The Sound of Spiders (and free audiobook competition!)

  I am delighted to announce that the audiobook of Children of Time is right now available from Audible. You can find it here read by the very able Mel Hudson. I am also informed that Audiobooks of The Tiger and the Wolf and Guns of the Dawn are planned direct from Pan Macmillan who are now recording their own. This is […]

Faculties of Literature

Literacy in Collegium is close to one hundred percent. Indeed, literacy across the Lowlands is extremely high. Collegium's academic credentials have a lot to do with this. The College and the Assembly ensure that a basic education is available for all, and charitable institutions such as the Way Brothers provide schools in Helleron and other cities. However […]

Short story — Loyalties by Adrian Tchaikovsky

To go with David's art, here's a story about Ant-kinden in general, and one Ant-kinden in particular. Balkus, Scuto's renegade Sarnesh friend, is only a bit-player in Empire in Black and Gold, but he has more important things ahead of him in Dragonfly Falling. here then is a chapter from his earlier days, making a living as a mercenary up and down […]

Short Story: The Dreams of Avaris, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

To complement David's Spider-kinden artwork, here's the promised spidery story. Download the story on PDF here

New kinden art: Spider-kinden by David Mumford

In the "kinden" section (and also in the Art section) there's a new piece by David Mumford showing the Spider-kinden in their glory, and this will soon be complemented by a piece of original fiction that follows one such devious individual on a journey through the war-torn Commonweal. Spider-kinden don't make much of a showing in Empire in Black […]

Spider-kinden

Art by David Mumford The elegant and machiavellian Spider-kinden rule a vast coalition across the sea, where they live in luxury and riches un-dreamt of by Lowlanders, or at least their women rule, and their men do as they're told. Spiders are their own worst enemies, however, and the great Aristoi families are constantly scheming to […]

Meet the Neighbours part 2: The Spiderlands

The Spiderlands’ relationship to its Lowlander neighbours has always been a complicated one. For a start, few Lowlanders really understand either the extent of the Spiderlands or how it works. To the Lowlanders, the Spiderlands is exemplified in the cities of Seldies, Everis and, further south, Siennis, that sit at the south-east corner of the Lowlands. In […]