The Ants Go Marching…

Warfare amongst the Kinden changed irrevocably after the Apt revolution, and continues to change with each artificer's refinements. In the Lowlands the main model for an army is that of the Ant-kinden, who hold themselves supreme in the field of mass combat ;(1). The other major Apt model is that of the Wasp Empire's many […]

About Shadows of the Apt

Adrian Tchaikovsky, fantasy author, due to be published in July 2008. A journal to plot a course through the writing and publication process, to help up-and-coming writers, to give an insight into the industry and, let's face it, to publicise the book, just a little? The novel is "Empire in Black and Gold", and has been picked up […]

Getting the Last Punch In

A brief diatribe on the Hollywood Fight Not some choreographed wrestling spectacular (1) but the way that your traditional action movie lumbers through its climactic hero/villain confrontation. Fantasy fiction has far, far more than its fair share of fighting. From duels to running skirmishes to vast set-piece battles and sieges (2), the genre is a fundamentally […]

Return to Earthsea

When I was a young lad the fantasy writing landscape was different to today's. Certainly, my fickle memory suggests there were fewer authors about, or certainly that were widely-enough published in this country to leap to the general attention. Terry Pratchett was a new development, for example, and aside from the obvious Mr T (1) there were a few […]

The Oozing Horror

A very brief interlude to say that I have found the name of horror, and it is “dried, sweetened pineapple”.   In a somewhat halfhearted attempt to be healthy I decided that, to snack on at work, I would purchase some dried fruit. Dried fruit – is there anything more wholesome and natural? (1). It comes in packets that […]