Varmen the Sentinel, of course, has his early history played out in Ironclads and The Last Ironclad.

Dal Arche and his little coterie of brigands first meet in An Old Man in a Harsh Season and another of their adventures is told in The Price of Salt.

Lowre Cean has a relatively small role in The Sun of the Morning, but his son, Lowre Darien, who gets some mention in Heirs, has his exploits told in The Prince.

Finally, the ghost story told by Avaris the Spider, towards the end of the book, can be found in its entirety here: The Dreams of Avaris

Enjoy!

Cities of Silver is the first outing for Doctor Ludweg Phinagler (1) who will hopefully return for a few more adventures later. He promises to be a useful vehicle to explore some corners of the kinden's world that the main plot won't have the change to seriously examine (indeed if anyone has anywhere in particular they would like the good doctor to go, by all means pipe up.)

It's also worth saying that I am obviously lying through my teeth about "short". This one ballooned into something more like a novella than a short story. The Doctor does tend to go on.

Finally, this story stands as an artifact within the kinden's world. It is a book (2) printed and sold in Collegium, and cheaply at that, in the general category of "awful books", originally stories to inspire awe, but more lately simply sensationalist unlikely stories. Hence the actual truth of anything that our narrator Fosse sets down should be treated with a pinch of mineral salts.

Nonetheless, the story can be found here. Enjoy.

(1) Anyone who has been obsessively reading this blog since Way Back™ may remember the distant genesis and inspiration here.

(2) or at least an English translation of one, I suppose.

So, it's opportune that I throw my own comedy Mi-go hat into the ring (2) and proudly announce that my first professional short story is coming out courtesy of Miskatonic River Press in a collection entitled Dead But Dreaming 2. This is not an insect-kinden story, obviously, but instead follows paranormal investigator Walther Cohen (3) as he delves into the sinister secrets of… The Dissipation Club. I'm particularly proud, as well, to say that this story was written for the Deadliners, the twice-yearly writer's group I go to, which shows that such groups are definitely worth it.

(1) Some of that Moomintroll **** is terrifying, man. The Hattifatteners will get you if you don't watch out.

(2) My friends went to Yuggoth and all they got me was this oh my god I'm a brain in a jar!

(3) I've written a few about Mr Cohen, and another such, with a less Cthulhoid feel, will hopefully appear in a new anthology edited by Andy Remic some time soon.

As well as the separate story I've written for Tor's proposed author anthology (no word on that yet), I am midway through a third which should get done before I need to start on book 9. This won't be prequel material, but instead a very definite exploration of an area I'm unlikely to go back to much in the series. Anyone who wanted a proper look into Lake Limnia, your time may yet come.

So: I leave you with The Last Ironclad.

(1) Either I get the title right from the start or it's always like a slightly ill-fitting piece of clothing, try as I might…

(2) Stenwold's flying visit in Salute the Dark notwithstanding.

One thing that is, to a certain extent, unavoidable, is that telling a story through individual stories results in compromise, and The Chains of Helleron isn't quite as self-contained and satisfactory as I'd like, for there is a certain proportion of it that only makes sense as a segment of a sequence — notably characters that are introduced but do not get much of the action. In the end I've settled for this, on the basis that there should be a third story along eventually that will help everything along. Working on the later books of the actual Shadows of the Apt series, I've discovered something similar in macrocosm. As the series grows, I am put to greater foreshadowing of future events in order to maintain the series structure. Each book will have its own story arc, its beginning and its end, but a certain amount of material will be unable to resolve, pending developments in later books.

You can find The Sun of the Morning here and, if you've not read it, do get it under your belt before attempting the new one.

After that, you can find The Chains of Helleron here.

(1) Yes, I know Black Company predates Band of Brothers (the book and the miniseries, albeit not the wartime experiences on which they are based).

Enjoy!

For those that didn't, and that do want a signed copy, watch this place. I have plans afoot.

It's been a while since the last new story went up, partly because of, you know, writing books'n'all, but also because of being unable for some reason to upload to the site, which is being looked into. I actually have two stories waiting to be popped on, so look forward to some more shortly.

So: go here for "The Price of Salt" which, in a blatant display of false advertising, isn't a sequel at all, but is arguably one of a series, for the first time, following up on the adventures of the four reprobates we met in "An Old Man in a Harsh Season". More on the content of Price in a moment. However…

One of the FAQs I get concerns the longevity and future of the series, so I thought I'd better set something out here to satisfy those people who want to know but haven't already read the yadda in an interview, and haven't asked themselves. Obviously, book 4 of the series has come out. A great many people seem to have been surprised by this, such surprise manifesting itself round about the middle of book 3 when it was clear thata any conclusion fo the "trilogy" would have to be horribly rushed.

There is nothing magic about trilogies. Ok, not entirely true. The basic story structure of beginning-middle-end obviously lends itself to a trilogy, which may be why many trilogies flag in the middle. However the fantasy genre got hooked on trilogies after Tolkien, and Mr T didn't intend to write one, instead producing a long book in six parts. I think the publishers decided to chop it into three, and so unleashed the trope that is still stalking about the place making a nuisance of itself. The two most prominent fantasy authors who were Tolkien's contemporaries — Lewis and Peake, neither of them had trilogies in mind (although the tragedy of Mervyn Peake's medical condition meant that Gormenghast ended up as a trilogy with a very odd last book (which I love(1)) he intended to write more. This is one of the great losses to literature as a whole, and to fantasy in particular.)

These days you get three book series, and you get series that aren't. Notably, the two biggest names in epic fantasy are looking far further — Erikson and Martin are both going for broke, with Erikson's 10th book due to round off the Malazon Book of the Dead, but still unlikely to close the pages of the world that he and Esselmont write in. So: Shadows of the Apt — also a 10 book series, if all goes according to plan(3). However there are plot arcs and plot arcs. Whilst the overshadowing plot will run from 1 to 10, the series itself will be subdivided into three segments (think not of trilogies, but of insects, after all). Salute the Dark brings the first segment to an end, and the next three books (and I'm getting beyond my brief here, because we're still in negotiations, but hey) will be a second plot arc, but slightly more stand-alone. If fortune favours me, books 8–10 will then be the final arc that will conclude matters. Will the world remain open for further writing(4)? You betcha.

Next topic then: Vampires.

Yeah, well, not exactly. Vampires have had a stranglehold (6) on the genre recently, or at least a sub-sub-sub-genre of vampire/supernatural romance seems to have been lording it around the place. Yes, yes, yes, the Mosquito-kinden are vampires, or rather magically-powerful blood-drinkers, as they're not undead in any way. However Uctebri surely owes Nosferatu for a few pointers, possibly through a filger of Shadow of the Vampire. If he's a vampire, he's old-school bald and creepy, yo (7).

However something's coming to hamstring the vampires and overtake them, I think, and it looks like it's werewolves, ever the cybermen to the vampire's dalek (8). At the SFX Weekender I ran into Steve Feasey, whose Changeling series is a young-adult take on the werewolf myth, and sounded pretty damn good from his reading — and sex, lots of sex (9). Vampires and werewolves are both still going strong, for one reason at least, because they have that undercurrent of sex, taboo, sweaty emotions, all that jazz.

Anyway, obviously no werewolves in Shadows of the Apt. No wolves, after all. Absolutely no way that I could do my own take on the lycanthrope legends in insect form…

So go read The Price of Salt and check the phase of the moon…

(1) An acting friend of mine one held up Richard E Grant's portrayal of Withnail as The Place That Actors Do Not Want To End Up (2). There is a similar cautionary tale for writers, and the character lives within the pages of Titus Alone, in the Under-River, surrounded by stacks and stacks of unsold copies of his book.

(2) Not the portrayal, which is masterful, but the despairing, wretched, battered and hopeless pride of poor damned Withnail on his terminal decline.

(3) There have been writers who have ended up with more books than their numbering knows what to do with, owing to unusually high page count — George RR Martin and Tad Williams, for two. I'm sure there are also authors whose publishers have slapped them and told them to stop it.

(4) Both mine and other peoples', I hope, as shown by some of the third-party stories on this site. Everything on the site is Shadows of the Apt Canon(5)

(5) Or leadshotter, at least.

(6) When it come to vampires I'll mix whatever damn metaphors I want.

(7) As I think one phrases it.

(8) Geekspasm

(9) Not explicit Janine Ashbless Black Lace sex, but from the bit he read, the series is very much aware of just how sexually-charged the whole werewolf thing is.

However, a new story detailing the murkier side of Collegium academia, because whilst the books are full of academics spying, fighting and dabbling in politics, I should at least show one token scholar who's actually doing something scholarly.

Herewith, then, The Naturalist.

(1) It'll need to grow to at least two shenanigans before that's viable.

There is a somewhat peculiar genesis for this particular story that centres on a live role-playing group that I and some friends created, and for which I wrote an extensive backstory at the time. As I quite liked what I'd written, but couldn't exactly publish it more widely in its original form, I've taken some of the plot points and adapted them for this story, and its (hopeful) sequels. We'll see how it works out.

Anyway, on that point, I should probably give a nod of thanks towards, particularly, Dave Young, Jamie Jones, Kieran Walker, Andy Hodgson and Dave Huxter, and of course the inimitable Andy Connell.

The story is here, and please enjoy.