Customer Reviews

Blood of the Mantis (Shadows of the Apt 3)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The third book in the 'Shadows of the Apt' series (with more to come) by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

This book continues with the tale of the Wasp Empire's quest for expansion through continental domination, while their various and diversified (and often divided) 'enemies', try their absolute best to fend them off.

There is magic, battles, clandestine plotting, deceit and betrayals. Add to this a host of interesting and diversified characters and you've got fantasy/adventure with all the basic ingredients for a great tale.

However, all the above would mean little without great writing, and the writing in this book (as with the 2nd book) is stellar. The author has found that magic formula that allows him to tell an interesting tale and then present it with near perfect timing and pace.

In addition, there is:
1.) a good map, that encompasses an eastern extension of the maps found in books one and two.
2.) there is a helpful list of names, places and organizations (with brief descriptions of each) that explain the relationship of some of the unusual characters and places you'll encounter in this work.

Conclusion:
Simply one of the finest series I've read in ages, and more to follow (I initially thought that this was a trilogy, but apparently this in not the end). A great story, told with superb writing and an author with a uncanny sense of timing for suspense and the unexpected. Fantasy/adventure lovers rejoice. 5 Stars...more if I could.

Ray Nicholson

With more books yet to come in the Shadows of the Apt series, the third book scatters our gang to edges of the
land and back in entertaining fashion. Strong fantasy award candidate and overall great read. The author develops the plot, the fantasy setting, and the characters with equal measure. Nice epic adventure continues
in this Fantasy/Steam punk style book.

This book was not for me, but for my Nephew, who is incarcerated. He said that he was very satisfied with the book, and the delivery.
Thank you, S. Lee

My mom is reading this series but has been unable to find the 3rd book so I ordered it for her. The price was really good and it got here crazy fast, before she even finished the 2nd book with was her concern. Yay Amazon

Again, Mr. Tchaikovsky, you have written an amazing book. This series is so good I find I have to force myself to take breaks from it for fear I will finish it, and have no more to look forward to.

With the Wasp armies' advance stalled by the arrival of winter, Stenwold Maker takes advantage in the lull to send his agents on dangerous missions. Achaeos, Tisamon and Tynisa are dispatched to Jerez, a marsh-town on the edges of the Empire, in pursuit of the stolen Shadow Box, which holds an evil that cannot be unleashed back onto the world. Elsewhere, Che and Nero are sent to Solarno, a city on the distant Exalsee, which is also under threat from the Empire's expansion. However, the feuding political factions of Solarno seem rather unmoved by the threat they face.

Blood of the Mantis is the third volume in the Shadows of the Apt sequence and the penultimate book in the opening story arc. In this novel, Tchaikovsky abandons the large-scale war stories and huge battles of Dragonfly Falling to return to the back-alley intrigue and politicking of the first novel in the series. He also reigns in the book's length, delivering a relatively slim 400-page novel that certainly benefits from a greater focus following three storylines in tandem: events in Jerez, the intrigue in Solarno and Stenwold's attempts to forge the Wasps' myriad enemies into a single, cohesive force. This growing focus means some characters get short shrift - Totho and Salma's storylines are put on the backburner for now - but those characters who are featured benefit from more page-time and development.

Tchaikovsky also (for the first of at least two times in the series) widens the scope of the worldbuilding, introducing a whole new area of the world (the Exalsee or Sea of Exiles and its surrounding city-states) and establishing a whole new set of characters and politics. This is achieved reasonably well, although the Exalsee cities aren't vastly different from the established Lowlands locations and the blindness of Solarno's rulers to the Wasp threat is perhaps a little too reminiscent of Collegium's similar scepticism in Empire in Black and Gold. That said, some of the new characters, such as Taki the pilot and Cesta the assassin, are well-drawn and welcome additions to the (already very large) cast.

The book is certainly enjoyable and page-turning, with the weird and steampunk elements raising what would otherwise be a pretty standard epic fantasy to some interesting new heights, but the Shadow Box is a disappointingly traditional 'evil magical talisman of doom' and it's hard to invest too much in that storyline, especially as Jerez is not a particularly interesting locale (though some late developments near the end of the book may cause some reappraisal of that). Another weakness is that Thalric has, extremely reluctantly, become an ally of the good guys and immediately lost some of the elements that made him more interesting in the first novel. Stenwold's attempts to merge disparate allies into a cohesive alliance against the Wasps is also rather over-familiar and perhaps too easily achieved given the daunting difficulties he faces.

Blood of the Mantis (***½) continues to develop this enjoyable series and benefits from a shift in focus away from the battle-heavy second volume. However, some weaknesses mean that it continues to fail to fully achieve its potential. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

Things begin to slow down some in Blood of the Mantis. The third book in the Shadows of the Apt series is the smallest, and yet took the longest for me to read. Adrian Tchaikovsky maintains the same level of writing established in the first two, but seems to be struggling a bit with middle-book syndrome. The events in book 3 are too important to completely leave out of the story, it's too long to be split between other books, and feels a little wanting after the first two books' onslaught of awesomeness.

Blood of the Mantis is not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination; it's just not as good as the first two. It had some seriously high standards to meet after Dragonfly Falling. Dragonfly blew me away and is likely to be a contender for my favorite book this year. I think my perspective might be a little skewed as well. I've been reading these one right after the other, so the differences between the two are immediately apparent to me, possibly making my judgment a little unfair. With the previous two so fresh in my mind, I simply can't help making comparisons.

The plot is a continuation of what is set in motion in the previous books, and Blood of the Mantis doesn't have an strong subplot of its own. The characters are still hunting the ShadowBox, and Stenwold is still dealing with political intrigue in Collegium and Sarn while trying to rally an increasingly unlikely Lowland alliance. The character development that was so amazing in both the previous books is almost nonexistent here. A few side characters get a little more attention, but nothing develops to the level of the previous books.

Tchaikovsky does take the reader to some new places. We get to see the lands around the Exalsee, and the potpourri of kinden that inhabit that area. I did enjoy the notion that Shadows of the Apt will have a much larger geographical playground. The first two books never talked much about anything beyond the Spiderlands. Blood of the Mantis is the first to take the story into those other foreign lands.

Tchaikovsky has set himself up with a beautiful and amazing world to play in. The variety of races and characters at his disposal is limitless. Blood of the Mantis may be a bit of a stumble in the series, but it's a very small stumble. I'm very excited for book 4, and I get the feeling my reservations about Blood of the Mantis will be quickly forgotten. --Justin at FantasyLiterature

This book is a keeper. One of those can't-put-it-down books. The characters are wonderfully done, complex, and real enough that you truly feel like you are a part of the story. The second novel of the series, "Dragonfly Falling", left off at a very interesting point, which kicked right off in "Blood of the Mantis". The story continued at a breakneck pace through most of the novel, barely faltering and keeping the pages turning. Highly recommended.

Blood of the Mantis dials things back a bit after the in-depth action of Dragonfly Falling, but strives to widen the world as the Spider-Kinden lands and other unexplored parts of the world are uncovered. Don't get me wrong it still has plenty of action, but it is more on the level of Empire in Black and Gold with skirmishes or one-on-one fights rather than the big scale of Dragonfly Falling. Mantis is also the shortest of the series to date at a mere 300ish pages compared to the bulky 450+ pages of Dragonfly.

Blood of the Mantis takes to the skies as Cheer makes her way into the Spiderlands to see what the Wasps are trying to pull there. She meets up with an aviatrix, which sounds just a bit dirty every time I read it who leads her around the area. Cheer is finally becoming her own person this time around as she is more decisive, but still wary. The second main part of the story is Achaeos in hot pursuit of the shadow box in Wasp controlled lands we haven't seen before. We get to meet some new and very unusual Kinden in these parts and I can only guess what will go on when this group leaves their nesting ground.

Overall this is a series that doesn't disappoint. It has got everything a lover of Epic Fantasy could want plus offers many new and fresh innovations with steam-tech, but it is the world and cultures you'll keep coming back for as you meet the whole pantheon of insect Kindens throughout the lands and delve deeper into the back story as it unfolds. It definitely pays to read these books close together so some of the details and nuances of the characters aren't lost. The only problem with the series is the constant jumping around of points of view, but the author knows this is a big world and he is anxious to give you all the details.

All of this has me wondering what is next as I'll soon be devouring Salute the Dark, which is the 4th book in the series. At this point the author hopes to do at least 10 total volumes in the series with the first 4 comprising one major arc so we aren't hanging open for some closures.