Empire in Black and Gold - Shadows of the Apt

Book 1

Empire in Black and Gold is the first volume of the fantasy series Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is a Pen name, real name being Adrian Czajkowski (Czajkowski - difficult to pronounce, right? That's exactly why, he used a new pen name). Like other fantasy stories, there are no elves, orcs, dragons, trolls, dwarfs or "normal humans". Instead, this excellent debut fantasy is set in a quite unusual fantasy world of various human races who long ago adapted to prehistoric insects and are called "insect-kinden" like ant-kinden, beetle-kinden, mantis, dragonfly etc. (Insect-Kinden??? Instead I would have personally preferred animal-kinden, like wolf-kinden, tiger-kinden, bear-kinden ... more cool right?). For more information click here.

Well, each insect-kinden species has their own unique power, or ‘art’ that resembles the insect they represent.

Different types of Art (only for the main characters):

Beetle-kinden: Natural Engineers. They build all kinds of machinery. Not good fighters or fliers. Most of them are highly educated. The main protagonist in the novel is a Beetle-kinden. A sketch of Beetle-kinden.

Spider-kinden: Tricky, untrustworthy, dominated and ruled by women. They are good-looking and charm their way past most people. link

Ant-kinden: All are fighters/hardworking and telepathically linked with their kind. link

Mantis-kinden: Have bony spines on their arms and are deadly skilled fighters. No other race can match them with their skill with weapons. Good eyes to see in dark. A sketch of Mantis-kinden.

Dragonfly-kinden: Proud race and good fighters. No race can match them in a fight in sky. Can see very well in the dark. link

Wasp-kinden: The main antagonists in the story. Wasp-kinden doesn’t do anything (work) other than fighting. Every male wasp is in army and leaves other work to their slaves. Their killing art - can shoot energy balls from their palms, which blasts and burns on contact (according to author, similar to a wasp’s sting). A sketch of Wasp-kinden.

Moth-kinden: once rulers of the free states with mantis-kinden. Hates and doesn't understand machines. Knows magic and loves nature. link

Half-breeds: The insect-kinden normally don't interbreed. If they do, the resulting offsprings are known as Half-breed and are despised by all the other pure breeds.

The Empire of Wasps is expanding their empire with its highly trained armies (their army uniform being black and gold), war machines and its killing Art (wasp-sting). They are currently at peace after war with Commonweal states ruled by Dragonfly-kinden. Collegium and Helleron are technologically advanced free city-states of Lowlands ruled democratically by beetle-kinden. They flourish by trading machines, weapons to other city-states and even to Empire of Wasps. The Empire of Wasps is the biggest trade partner of Helleron. The city-states don't have an army of their own, but have paid mercenaries to do the job. They believe in peace and just earning wealth through trading.

The story revolves around Stenwold Maker (beetle-kinden), his students - his niece Cheerwell Maker (beetle-kinden), his ward Tynisa (spider-kinden?), the apprentice artificer Totho (half-breed b/w beetle and ant), Salma Dien (a prince of dragonfly-kinden), his trusted friend and great fighter Tisamon (mantis-kinden).

Stenwold is a master-artificer in a college academy in Collegium. For last seventeen years he has been trying hard to warn people of lowlands about the threat posed by the wasps to the city-states. But those words fell into deaf ears and as greedy beetle-kinden merchants and power hungry politicians believed wasps to be their best trading partners, and nothing to gained by going against them. But Stenwold feared, in time wasps will invade free states with their own weapons. Stenwold has a string of spy network to gather news and prevent wasps to gain an upper hand. Now wasps have started moving their own spies obliterating Stenwold's network. Stenwold knew that the time has come, he was forced to send his beloved students as reinforcements to Helleron from where the attack would come.

In the industrial city of Helleron, everything goes awry and the four friends gets separated. Salma and Cheerwell gets captured by Wasps and were taken deep into enemy territory. Stenwold, Tisamon, Totho and Achaeos (moth-kinden) (once rescued by Cheerwell) regroup for the rescue. They track down the prisoners, and rescue them. Their efforts were seriously hampered by a shape-shifter (hired by wasps) who can impersonate any person.

In enemy territory they learn about the plans on attack on Collegium. The wasps believe that by taking Collegium they can end any chance of the Lowlands uniting together against them. There is a new railroad being built between Helleron and Collegium with a state-of-art fast and powerful engine called Pride to pull the passenger compartments. It was technological break through, which everyone was eager to see it started. The railroad when finished would reduce the travel time to a couple of hours. The Wasps were waiting to use this railroad to mount a surprise attack on Collegium. Stenwold hatches a plan to destroy the engine, before it can be used. After a thrilling fight and with some luck, Stenwold and his friends managed to destroy the engine and cast suspicion on the Wasp-Kinden.

The story ends with Salma and Totho arriving at Tark (a ant city-state) to save a butterfly-kinden from slavery.

The novel is fast-paced and action driven. The author takes you to a ride in a fantasy world created by him. Politics, love, loyalty and betrayal converge in some delightful twists. A great fantasy highly recommended for reading.

The sequel to it is "Dragonfly Falling" (already published) and the "Blood of Mantis".

The Rule of Four

This is my first blog, let me start with the review of a novel I read recently - "The Rule of Four.

The Rule of Four is written by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, just after their respective graduation, published in 2004. WikiBaba (wikipedia;) says The Rule of Four reached the top of the New York Times Bestseller list, where it remained for more than six months. The book was a no. 1 national and international bestseller and has been translated into more than 25 languages.

Have you ever heard of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili? Neither did I, before reading this book.

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (supposing this is how you should spell HY-NE-RO-TO-MA-KIA-PO-LI-FI-LI) was published/printed in Venice in 1499 by Aldus Manutius, who was a leading publisher and printer at his time. Do you know "Italic type" letters was first produced by Aldus Manutius. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is written in Latinate Italian, Greek and even used Arabic and Hebrew words. It also contains some Egyptian hieroglyphics. The first letter in each chapter, if joined together reads in Italian - "Brother Francesco Colonna dearly loved Polia". So the author of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is assumed to be Francesco Colonna, but still being debated among the scholars.

The Rule of Four is suspense thriller set on Princeton campus, and the plot revolves around this very mysterious, but real book. Two final year students, Tom and Paul, in Princeton Campus trying to solve the puzzle presented in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Tom, Paul, Charlie and Gil are undergraduate students in their final year, but pursuing different majors.

Tom Paul (a brilliant student) is writing his undergraduate thesis on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and spent all four of his undergraduate years studying the book. Tom is the son of a Hypnerotomachia researcher. Paul convinces Tom to help him out in his research. Tom agrees, as it was his father's dream, but his obsession on the book creates rifts in his personal life.

Vincent Taft and Richard Curry, being early researchers on this book and also being advisors for Paul in his thesis. Apart being academic rivals, Curry accuses Taft of stealing a diary written by a contemporary of Francesco Colonna's that Curry had found. That diary, as Paul and Tom discovered it later, would prove to help them to decode Hypnerotomachia. The story also revolves around the basement of the university which houses huge network of pipes, that carries heat to all parts of university. Also around the various eating clubs in Princeton campus, the top one being the "Ivy Club", of which Gil is the president.

Paul and Tom discovers Hypnerotomachia contains a number of hidden and encyphered texts. The encyphered text contains a riddle and the answer to the riddle is the key to decode each chapter. After solving several riddles and decoding corresponding chapters, the riddle stops with the saying that there no more clues for the rest because Francesco Colonna feared the secret falling in wrong hands. Later Paul realizes that the entire book is encoded by following a "rule of four", in which the message starts with one letter, then moves to a letter four rows down, then three columns right, then two rows up, then one column left (4,3,2,1), and repeating. Soon the duo unravels the mystery and the secret message.

The author of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Francesco Colonna, was a humanist in Florence, and lived during the Renaissance period. [Renaissance means rebirth, Humanist - humanists would study ancient texts in the original, and appraise them through a combination of reasoning and empirical evidence. Humanist education being the study of five humanities: poetry, grammar, history, moral philosophy and rhetoric]. He was the son of a rich Roman noble. He loved knowledge, books, and arts. He had great passion for Greek and Roman literature. Girolamo Savonarola was the Dominican priest in Florence during that period. He felt the population were forgetting GOD were getting corrupted by embracing knowledge, art and literature. He asked his followers to gather forcibly books, painting and art, then conduct huge bonfires to burn them all. Collona was deeply disturbed and asked Savonarola himself to stop this, but was disappointed by the outcome. Collona decides that he shall save ancient books and arts as much as possible. He builds an huge underground vault for storing them. Collona used his vast resources to smuggle ancient books, arts from around Italy and stored them in the vault. The secret to the vault is saved in his work - "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili". Francesco Collona and two of his friends decided to become a martyr for this cause. When the bonfire was lit, they went into the bonfire and started pulling out the books, painting with their bare hands. Soon they perished in fire, but it triggered a major outcry against Savonarola, who was later executed.

Vincent Taft and Bill Stein (another of Paul's advisor) finding that Paul has progressed much in the research, decided to steal the work for themselves and claim the credit. Soon there is a string of murders, executed by Richard Curry to prevent this from happening. In a final struggle between Tom, Gil, Paul and Curry, a fire breaks out in Ivy eating club. Tom and Gil escapes from the fire, but Paul and Curry can't. Tom, Charlie and Gill are devastated as they believe Paul must have died with Curry in the fire....

After several years Tom received a tube with an painting, which was considered long lost. Tom realizes, his friend Paul is alive and have found Collona's vault. The painting is from the vault. The story ends with Tom packing up to travel to Italy.

What amazes, is the authors' in-depth knowledge of art and literature present during the Renaissance period. Combined with great imagination, fiery drama and suspense, no wonder this novel was national/international bestseller list for more than six months. This book has been well received by critics and some compared it positively to the Da Vinci Code.

I would recommend to read this book or just wait for some months for The Rule of Four movie to hit the theaters.