The Insect of the Tragic Amours

So said Jean-Henri Fabre when describing the praying mantis, and Tisamon is no exception. So it's Mantis month this month, and you can find David's artwork here and the Mantis story, The Prince, here. The flagship Mantis-kinden in Empire in Black and Gold is Tisamon, of course, but he's not exactly a typical Mantis for a number of […]

Mantis-kinden, by David Mumford

 You'll find the latest piece of art by David here A relic of the dark ages before the revolution, Mantis-kinden were once the great fighting power in the world. Even though their time has passed and they field no armies and seldom take an interest in the world, they remain unequalled killers, swift and deadly […]

The Prince, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  The latest Shadows of the Apt short story is to be found here. A lot of this batch of stories are, as you may have noticed, taking place specifically up in the Commonweal during the Twelve-years War with the Empire, a conflict over before Empire in Black and Gold starts, and taking place in lands […]

New short story: Fallen Heroes by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Most of the short Shadows of the Apt fiction on this site will touch on the main series, even if sometimes only peripherally. It is entirely possible that Varmen or Averis may at some point cross the pages of a future volume. However, with a nod to the fact that Balkus the Ant was the lead in […]

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 […]

Dark Days

All this was prehistory. The unspoken pact with the monster insects that ensured humanity’s survival, and the subsequent development of the Art, is all lost to the mists of time. Not even the longest memories, not even the most complete records, bear witness. What is certain is that, having chosen a side, mankind collaborated in the […]