Book Review: The Scarab Path, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The fifth book in the Shadows of the Apt series.
Tor, 2010, 692 pages
Ancient powers are waking....
The war with the Wasp Empire has ended in a bitter stalemate, and Collegium has nothing to show for it but wounded veterans. Cheerwell Maker finds herself broken in ways no doctor can mend, haunted by ghosts of the past. Meanwhile, the powerful Wasp Empress is regaining control over those imperial cities that refused to bow to her. But she draws her power from something more sinister than armies and war machines.
Only her consort, the former spymaster Thalric, knows the truth. As assassins seek to end him, he finds his life and his loyalties under threat once again. And in an ancient city beyond the desert, a terrible secret stirs beneath its stones.
Spoilers for previous books in the series
Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of the most underrated writers today. Yes, I know he's not exactly obscure, but still, he manages to pump out 10-book series at speeds rivaling Brandon Sanderson but with better prose, and I'm now five books deep into the Shadows of the Apt and I'm not bored yet.
The conceit of this series, that mankind is split into numerous bug "kinden," gives Tchaikovsky infinite opportunities to add more races, since there are a million different species of bugs. Some of them are "apt," meaning they can build and use technology, and some are "inapt," meaning they have arts of a more mystical bent. The world is slowly entering a sort of industrial age, but there are still ancient magical powers around.
At the end of the fourth book, Salute the Dark, the Wasp Emperor had been slain, the war between the Empire and Lowlands was (temporarily) ended, and Thalric, former officer and spymaster of the Wasp Empire and survivor of multiple double-crosses, had somehow wound up as the consort of the newly-crowned Wasp Empress, and was now an ambassador to the Collegium. You'd think things are looking up for him, but since the Wasp Empress is actually a (literally) bloodthirsty madwoman, he's not really much happier than he was when he was about to be executed.
The Scarab Path puts the main protagonist of the first four books, Stenwold Maker, in the background, and instead stars Stenwold's niece, Cheerwell Maker, who is grieving the death of her Moth lover in the previous book, and also the fact that the mystic bond between them has left her both haunted and transformed. She is now a rare, strange creature: an inapt Beetle. No longer able to understand the engineering and science that she has spent her life studying, she agrees to go on an expedition for her uncle to the strange city of Khanaphes, which is said to be ruled by a race of inapt Beetles. Thinking she might find people like herself, Cheerwell readily agrees, accompanied by several old friends, and by two Ant-kinden soldiers from the city of Vec, whom Stenwold is trying, without much success, to persuade into an alliance with the Collegium.
In Khanaphes, Cheerwell naturally runs into Thalric, who by author contrivance has also wound up there as a representative of the Empire. Khanaphes is supposedly ruled by ancient "Masters" from the time before the mystic Moths ruled the inapt. A desert city surrounded by hostile Scorpion-kinden raiders, it harbors many secrets which Cheerwell tries to uncover.
While it kept me engaged the entire time (Tchaikovsky is as good at characterization as he is at worldbuilding), there were parts of The Scarab Path that started to become a bit of a slog. The city siege that took up the last third of the book was starting to become just one battle after another, with hordes of Scorpions and Wasps fighting Beetle and Mantis defenders, and then we zoom down to the catacombs beneath the city and shit gets weird and more interesting at the very end. (Yes, there are more bugs.)
Some major character developments happen, including one we've seen coming with Thalric since the first book. Some more characters die. The world is moving closer to the inevitable next war with the Wasps, and a final reckoning from greater powers.
Also by : My reviews of Also by Adrian Tchaikovsky: My reviews of Children of Time, Children of Ruin, Children of Memory, Empire in Black and Gold, Dragonfly Falling, Blood of the Mantis, Salute the Dark, The Expert System's Brother, The Expert System's Champion, and Made Things.
.
My complete list of book reviews.
Tor, 2010, 692 pages
Ancient powers are waking....
The war with the Wasp Empire has ended in a bitter stalemate, and Collegium has nothing to show for it but wounded veterans. Cheerwell Maker finds herself broken in ways no doctor can mend, haunted by ghosts of the past. Meanwhile, the powerful Wasp Empress is regaining control over those imperial cities that refused to bow to her. But she draws her power from something more sinister than armies and war machines.
Only her consort, the former spymaster Thalric, knows the truth. As assassins seek to end him, he finds his life and his loyalties under threat once again. And in an ancient city beyond the desert, a terrible secret stirs beneath its stones.
Spoilers for previous books in the series
Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of the most underrated writers today. Yes, I know he's not exactly obscure, but still, he manages to pump out 10-book series at speeds rivaling Brandon Sanderson but with better prose, and I'm now five books deep into the Shadows of the Apt and I'm not bored yet.
The conceit of this series, that mankind is split into numerous bug "kinden," gives Tchaikovsky infinite opportunities to add more races, since there are a million different species of bugs. Some of them are "apt," meaning they can build and use technology, and some are "inapt," meaning they have arts of a more mystical bent. The world is slowly entering a sort of industrial age, but there are still ancient magical powers around.
At the end of the fourth book, Salute the Dark, the Wasp Emperor had been slain, the war between the Empire and Lowlands was (temporarily) ended, and Thalric, former officer and spymaster of the Wasp Empire and survivor of multiple double-crosses, had somehow wound up as the consort of the newly-crowned Wasp Empress, and was now an ambassador to the Collegium. You'd think things are looking up for him, but since the Wasp Empress is actually a (literally) bloodthirsty madwoman, he's not really much happier than he was when he was about to be executed.
The Scarab Path puts the main protagonist of the first four books, Stenwold Maker, in the background, and instead stars Stenwold's niece, Cheerwell Maker, who is grieving the death of her Moth lover in the previous book, and also the fact that the mystic bond between them has left her both haunted and transformed. She is now a rare, strange creature: an inapt Beetle. No longer able to understand the engineering and science that she has spent her life studying, she agrees to go on an expedition for her uncle to the strange city of Khanaphes, which is said to be ruled by a race of inapt Beetles. Thinking she might find people like herself, Cheerwell readily agrees, accompanied by several old friends, and by two Ant-kinden soldiers from the city of Vec, whom Stenwold is trying, without much success, to persuade into an alliance with the Collegium.
In Khanaphes, Cheerwell naturally runs into Thalric, who by author contrivance has also wound up there as a representative of the Empire. Khanaphes is supposedly ruled by ancient "Masters" from the time before the mystic Moths ruled the inapt. A desert city surrounded by hostile Scorpion-kinden raiders, it harbors many secrets which Cheerwell tries to uncover.
While it kept me engaged the entire time (Tchaikovsky is as good at characterization as he is at worldbuilding), there were parts of The Scarab Path that started to become a bit of a slog. The city siege that took up the last third of the book was starting to become just one battle after another, with hordes of Scorpions and Wasps fighting Beetle and Mantis defenders, and then we zoom down to the catacombs beneath the city and shit gets weird and more interesting at the very end. (Yes, there are more bugs.)
Some major character developments happen, including one we've seen coming with Thalric since the first book. Some more characters die. The world is moving closer to the inevitable next war with the Wasps, and a final reckoning from greater powers.
Also by : My reviews of Also by Adrian Tchaikovsky: My reviews of Children of Time, Children of Ruin, Children of Memory, Empire in Black and Gold, Dragonfly Falling, Blood of the Mantis, Salute the Dark, The Expert System's Brother, The Expert System's Champion, and Made Things.
.
My complete list of book reviews.