(9) ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY –

SHADOWS OF THE APT / TALES OF THE APT (2008 – 2018)

Like my previous entry, this entry particularly resonated with me as reflecting my own unwritten story idea involving the same premise – but then Adrian Tchaikovsky went ahead and wrote it. And it’s awesome.

I have always been fascinated by insects, so one of my unwritten story ideas involved high fantasy with insect-people. They were essentially human, but with the skin or hair coloring of their insect species, as well as other physical attributes that did not radically alter their otherwise human appearance – wings for example (in the style of the butterfly or other insect wings occasionally depicted on fairies), perhaps antennae and so on.

I imagined the insect-people as essentially divided up into realms according to the three great species of social insects – bees, ants and wasps, although there would be different realms of each (corresponding to different sub-species or types). Each of these realms would also include other thematically similar insect-peoples – for example, bee-kingdoms (or more precisely, bee-queendoms) would include other pollinating insects, such as butterflies.

As for antagonists, one was spoilt for choice – flies or locusts as marauding hordes (the Locust Horde!), various parasitic insects (fleas, mosquitoes and so on) as blood-sucking bandits or brigands, arachnids such as spiders or scorpions as monstrous figures. However, I imagined the most dangerous and recurring antagonists as the fourth great species of social insects – termites. In fairness, I didn’t get much beyond imagining the various insect-people societies, although I did imagine my main protagonist as a mantis warrior.

And then I found Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt series, which effectively does just that – a high fantasy set in a world of insect-‘kinden’, humans who have adopted some of the characteristics of their insect-types (or arachnid-types) through their magical Art from the dangerous and giant fantasy insects (or arachnids) of this world. Ant and beetle kinden dominate the so-called Lowlands (not surprisingly, given the sheer prevalence of those insect species in our world).

Even more intriguingly, it is a world in which magic is being replaced by science – an industrial revolution by the technologically Apt peoples of the title, matched by a political revolution, in which the more mundane but Apt ants and beetles have ousted the more magically-minded moths and mantises (although mantis warriors are still legendary). However, the antagonists are not termites, but the growing and ruthless Wasp Empire.

Of course, Tchaikovsky is a little too fond of spiders for my arachnopobia (even if spider girls are notoriously hot) – a fondness that extends across his fantasy or SF works, not just the spider-kinden in this series. Perhaps because Tchaikovksy is secretly a spider himself, or maybe a man-shaped swarm of spiders, without a shred of normal human arachnophobia to show for it.

So – damn you, Adrian Tchaikovsky, for conceiving and executing your insect fantasy first, in such an epic series! And I love it!

SF & HORROR

Tchaikovksy straddles both fantasy and SF genres – his Hugo Award-winning Children of Time series is an example of the latter but of course also features his beloved spiders.

For that matter, Shadows of the Apt has more than a touch of SF to it – and on occasions I almost thought it had a similar premise as the Children Time series with human (and arthropod) space colonists. Setting aside those thoughts, it was interesting to have a fantasy world increasingly eschewing magic for industrialization and technology.

And it wouldn’t take too much tweaking to adapt his premises to horror. Because, you know, spiders – perhaps not to Tchaikovsky who loves them, but to an arachnophobe like myself.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(10) JAMES LOVEGROVE –

PANTHEON (2009 – 2019)

“Watch closely, everyone. I’m going to show you how to kill a god”

That’s not from James Lovegrove’s Pantheon series – it’s from the film Princess Mononoke – but it captures much of the same spirit (heh).

This is also a departure from the usual rule for my wildcard tenth place entry as the best entry from the present or previous year – that’s because I’ve only recently gotten into James Lovegrove’s Pantheon series and want to follow it through to the end of the series of nine books.

The premise of his Pantheon series is straightforward – each is a standalone story with a human military or paramilitary protagonist reacting to or resisting one of the titular pantheons of gods (and goddesses) literally returning to the modern world to rule it. Note that standalone as each story features only one pantheon at a time – they don’t return in combination or all at once, although that would make an interesting premise of competing pantheons. Obviously the titular pantheon in the first book The Age of Ra is the Egyptian one – the series continues through The Age of Zeus, The Age of Odin, and so on.

The premise of these series particularly resonates with me because it reflects my own unwritten – and let’s face it, only partly baked – story ideas involving the same premise, both for single pantheons and multiple pantheons returning in combination. So kudos for Lovegrove for actually baking the cake and icing it – although I suppose there’s still room for competing pantheons.

It’s a similarly dark premise to David Brin’s Thor Meets Captain America (and even more so its sequel The Life Eaters) – hence why I also like those works as well. And it’s a somewhat parallel premise to that of a higher entry on this list.

SF & HORROR

Demonstrating the overlap between the genres, The Pantheon series is also classified as military science fiction – which it definitely overlaps if you see the gods as alien or extradimensional beings or entities. I class it as fantasy because, you know, the antagonists are gods with supernatural powers.

Not much horror – although it wouldn’t take too much tweaking of the premise to adapt it to horror. Heck – a surviving older pantheon or god is the common premise of folk horror.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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