Maxwell Volume reviewed Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Shadows of the Apt, #1)
The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace for decades, bastions of civilization, …
Underwhelming and a bit of a slog
2.5 stars
The shtick of the insect-based cultures was uninteresting to me, the prose was workmanlike at best, and the theme of resisting a bad by nature culture was either conservative and reactionary, or the message was too subtle to be detected. Still, it gets a few marks for not being based around the hackneyed "farm / outsider boy / hobbit discovers he's a hero" trope. I find it hard to just drop books, particularly ones that are well regarded, so the combination of ill-health, and disinterest ensured that it took me ages to finish this one. I doubt I'll be tackling any of this series further.
