Shadows of the Apt

So… I'm standing in a block of perhaps twenty men and women forming a compact fist at the centre of the battle-line. Around us, our fellow countrymen make the numbers up to a couple of hundred, arrayed behind and to either side of us with an order that few of our allies can match. The front rank are […]

Just a brief catch up here of Shadows of the Apt-related news. Firstly, the reason this isn't a proper post is that my postage is playing away, with a guest article over at Speculative Horizons about films, books, the and the film of the book, with special reference to Hawke the Slayer. Next you should most definitely head over […]

To coincide with the publication of Dragonfly Falling I recently interviewed Adrian about the world behind the Shadows of the Apt and what readers might expect from the new book. So, without further ado, you can listen to the podcast in its various forms on the Pan Macmillan podcast page. Alternatively you can download it. Enjoy!

There's a Bloom County (1) cartoon sequence where Opus the penguin has written his autobiography, "A Penguin's Tale"(2). Having finished it he sets up for a local signing, making his elaborate preparations amidst stacks of copies of his book. His sole attendee is a cockroach (appropriately enough for my purposes) who charges in demanding "Does he sign body parts?" It's […]

Last of the nine kinden who play a significant part in Empireare the Scorpions. Significant? Well perhaps their significance is their non-appearance. There are plenty of them, and they keep turning up and showing their nasty, toothy faces, and yet what impact do they make? The Scorpions care nothing for empires, for borders, morality, politics or […]

So, after confirming that I wouldn't be using major characters from the books in these, here's a story about Hokiak. Well, perhaps he's not a maincharacter, but he certainly is persistent. This story has nothing whatsoever to do with postmodernist twentieth century poetry, and most especially nothing to do with TS Eliot(1). However, Eliot exerts a strange fascination on […]

Scorpion-kinden live lives of violence, greed and savage joy. Raiders, traders, slave-takers and mercenaries, they can be found making a brutal living across the Empire, the Spiderlands and the eastern Lowlands. Clawed and belligerent, they respect only strength. For the old, the weak, the infirm of purpose, there is only death or flight. So it is […]

First of all I abjure, conjure and invoke you to go out and buy the Feb/March issue (issue 17) of the magazine Death Ray, for therein I have an article. Look at me the serious journalist. So: the Adrian Tchaikovsky world tour 2009 part 1(1) commences shortly. Please come along if you're in the area. I'll be […]

It's the turn of the Moth-kinden this week, turning up at the eleventh hour as they always do. David Mumford has produced another of his masterworks here, whilst there's a new short story, Queen of the Night, here. To very loosely accompany the story, there is a new kinden article, concerning the intellectual life of the Lowlands, […]

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 […]