.

There are small city-states of Bee-kinden in surprisingly many places. They are a quiet, industrious people who do their best not to trouble their neighbours. Bees work tirelessly for Spider overlords in the south, and cling to the inhospitable western coast. Most of all, however, Bee-kinden are slaves of the Empire. They are an Apt people, but they lack the fierce martial fervour and ambition of the Ants, and especially of the Wasps. The Bee-kinden of Szar, especially, are key to the Empire's western expansion. With their queen held captive in the Emperor's harem they are reckoned more loyal to the Wasp throne than most Wasps themselves.

Scorpion-kinden live lives of violence, greed and savage joy. Raiders, traders, slave-takers and mercenaries, they can be found making a brutal living across the Empire, the Spiderlands and the eastern Lowlands. Clawed and belligerent, they respect only strength. For the old, the weak, the infirm of purpose, there is only death or flight. So it is that a few more enterprising Scorpion-kinden are found scratching a living beyond the reach of their kin. There is no other way for them to enjoy a long retirement.

The Moth-kinden were once the dark masters of the Lowlands, holding the lesser races as their slaves. Then the revolution came and their power was broken by the new weapons and machines that their former subjects devised, and that they could not understand. Now, centuries later, they plot and argue in their mountain fastnesses, clinging to the ancient magic that failed them. Libraries of hidden knowledge surround them, the secrets of the dark ages before the revolution, and all of it unable to restore their world to them.