The wasps are an implacable and vast, vast army, an empire made up of slaves, slaves, and yet more slaves. This is a foe that makes me feel a knee-jerk reaction. Hell, most of the arguments made up of those still living in the lands that haven't been taken over make it sound like the ramblings of ignorant peeps in the face of the Chinese. All the stereotypes are still in effect: clever, devoted to their ideology, and you know the trope. Don't get me wrong, there are some great arcs in this book alone, but they never get into a territory of being especially deep or layered. But that doesn't always need to be the case and can also evolve pretty easily in the sequels. They get the point across, you root for them and relate at most times. With a multitude of races (insect-aspects), naturally comes a multitude of conflict. Fear, ignoring danger for profit, crucifying religion for reason, racism, etc. It makes for a very engaging fantasy book. The issues are tangible and real, without feeling arbitrarily political. At it’s core, EMPIRE is an extremely thoughtful book while telling an entertaining tale. And, like I was saying before, there’s the featureless plains between the faraway cities, the Dryclaw Desert (ugh), the Great Barrier Ridge, Spiderlands and Tharn in the mountains. The landscape in the Lowlands is so boring, so featureless, we literally fly over it at one point.

Thalric is one of the most interesting characters in the book, though he is of a type: the member of the Empire who is starting to doubt his role as the dutiful servant and merciless soldier and spy. He claims to value the Empire above all else, but putting children to the sword doesn’t sit well with him, and he isn’t too certain about slavery, either. Although he’s a fairly standard character for an Empire-based fantasy, his depth of insight is compelling. I am not a fan of how he depicts swordfights, chases, general battles and the likes... It feels disconnected in a way and not "exciting"... But maybe that is just me being spoiled by all the great action-writers I read at the moment...Relying on a simple premise as this, gives you a large amount of advantages as an author, that you would otherwise have to be very careful about, and especially as a first time author get you into some problems or inconsistancies. The world is massive, the cultures rich and come in all shapes and forms. Add the uniqueness of the setting and main worldbuilding premise, and I was instantly hooked. There are some philosophical comments like when Aagen, a Wasp soldier says to Salma: “… next time you shed my kinden’s blood, think o. This: we are but men, no less no more than other men, and we strive and feel joy and fail as men have always done. We live in the darkness that is the birthright of us all, that of hurt and ignorance, only sometimes… sometimes there comes the sun.” Bug people, well sorta bug people. Sounds awesome, right? People who share the aspects of bugs is a pretty cool concept and one that I haven't seen done before on this scale. This was cool and done really well. I was actually expecting just a couple of different types of kinden (bug people, which are as far as I can tell all people except they do refer to humans sometimes in a sense that included the kinden but doesn't actually clarify if there are non-binding humans, this ambiguity is one of the things that did bother me) but there were a ton of different types. (Maybe too many if it's considered taboo to have a child with someone who isn't from your exact kinden; I mean the population of a given city can't be all that large considering the setting so I would expect everyone to have a pretty high inbreeding coefficient.... of course the author never describes the size of the population of the various towns and cities so who knows.) I didn't have an issue with the author’s vague descriptions of the characters that some readers did, I assumed humanoid except in the cases where the text explicitly mentioned bone spurs or claw hands. I imagined wings as not always there, but appearing and disappearing as needed. Tchaikovsky does a great job at making the various kinden unique, giving each species/race different abilities. Mantids (Mantis kinden) are superb fighters that take glory in battle with bone spurs on the forearms they can use as weapons. Wasps can fly (though not as gracefully as moths or dragonflies or other kinden), have dangerous tempers and can shoot energy beams (this is Art, not magic) from their hands, yeah they were the coolest. Ant kinden could link together like a hive mind, etc etc. This was probably the coolest concept in the book, as well as the best executed. I can only speak for my own experience, but it felt like a pretty brutal way into the story. Had I missed something? No, but it was definitely his way of saying: ‘You’re in it now, best finish it so you understand it properly.’

And so knowing he could do both science-fiction and fantasy, he seemed like the perfect crossover author to begin this year with. I first discovered Tchaikovsky with his Children of Time and have read most of his science fiction, but EIBAG was his first foray into writing and also a fantasy epic. Yet, many of the themes found in his later science fiction novels may be found here as well. EIBAG was his first novel, and while that shows a little, I still found it an engrossing and fun read. The stakes are immediately set, and with what follows after that, the author manages to boost all of the things he wants the reader to feel. Same for the ant-kinden, a race of military-focused people with swarm-intelligence; the moth-kinden, which focus on magics and the occult (seer-like if you will), wasp-kinden; scorpion-kinden; beetle-kinden; mantis-kinden; dragonfly-kinden and so on and so forth. Although I read this less than a year ago, there were things I didn’t remember. So I was surprised for a second time, which was wonderful! My favorite characters right now are Achaeos and Thalric with Tisamon a close second.

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I hadn't even known about this epic fantasy series, until a friend outside the USA mentioned it. The good thing about that is: all ten books in the series are out (though one or two are not published here yet), which means not having to wait, if the succeeding volumes entranced me as much as this first one did. Terrible Worlds: Revolutions (Solaris, 2023), ISBN 978-1786188885. Collects three novellas: Ironclads, Firewalkers and Ogres. This brings me round to my first issue. Whether by accident or not, there are some gaps here. Tchaikovsky does a good job with his supporting cast, in particular with Salma, Tynisa and Thalric, who all undergo real development as characters and feel like they’ve grown past their starting limits. I could write a lot about each of their journey’s but I’ve pledged to keep this spoiler free. What Tchaikowsky did instead, was telling you about a character named Atryssa, a ambassador of the spider-kinden. Only the ageing Stenwold Maker – spymaster, artificer and statesman – foresees the threat, as the empires’ armies march ever closer. So it falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of the cities’ leaders. He sees that war will sweep through their lands, destroying everything in its path.

The Lowlands is a world and civilization unlike any other you have read in the fantasy genre and I can guarantee that! There are several different races of humans in this world with each race being referred to as a different Kinden. A Kinden is a race of human that based on the aspects of different insects!. I know this may sound strange but let me explain how it works. The world consists of several different types of Kinden: beetles, ants, dragonfly, mantis, spider, moth, wasp etc… Each Kinden contains their own skills or magic abilities. Beetle-Kinden tend to be short with round build and they are very smart with the ability to build machines. Ant-Kinden are short but very strong soldiers to go to war and they can communicate in each others minds without talking. Mantis-Kinden are elite soldiers similar to a samurai and very prideful. Finally Wasp-Kinden are magic users who can fly, but not very strong as a group. All of these Kinden and so much more inhabit this world and Adrian Tchaikovsky has taken my breath away with his imagination and creative genius! These are questions, that might get explained later, but so far it was a bit strange at times and I noticed, that I was never fully immersed, as vast and well-developed this world felt. Feast and Famine (New Con Press, 2013), ISBN 978-1907069543. This collection contains the stories "Feast and Famine", "The Artificial Man", "The Roar of the Crowd", "Good Taste", "The Dissipation Club", "Rapture", "Care", "2144 and All That", "The God Shark" and "The Sun in the Morning". All in all this was a fantastic debut and I'm very pleased that I am able to dive right into Dragonfly Falling and subsequent ones without waiting. Provided that I whittle down Mount TBR a bit between books.The Lowlands’ city states have lived in peace for decades, hailed as bastions of civilization. Yet that peace is about to end. A distant empire has been conquering neighbours with highly trained soldiers and sophisticated combat techniques. And the city states are its desirable new prize.