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).

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.

Grahame writes, of himself:

"

Well, what can I say about me? Just the usual sort of fluff. In 1792 I was washed up on the shore of southern Sumatra in a coffin-like box made of fused manatee bones. With no memory of my former life I was brought up by a family of  humanoid lizard haruspices and introduced in my teens to the discrete yet complimentary worlds of high fashion, the reading of entrails and gurning. Needless to say, I excelled at all.

On my 118^th birthday* I was sent out into the world to make my fortune, and when that didn’t particularly happen I turned to the written word as both solace and muse. I both wrote and appeared in several films by no-budget Internet shysters Shock! Horror! Probe! (Bikini Zombies From The Moon, for which I will probably be apologising for the rest of my days, and Shine Dog, in which you may see the exalted Shadows of the Apt author stretching his acting chops), and last year I was a top-10 runner up in SFX magazine’s annual short story competition Pulp Idol, with my fanciful tale “Mickey and the Nixies”. My first time in a book. I liked it. Roomy.

Since that exalted day I have, due to recurrent existential crises (AKA laziness) fallen back onto my twin vices of self-abuse and cooking sherry. Despite my Web presence, which embarrassingly remains to this day, I hold no truck with your Internets. I have no “web-sight” and I neither “twitter” nor “blog” though in the future this may change as my mayfly interest flits hither and yon, in the manner of a fist in search of a face.

Today my time is spent recumbent in a leatherette chaise-longue stuffed with the armpit fur of 10,000 ocelots, plugged into the collected works of Kajagoogoo, thinking fondly of days past. It is a simple life, but it suffices.

Enjoy the story, a fanciful tale which came to me in the manner of a dream. Though a dream with less to wipe up afterwards.

“Too shy-shy, hush hush…” Ah, poetry.

*My long life I ascribe to the vast consumption of Shipham’s Bloater fish paste and

the total avoidance of the sex act. By salubrious happenstance, the first leads naturally to the second."

Adam writes:

"I’m Adam. I write.

I suppose I’m a kind of Caliban in this brave new world; I don’t write a blog. I’ve never really learnt the knack. I do a little bit for Yog-Sothoth (the Bookshelf, on Yog Radio – look for it in the audio downloads at Yog-Sothoth.com if you’re feeling keen) but it’s not the same thing.

Now, I’m fondest of history, horror and crime, in that order. Exceptionally cunning readers might notice at least one of my sources. You probably won’t notice the other, which springs from an amateur’s interest in cypher. In this instance the cypher is based on telegraph code, which grew out of a desire to transmit as much information as possible as cheaply as possible. Since the charge was per word, the end result was that one small word could do extra duty, as per:

Enrique streamlet solstice turtle worthily

The ship Enrique is stranded but not seriously damaged, through the fault of the pilot. Tugs are assisting; more details to follow.

[see also ABC Telegraphic Code]

For those of you who want to know what else I’ve written , most of my published work is RPG based. I’ve written two articles for Pagan’s Unspeakable Oath (it can’t be dead if it eternal lies) and an article for Chaosium about Prohibition. For those more interested in history I can recommend my work on the 21 Club in New York, which can be found on their website 21club.com. I also heartily recommend the 21; it’s a friendly place, and one of my favorites.

Watch this space.

Curtain’s up! Enjoy the show."

Anyway, the story is here.

(1) in the sense of recondite

"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 be asked by Adrian to contribute to the world of the Insect Kinden. You can find her author blog at www.janineashbless.blogspot.com   Adults only please! — and the occasional picture does make it NSFW."

The link to the story is here.

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 that we're unlikely to actually see first hand for some time. So why?

Nothing in Empire makes sense without the Twelve-year war. Salma, for example, is a child of that war. He would have been around eight years old when it started. It dominated most of his life. His father and his foster-sister were both casualties of it, as were many other people he knew.

And then there's Thalric, whose duty committed him to atrocity in that same war, who was just a young officer when Myna was taken, but came out of the Commonweal clash a bloody-handed veteran.

But most importantly, there is the Empire. The Empire was already a great and accelerating force when it commenced its invasion of the Commonweal, but it was in its battles with the Dragonfly-kinden that it honed its skills, especially its new technologies. Those skills are now to be turned on Stenwold's people and the rest of the Lowlands.

And of course, it was a near thing, in the end, once Myna and its neighbouring cities were conquered. What a small change of strategy would have seen the imperial forces chasing Stenwold all the way back to Collegium seventeen years ago, rather than turning their attention north?

Download the story on PDF here