The Scent of Tears, by Keris McDonald : Shadows of the Apt

The Scent of Tears, by Keris McDonald

This is a première for the Shadows of the Apt site: the very first guest writer's story. This month I give to you The Scent of Tears by Keris McDonald, who writes:

"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.

Posted by Adrian Tchaikovsky on March 6th, 2009

Posted in Stories

Tags: Bees, wasps

5 Comments

5 comments to “The Scent of Tears, by Keris McDonald”

Busy, busy : Shadows of the Apt, March 6th, 2009 at 8:34 pm:

[…] Somewhat disjointed owing to the fact that I’m knee deep in the Blood of the Mantis (or at least its edits) at the moment, but nonetheless. This month is nominally National Bee-kinden month, and I should have some accompanying art soonish. However, as a very special treat, the story this month is the first from a guest writer, in particular Keris McDonald, who has a particular treat in store with The Scent of Tears. Find the story here. […]
Trey, April 6th, 2009 at 9:19 pm:

Interesting. Almost a mantis play in the tragedy that plays out there. Not entirely to my tastes, but good. I'd have wished for more of the bees on center stage.
Moon, September 1st, 2009 at 3:39 pm:

wow tragic story there… but I liked learning some social stuff about the wasps. Love the idea of bees having perfume guilds… suits them well.
one thing i liked about this story is the part where the bees swarming the wasp was mentioned. I was quite curious about it and decided to look into it and voila http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6m40W1s0Wc&feature=related
Fascinating stuff there, insects are awesome along with their ingenuity.

One thing to mention, wasps keep miniature aspects of their insects as valuable and prized pets, do other kinden do the same or do most pick other exotic insects as pets? I mean most people i guess would prefer a firefly, crickets than a grubby old beetle. And are there certain insects that are taboo to keep as pets? Like centipedes would be frowned upon in the Commonweal…
sarah, December 16th, 2011 at 2:39 pm:

loved this story. But i have to admit, that its the one thing that bothers me about the wasps; with all the art and spirit their men have, why would the wasp woman put up with their place in life?it just doesnt make sense to me that there isn't one wasp female character who looses her temper, fights back, or practices the violent defiance you'd expect of the breed. Even Seda gets the opportunity to take power more by luck than anything else, and reins in her very wasp nature to keep it.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, December 17th, 2011 at 8:28 pm:

Good question, complex answer. It's a situation that developed over centuries of prehistory in their culture, and I'd hazard that, once you start on a slightly patriarchal society, the fact that women were (or became) so dangerous would either result in a solid levelling of the playing field, or the society becoming ruthlessly, oppressively patriarchal in order to keep women "in their place". You can be sure that there are serious penalties for women who let their stings off the leash in Imperial culture. However, of course it's not that simple. The Air War has some interest examples of Wasp women getting on by unconventional means.

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