Shadows of the Apt series

By Sorien. 25/05/11, 11:38 pm

To the uninitiated, the Shadows of the Apt series are a series of books written by (and yes, there are quite a few variations on the spelling of his name) Adrian Tchaikovsky which involve a war that the Wasp empire are beginning to stir up, think world domination style. The races are personified insects, e.g. Wasp-kin, Beetle-kin, spider-kin etc etc. Each race has a few perks available to it, like ants I think can talk telepathically to each other (don't worry, you find that one out in about the first paragraph of the first chapter of the first book ^_^)

Here is a list of the individual books...I kinda stole it straight from Wiki

Empire in Black and Gold (2008), ISBN 978-0-230-73646-7
Dragonfly Falling (2009), ISBN 978-0-230-70415-2
Blood of the Mantis (2009), ISBN 978-0-230-70416-9
Salute the Dark (2010), ISBN 978-0-330-51144-5
The Scarab Path (2010), ISBN 978-0-330-51145-2
The Sea Watch (2011), ISBN 978-0-330-51146-9
Heirs of the Blade (2012), (forthcoming)
The Air War (2013), (forthcoming)

Just wondering if anyone has read these and what they think of them. I've only JUST picked up the first book. They really read well. I kinda found it to be a refreshing spin on the traditional fantasy races (Elves, Dwarves etc) even while some of the races I gather could be analogous to these races any way (e.g. Beetle-kin are somewhat similar in physical attributes as dwarves). If you want to talk about specifics of the story, please use the regular spoiler tags ^_^

By Sorien. 06/01/12, 07:31 am

This is kind of a bump...but not just that:

Heirs of the Blade has been released, and it's good. It follows on with the story well. I have read all of the first 7 books and they are fantastic. Highly recommend this series for fantasy fans.

By TinTango. 07/01/12, 09:59 pm

I started reading this series 4-5 years ago... I didnt realise there were this many books already! Actually what caught my attention was the beautiful artwork on the covers- the insect themed warrior outfits:

The wasp (top left) and the Mantis (top right) were the first two I saw.
Would love to cosplay this one day, once Im a pro at armour.

By Sorien. 08/01/12, 07:16 am

Nice, I hadn't given much thought to Cosplaying as one of these races before. Would be interesting. Continuing on your descriptions, the one in the middle of the top row is a Dragonfly, the bottom left is a bettle lady and the bottom right is a moth. If you blow the moth picture up, you'll see he has no pupils in his eyes etc, and they're very pasty.