Seventeen flavours of news : Shadows of the Apt

Seventeen flavours of news

Firstly, regarding the advent of the Great Aethernet Adventure, if you hop over to its site you can see fellow author Ian Whates getting a grilling.

Also, the regular paperback sized Air War is out and to mark it, my usual blogging has been somewhat diverted to the Tor UK site. Therefore, there's a double dose of bloggery goodness, and I invite you to:

Epic Steam — Shadows of the Apt and Steampunk.

The Politics of Insects — fantasy, conservatism, feudal systems and a little David Brin thrown in for good measure.

I am currently working through the final proofs of War Master's Gate, always the most gruelling part of the business. Necessary, though, as I suspect Seda wouldn't appreciate being described as the "Emopress". Speaking of War Master's Gate, Alan Brooks' superb cover has at least been unveiled, at last giving Stenwold his place in the sun (or, in this case, fireball).

I have it in mind to do a sciency post next, but that's going to take some time to work up to, given current commitments. But serious bloggation is likely to be perpetrated soon.

And finally: my next engagement, Eastercon in Bradford. If you're there, please don't hesitate to grab me for a chat, to sign books, buy me drinks, whatever.

Posted by Adrian Tchaikovsky on March 2nd, 2013

Posted in Blog, Home

Tags: Events, news, Rants

30 Comments

30 comments to “Seventeen flavours of news”

Roderick, March 4th, 2013 at 5:22 pm:

Do we get to guess who's on the cover of Seal of the Worm?
My bet's on Seda.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, March 4th, 2013 at 6:07 pm:

I should probably act all mysterious about it, and it's not 100% confirmed yet (the manuscript only just having been delivered to Tor) but you're spot on the money, as far as current plans go.
adamk, March 5th, 2013 at 10:16 am:

Anyone at all read my last com about merchandise lol
Wicked Woodpecker of the West, March 5th, 2013 at 10:03 pm:

Is there any chances that we would see final trilogy books with old-style covers?
Adrian Tchaikovsky, March 5th, 2013 at 10:36 pm:

I can say a fairly definite no to that. Out of my hands I'm afraid.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, March 5th, 2013 at 10:37 pm:

Sorry — merchandise isn't something I know much about doing, or would be likely to have time to make happen. Nice idea though.
Wicked Woodpecker of the West, March 5th, 2013 at 11:08 pm:

Sad. Sad. Sad.
I assume those almost-old-style cover of Polish edition:

http://www.rebis.com.pl/rebis/import/books/K5420/coverbig.jpg

isn't Jon Sullivan's work, is it?
Adrian Tchaikovsky, March 5th, 2013 at 11:49 pm:

Damn, I never saw that before! I suspect not Sullivan, but it's interesting to see unique Polish covers for the first time!
adamk, March 7th, 2013 at 7:24 am:

How open to a franchisee for merchandise would u be if at all, sorry to waste ur time
SenorFeesh, March 12th, 2013 at 11:34 pm:

Absolutely love these books, seriously one of the best fantasy series I've read (and I'm never between books for longer than it takes to buy or borrow another one).

I'm working on a FATE role-playing system adaptation to run for my friends, and I was wondering if it would be possible to get a list of which Arts are available to the different Kinden?

I'm breaking it down into 'Mandatory/Signature' Arts (Ants' mind-link, Wasp stings), Common (Speech, Grip, Stealth) and Rare (Beetle flight, Wasp Mind-link) as examples. I've gotten a lot from my most recent re-reads, but I thought I'd appeal to the gamer in you and ask directly 🙂

Of course I'd be happy to send you a copy of the game when we've got it into a working form if you were interested.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, March 13th, 2013 at 12:06 am:

There is actually just such a list, back from when the setting was an RPG. I am slightly leery of limiting myself, so I'd have to call it provisional just in case I decided I desperately wanted all the Scorpions to be able to fly or something similarly daft. But yes, I'll see if I can dig it out. And I'd definitely be interested in a copy when it's done.
Roderick, March 13th, 2013 at 11:49 am:

Two thoughts.

SenorFeesh, could I make an appeal to you to put the fruits of your research into the wiki (link on the right).

Since we're talking about games, I spent some time constructing various armies that would work with the Battleground system. Is there any interest in seeing them?
adamk, March 14th, 2013 at 2:25 am:

Senorfeesh would u be open to out side players
adamk, March 14th, 2013 at 2:34 am:

I love the series so much am considering becoming a full-time beattle as this is the kinden most fitting my frame avg height stocky build muscular, already started sourcing clothing of the general SOTA universe
SenorFeesh, March 14th, 2013 at 10:47 am:

Adrian, thank you so much for that 🙂 I don't know if you were planning to do a blog post with it or email it (I assume you have access to commenter's emails?)

Roderick, I have no real idea how to edit a wiki; if you'd like once I finish collating the data from my Kindle I could send you the info-dump.

Adam, much as I love getting new players in, the main problem would be one of proximity — I'm going to be running this for my regular weekly gaming group, and we all meet up in person to play (it's not an online game). Plus, our regular group is already a little bigger than average (usually about 7 of us, but 10 if everyone shows :S)
Adrian Tchaikovsky, March 14th, 2013 at 9:20 pm:

http://shadowsoftheapt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/insect-art.pdf — this is a very, very rough list based on my original game notes. There may be stuff I added for the books that I'm overlooking. In the original game there were various levels of a lot of the skills, which is why some lists are shorter than others — some kinden have their art more focused on certain things.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, March 14th, 2013 at 9:22 pm:

Incidentally, I have had great success running games (and playing in them) over the internet, using Skype or a problem like Mumble/Teamspeak, and using Gametable (http://gametableproj.sourceforge.net/) for dice and maps (there are various similar programs also).
Chris, March 15th, 2013 at 6:21 pm:

So Che has both the arts from the Rare section for Beetle Kinden.

Guess now we know where all her skill points went.
adamk, March 16th, 2013 at 6:59 am:

Just read through the art list and come across the firefly my fav bug and I can't recall one in the series have I missed them
Adrian Tchaikovsky, March 16th, 2013 at 3:41 pm:

There's a very minor one in book 2, and a more important one in The Air War.
Roderick, March 18th, 2013 at 10:41 am:

Adam : http://shadowsoftheapt.wikia.com/wiki/Gaff

There's your firefly 🙂

I've updated it for the confirmation.

Adrian: Can I enquire, while you're being informative, are Fire Ants just Ants with a different name, or are they a separate kinden?
Vesy, March 19th, 2013 at 9:52 pm:

Hi! 🙂 I just want to say that i absolutely adore your books,Mr.Tchaikovsky.A very few books in my life have impressed me so much.Your world is marvelous and interesting.My favourite female character is Che. When i red "Empire In Black And Gold" for the first time,she was the reason to go on. The thing i love most about her is that she is so brave and goodhearted and very very cute. I hope we'll see her and Thalric again in "War Master's Gate". And it's great that you joined them.It is very romantic.
I'm also very exited about magic and the old days before the Apt.It will be pretty cool if you write prequels about that. The part where Gjegevey was telling Seda about the Seal of the worm was especially interesting. 🙂
Adrian Tchaikovsky, March 19th, 2013 at 11:55 pm:

The Seal of the Worm is one thing I can guarantee you'll find out more about.
Daniel, April 2nd, 2013 at 9:52 pm:

Is there also a new edition of Heirs of Blade going to be published? I saw some pictures with a new cover floating online.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, April 4th, 2013 at 1:50 pm:

There is a Brooks cover to Heirs of the Blade, but I think Tor are waiting on it, as the original Sullivan cover wasn't really that long ago (especially if you count the smaller size release).
Daniel, April 4th, 2013 at 4:07 pm:

Thanks for the answer. Eagerly awaiting it :).
Cynthia Armistead, May 5th, 2013 at 8:40 am:

I seem to be completely unable to get hold of The Air War in the U.S. Is it not being published here, or just not yet? What about ebooks?

Thank you!
Adrian Tchaikovsky, May 5th, 2013 at 11:04 am:

The US rights to the Air War haven't been taken up as yet, and so you should be able to get hold of the UK edition (or Canadian, maybe?) in the US via anywhere that deals with imported books. Similarly, I can't think why you shouldn't be able to buy the UK e‑book — it's only if the e‑book rights have been bought up that the UK one should be unavailable in the US, or that's my understanding. For me, it shows up on Amazon.com, for instance, but I'm aware that might just be that Amazon knows I'm in the UK, and a US visitor would get different results on the site.
DylanTheFanboy, June 19th, 2013 at 12:42 pm:

I fortuitiously bumped into the Air War at an airPORT in New Zealand: Needless to say, there was much jumping for joy and toothy grinning. Shadows of the Apt is solidly among my Top 5 sci-fi/fantasy 🙂
With reference to the gaming system for Art above, what about the slug and assassin bug kinden?

Additionally, are the centipede kinden popping up (pun not intended) anytime soon?
Adrian Tchaikovsky, June 19th, 2013 at 6:30 pm:

As far as the Centipedes go, it's very much Watch This Space.

Shadows of the Apt