Another perspective on the Twelve-year War, starring the Roach-kinden Sfayot. This story has two influences: Conrad's Heart of Darkness (and Apocalypse Now that followed it) and the track "Mercutio's Death" from the 2nd soundtrack volume (i.e. the primarily score volume rather than the song album) to Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, which only goes to show how […]
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, […]
This is a première for the Shadows of the Apt site: the very first guest writer's story. This month I give to you The Scent of Tears by Keris McDonald, who writes:
"Keris McDonald is an established genre writer with 5 books to her name … Just not in this genre. And not her real-life name either, actually. She was delighted […]
To coincide with the publication of Dragonfly Falling I recently interviewed Adrian about the world behind the Shadows of the Apt and what readers might expect from the new book.
So, without further ado, you can listen to the podcast in its various forms on the Pan Macmillan podcast page.
Alternatively you can download it. Enjoy!
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So, after confirming that I wouldn't be using major characters from the books in these, here's a story about Hokiak. Well, perhaps he's not a maincharacter, but he certainly is persistent.
This story has nothing whatsoever to do with postmodernist twentieth century poetry, and most especially nothing to do with TS Eliot(1). However, Eliot exerts a strange fascination on the […]
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 […]
This is one of my favourites, of the kinden stories I've posted up here, although it is something of a change of pace.
There are three people in particular I should acknowledge, on the road to Queen of the Night. The first is a Mr Mozart, of whom you may have heard, whose contribution to the story is, hopefully, obvious. […]
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 […]
This month's story is a delve into the history of Collegium and the Beetle-kinden, taking place a generation before the events in Empire in Black and Gold. The world of Empire is the immediate product of the world shown in this story, from the advances of the Apt to Collegium's burgeoning conflict with the Ant-kinden of neighbouring […]
Industrious and adaptable, the Beetle-kinden are the Lowlands’ great innovators, forever labouring to improve their lot. Merchants and artisans, scholars and artificers, their tireless drive for progress has driven forward the boundaries of technology and trade through an interplay of philanthropy and ruthless self-interest. Beetles truly embody the best and worst of the post-revolution world, […]
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