REVIEW: Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publishing information: Paperback; 612 pages
Publisher: Pan Macmillan; 4 July 2008
ISBN 10: 0230704131
ISBN 13: 9780230704138
Book one in a series Shadows of the Apt
Copy Out of pocket
Reviewer: Tyson


Back of the Book: "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 ..."


This book has been receiving a lot of praise from bloggers and after finally getting around to reading it I have to agree. The first book in the Shadows of the Apt series is a solid debut for Tchaikovsky. The concept of Empire in Black and Gold is an interesting one as the inhabitants of the world have insect like qualities. I have to say that I also really liked the UK cover. It is simple, while the "mysterious hooded figure" is present it seems to work. The US cover (see below) is also great but, just a bit too busy for me. But it does do a much better job at catching your eye. The one concern I have with the UK edition, which is the one I purchased is that with 10 minutes the binding started to fail. The 612 pages should not have affected the binding. In any case, I had to tread lightly at first to avoid pages from falling out. After the halfway point this was no longer a factor but, it did make me angry as the book was brand new and should not have had this defect. I hate when my books are not the way they should be whether it is a bent cover or faulty binding.

As we begin to read Empire in Black and Gold we learn that the people that live in this fantasy world are human in shape they also exhibit insect like qualities. Each person represents a certain Kinden. A kinden is a type of insect. In this book we learn of a few of them: The Wasps, Beetle, Fly, Moth, Butterfly, Thorn, Dragonfly, and my personal favorite, the Mantis. The kinden or race gives each group certain abilities. for instance the Beetle are slow and stead and lumber around when they walk, but have an engineers mind. The Moth stick to the shadows and have excellent night vision and are rather mystical. The Mantis are quick moving and have a thick skin perfect for battle and wetwork. Some, like the Fly, Wasp, and Dragonfly kinden can fly. Some more graceful than others.  


This ingenious idea made for some interesting dynamics as the characters themselves really acted as if the various bugs took on human form. Many of the races co-exist peacefully, but not all of them. There is also a lot of racism and distrust with certain kinden groups. If you are unlucky and the offspring of two different kinden your life is full of hardship as we see with a few of the characters. There is a lot of characters featured in the first book of the series and from what I can tell there are a lot of different kinden that we have yet to encounter as Empire in Black and Gold mentions a few more but are not featured in the novel.

The world in Empire in Black and Gold is relatively small. The action takes place in an area called the Lowlands. The book does make several mentions of other lands and places but the novel focuses on just a small portion of the world. This leads me to believe that the world is actually quite massive, we just haven't got to that point in the story yet. While the heart of Empire in Black and Gold is sword and sorcery there is a bit of steampunk thrown in as the engineers to build some impressive machines. While this inventions are a part of the book, they do not distract or take away from the story. In fact, I only really noticed them as I was preparing my review.

Tchaikovsky's pacing and story telling is pretty impressive. While there are a few infodumps that are fairly lengthy he does his best to pick up the action and intrigue back up as quickly as he can after he gives us some long winded background. The ideas and plot contained in the series are massive. There is a lot of story to be told and since this is the first book in the series he has to get it out as soon as he can to set up the rest of the books. With that in mind he does it well. One one or two moments in the book had me hoping to get back into the story and when it did I was not disappointed. There is a lot of interweaving of the characters and many of them are great literary characters that I look forward to seeing what happens to them. 


There were a few times while reading Empire in Black and Gold where I felt like this was a Dragonlance novel, only much deeper. It starts out with the gathering of adventures and then the adventure begins with a few encounters and stumbling blocks along the way. This is not a bad thing as I have fond memories of my Dragonlance days. However, as I continued to read I found the book far deeper, grittier, and darker than any Dragonlance book. While it is rather paint-by-numbers fantasy that does not detract from the experience. Empire in Black and Gold is a solid debut of fantasy with a lot of twist and turns that will have you up all night reading far longer than you had planned to. The book leaves you with a lot of unanswered questions and I plan to get back to the series soon as I have found another great series to dig into.


Plot  7
Characters  7
Style  8


Overall 8/10