Empire in black and gold : Shadows of the Apt, #1

SUMMARY: First volume in a dramatic and colourful new fantasy series, 'Shadows of the Apt', about the fight for survival against a menacingly regimented empire Seventeen years ago Stenwold witnessed the Wasp Empire storming the city of Myna in a brutal war of conquest. Since then he has preached vainly against this threat in his home city of Collegium, but now the Empire is on the march, with its spies and its armies everywhere, and the Lowlands lie directly in its path. All the while, Stenwold has been training youthful agents to fight the Wasp advance, and the latest recruits include his niece, Che, and his mysterious ward, Tynisa. When his home is violently attacked, he is forced to send them ahead of him and, hotly pursued, they fly by airship to Helleron, the first city in line for the latest Wasp invasion. Stenwold and Che are Beetle-kinden, one of many human races that take their powers and inspiration each from a totem insect, but he also has allies of many breeds: Mantis, Spider, Ant, with their own particular skills. Foremost is the deadly Mantis-kinden warrior, Tisamon, but other very unlikely allies also join the cause. As things go from bad to worse amid escalating dangers, Stenwold learns that the Wasps intend to use the newly completed railroad between Helleron and Collegium to launch a lightning strike into the heart of the Lowlands. Then he gathers all of his agents to force a final showdown in the engine yard . . . The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace for decades, bastions of civilization, prosperity and sophistication, protected by treaties, trade and a belief in the reasonable nature of their neighbours. But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, its killing Art...And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable. Only the ageing Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see that the long days of peace are over. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people, before a black-and-gold tide sweeps down over the Lowlands and burns away everything in its path. But first he must stop himself becoming the Empire's latest victim. 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. Only the ageing Stenwold Maker - spymaster, artificer and statesman - forsees the threat, as the empire's 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. But to warn his people, he must stay alive. This is a world that, five hundred years ago, was enslaved by magiciansand charlatans, and is now enslaved by a lust for profit and the machines of its engineers. This is a world where men and women fly on stolen insect wings, fight with the borrowed claws of the mantis, and share the hive mind of the ants. This is the world where the destructive might of the vast Wasp Empire is massing against the divided and bickering city states of the Lowlands, and only one man can see the storm coming The Armies Of The Wasp Empire Are On The March. By Adrian Tchaikovsky.