Book Review: Blood of the Mantis, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Book three of Shadows of the Apt.
Tor Books, 2009, 429 pages
Blood of the Mantis is the third novel in Adrian Tchaikovsky's richly imagined Shadows of the Apt series, following Dragonfly Falling. Stenwold must rally his allies for battle against the Empire, even as it seeks a dangerous artifact of enormous power.
A dread ritual casts a deadly shadow....
Achaeos the seer has finally tracked down the stolen Shadow Box. But he has only days before this magical artefact will be lost to him forever. Meanwhile, the Empire's dread forces are mustering for their next great offensive. Stenwold and his followers have only a short time to gather allies, before the enemy's soldiers march again - to conquer everything in their path. If Stenwold cannot hold them back, the hated black and gold flag will fly over every city in the Lowlands before the year's end.
Yet a more insidious threat awaits. Should the Shadow Box fall into the hands of the power-mad Emperor, nothing will save the world from his relentless ambition.
My review of this book may feel like damning with faint praise, as I felt like it was "workmanlike" - it's book three of a ten-book epic fantasy series and I'd be amazed if Adrian Tchaikovsky (who is one of those prolific writers like Stephen King and Brandon Sanderson who churns out multiple books a year) could write an amazing book ten times in a row. So Blood of the Mantis is a perfectly good read and feels like a substantial progression in the series, not just filler and not a flop, but I kind of doubt it will stand out to me among all ten volumes when I finish Shadows of the Apt.
In the Shadows of the Apt world, humans ("humans") are divided into a multitude of insect "kinden" races. Wasps, Ants, Beetles, Dragonflies, Spiders, Flies, and Mantises are among the most numerous we've seen so far, but new ones are introduced each book, from the mysterious and sinister Mosquitoes to the last surviving Assassin Bug. Each kinden has personality traits and special abilities reflecting their insect nature, but in Blood of the Mantis, we see a little more variation. Some Beetles aren't builders, and some Wasps aren't warriors.
The story continues to be primarily about the Wasp Empire's continued expansion. Having evolved from squabbling hill tribes only a few generations ago, the Wasps are now the Romans of this world, but they're a sneakier Rome with a lot more subterfuge, conquering near neighbors by force while sending traders and diplomats to far corners of the known world to spread money and good vibes, because of course the Empire will never reach this far, right? They just want to make friends and do some business, who cares what they're doing on the other side of those mountains...
Stenwold Maker, a valiant Beetle, has been warning his neighbors about the Wasps for twenty years. Now they've come to make war, and Stenwold is the unwilling defacto leader of the resistance, trying to pull together Beetles, Ants, Bees, Mantises, and Dragonflies in an unlikely alliance. Chapters skip across multiple POVs in different parts of the world, all of which involve a diverse cast resisting the Wasps in various ways. There is much skullduggery, some steampunkish technology, and a bit of mysticism. The Wasp Emperor, as the putative Big Bad of the series, gets his own chapters, plotting to effect his own immortality, as evil emperors do. This, engineered by a Mosquito sorcerer, is obviously not going to go well and seems to be leading to some even greater evil emerging than the Wasps and their armies.
There was a lot of action and a lot of plot twists, but not much focus on any one character, so I didn't find Stenwold or the rest of the cast from the first two books quite as interesting this time around. Thalric, the Wasp officer who has now become a defector, and the Emperor's sister both have very compelling side plots going on and are intriguing characters in their own right, but this book was clearly written to advance the story and not to feature the characters.
Tchaikovsky has written a very readable series and I'm pretty sure I'm going to read all ten books. He does lots of crafting and invests characters and races with enough uniqueness to be interesting without quite making them RPG character templates. However, I'd like to see some big things that will make the next book more memorable, as this one just felt like another chapter in a very long volume.
Also by Adrian Tchaikovsky: My reviews of Children of Time, Children of Ruin, Empire in Black and Gold, Dragonfly Falling, The Expert System's Brother, The Expert System's Champion, and Made Things.
My complete list of book reviews.
Tor Books, 2009, 429 pages
Blood of the Mantis is the third novel in Adrian Tchaikovsky's richly imagined Shadows of the Apt series, following Dragonfly Falling. Stenwold must rally his allies for battle against the Empire, even as it seeks a dangerous artifact of enormous power.
A dread ritual casts a deadly shadow....
Achaeos the seer has finally tracked down the stolen Shadow Box. But he has only days before this magical artefact will be lost to him forever. Meanwhile, the Empire's dread forces are mustering for their next great offensive. Stenwold and his followers have only a short time to gather allies, before the enemy's soldiers march again - to conquer everything in their path. If Stenwold cannot hold them back, the hated black and gold flag will fly over every city in the Lowlands before the year's end.
Yet a more insidious threat awaits. Should the Shadow Box fall into the hands of the power-mad Emperor, nothing will save the world from his relentless ambition.
My review of this book may feel like damning with faint praise, as I felt like it was "workmanlike" - it's book three of a ten-book epic fantasy series and I'd be amazed if Adrian Tchaikovsky (who is one of those prolific writers like Stephen King and Brandon Sanderson who churns out multiple books a year) could write an amazing book ten times in a row. So Blood of the Mantis is a perfectly good read and feels like a substantial progression in the series, not just filler and not a flop, but I kind of doubt it will stand out to me among all ten volumes when I finish Shadows of the Apt.
In the Shadows of the Apt world, humans ("humans") are divided into a multitude of insect "kinden" races. Wasps, Ants, Beetles, Dragonflies, Spiders, Flies, and Mantises are among the most numerous we've seen so far, but new ones are introduced each book, from the mysterious and sinister Mosquitoes to the last surviving Assassin Bug. Each kinden has personality traits and special abilities reflecting their insect nature, but in Blood of the Mantis, we see a little more variation. Some Beetles aren't builders, and some Wasps aren't warriors.
The story continues to be primarily about the Wasp Empire's continued expansion. Having evolved from squabbling hill tribes only a few generations ago, the Wasps are now the Romans of this world, but they're a sneakier Rome with a lot more subterfuge, conquering near neighbors by force while sending traders and diplomats to far corners of the known world to spread money and good vibes, because of course the Empire will never reach this far, right? They just want to make friends and do some business, who cares what they're doing on the other side of those mountains...
Stenwold Maker, a valiant Beetle, has been warning his neighbors about the Wasps for twenty years. Now they've come to make war, and Stenwold is the unwilling defacto leader of the resistance, trying to pull together Beetles, Ants, Bees, Mantises, and Dragonflies in an unlikely alliance. Chapters skip across multiple POVs in different parts of the world, all of which involve a diverse cast resisting the Wasps in various ways. There is much skullduggery, some steampunkish technology, and a bit of mysticism. The Wasp Emperor, as the putative Big Bad of the series, gets his own chapters, plotting to effect his own immortality, as evil emperors do. This, engineered by a Mosquito sorcerer, is obviously not going to go well and seems to be leading to some even greater evil emerging than the Wasps and their armies.
There was a lot of action and a lot of plot twists, but not much focus on any one character, so I didn't find Stenwold or the rest of the cast from the first two books quite as interesting this time around. Thalric, the Wasp officer who has now become a defector, and the Emperor's sister both have very compelling side plots going on and are intriguing characters in their own right, but this book was clearly written to advance the story and not to feature the characters.
Tchaikovsky has written a very readable series and I'm pretty sure I'm going to read all ten books. He does lots of crafting and invests characters and races with enough uniqueness to be interesting without quite making them RPG character templates. However, I'd like to see some big things that will make the next book more memorable, as this one just felt like another chapter in a very long volume.
Also by Adrian Tchaikovsky: My reviews of Children of Time, Children of Ruin, Empire in Black and Gold, Dragonfly Falling, The Expert System's Brother, The Expert System's Champion, and Made Things.
My complete list of book reviews.