Shadows of the Apt

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!

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 […]

This is one of my favourites, of the kinden stories I've posted up here, although it is something of a change of pace. There are three people in particular I should acknowledge, on the road to Queen of the Night. The first is a Mr Mozart, of whom you may have heard, whose contribution to the story is, hopefully, […]

    The Moth-kinden were once the dark masters of the Lowlands, holding the lesser races as their slaves. Then the revolution came and their power was broken by the new weapons and machines that their former subjects devised, and that they could not understand. Now, centuries later, they plot and argue in their mountain […]

This month's story is a delve into the history of Collegium and the Beetle-kinden, taking place a generation before the events in Empire in Black and Gold. The world of Empire is the immediate product of the world shown in this story, from the advances of the Apt to Collegium's burgeoning conflict with the Ant-kinden of neighbouring […]

Industrious and adaptable, the Beetle-kinden are the Lowlands’ great innovators, forever labouring to improve their lot. Merchants and artisans, scholars and artificers, their tireless drive for progress has driven forward the boundaries of technology and trade through an interplay of philanthropy and ruthless self-interest. Beetles truly embody the best and worst of the post-revolution world, […]

 You'll find the latest piece of art by David here A relic of the dark ages before the revolution, Mantis-kinden were once the great fighting power in the world. Even though their time has passed and they field no armies and seldom take an interest in the world, they remain unequalled killers, swift and deadly […]

  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 […]

Another of David's pieces, this time his take on the ubiquitous Fly-kinden. Diminutive Fly-kinden live everywhere in the Lowlands and beyond. Clannish and pragmatic, and unrivalled in the air, they form a thriving underclass wherever they go: cheap labour for the Beetles, servants for the Spiders, military scouts for the Wasps. Fly-kinden are the world’s great […]