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 neighbors. But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, it killing Art . . . And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable. Only the aging 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 from becoming the Empire's latest victim.

A thrilling new biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky--composer of some of the world's most popular orchestral and theatrical music "A lively, argumentative and thoughtful reflection on one of the 19th century's most important musical figures."--Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire's worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky's complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky's music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky's Empire unsettles everything we thought we knew--and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia's most popular composer.

Linnet Restorick and her husband Simon come as summer guests to Swan Lake House—on an island on the English west coast. But the idyllic island and the gloomy house soon turn into a hell of intrigue and murder... With the novel REMEMBERING TCHAIKOVSKY'S EMPIRE, Christian Dörge, author of several crime novels and crime series, presents an equally exciting and nostalgic homage to Agatha Christie’s work.

Two young companions, Totho and Salma, arrive at Tark to spy on the menacing Wasp army, but are there mistakenly apprehended as enemy agents. By the time they are freed, the city is already under siege. Over in the imperial capital the young emperor, Alvdan, is becoming captivated by a remarkable slave, the vampiric Uctebri, who claims he knows of magic that can grant eternal life. In Collegium, meanwhile, Stenwold is still trying to persuade the city magnates to take seriously the Wasp Empire's imminent threat to their survival. In a colorful drama involving mass warfare and personal combat, a small group of heroes must stand up against what seems like an unstoppable force. This volume continues the story that so brilliantly unfolded in Empire in Black and Gold - and the action is still non-stop.

The vampiric sorcerer Uctebri has at last got his hands on the Shadow Box and can finally begin his dark ritual—a ritual that the Wasp-kinden Emperor believes will grant him immortality—but Uctebri has his own plans for both the Emperor and the Empire. The massed Wasp armies are on the march, and the spymaster Stenwold must see which of his allies will stand now that the war has finally arrived. This time the Empire will not stop until a black and gold flag waves over Stenwold’s own home city of Collegium. Tisamon the Weaponsmaster is faced with a terrible choice: a path that could lead him to abandon his friends and his daughter, to face degradation and loss, that might possibly bring him before the Wasp Emperor with a blade in his hand—but is he being driven by Mantis-kinden honor, or manipulated by something more sinister? From the Trade Paperback edition.

Blood of the Mantis is the third novel in Adrian Tchaikovsky's richly imagined Shadows of the Apt series, following Dragonfly Falling. Stenwold must rally his allies for battle against the Empire, even as it seeks a dangerous artifact of enormous power. A dread ritual casts a deadly shadow . . . Achaeos the seer has finally tracked down the stolen Shadow Box. But he has only days before this magical artefact will be lost to him forever. Meanwhile, the Empire's dread forces are mustering for their next great offensive. Stenwold and his followers have only a short time to gather allies, before the enemy's soldiers march again – to conquer everything in their path. If Stenwold cannot hold them back, the hated black and gold flag will fly over every city in the Lowlands before the year's end. Yet a more insidious threat awaits. Should the Shadow Box fall into the hands of the power-mad Emperor, nothing will save the world from his relentless ambition. Blood of the Mantis is followed by Salute the Dark, the fourth book in the Shadows of the Apt series.

The war with the Wasp Empire has ended in a bitter stalemate, and Collegium has nothing to show for it but wounded veterans. Cheerwell Maker finds herself crippled in ways no doctor can mend, haunted by ghosts of the past that she cannot appease, seeking for meaning in a city that no longer seems like home. The Empress Seda is regaining control over those imperial cities who refused to bow the knee to her, but she draws her power from something more sinister than mere armies and war machines. Only her consort, the former spymaster Thalric, knows the truth, and now the assassins are coming and he finds his life and his loyalties under threat yet again. Out past the desert of the Nem the ancient city of Khanaphes awaits them both, with a terrible secret entombed beneath its stones...