Blood of the Mantis

Shadows of the Apt, Book 3

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Narrated by: Ben Allen

Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

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. 

©2009 Adrian Tchaikovsky (P)2021 Macmillan Publishers International Limited

Brilliant!

Mr.Tchaikovsky is incredibly talented; when I read Children of Time, I was impressed by how innovative the setting was, while sometimes the plot was a bit slow. In this saga, though, it's both the uniqueness of the world and the very natural and captivating development of the plot that has been grasping my attention ever since I started reading it. I cannot wait until all books have been released on Audible.

Oh and the narrator is great - he really paints the story by how he works with his voice.

I wholeheartedly recommend this saga!

great new world

I find this series of books more enchanting the further you get into it. Well worth the credits !

loving the series thus far

Great blend of magic and technology. World keeps getting more expensive with each book. I highly recommend this series for anyone looking for some fun fantasy adventure book.

another good one

another win for the series I still want to continue reading the books and story

Another Good One

Such a good series so far. I'm loving it. Will be downloading the next one!

solid

Great series. They all read like a seamless story and the performances minus 1 voice for me is great as well.

Breath holding suspense filled with imaginative and vivid world building.

I absolutely love this series. I think the thought behind the world construction is unique and well executed and the plot thickens nicely throughout the series. Specific blood of the mantis has amazing suspense mixed with witty dialogue. NO SPOILERS but the climactic ending was well done! All around a great addition to a great series.

third of 4

This book continues to grow the characters as the story unfolds. One is drawn into a magical and ancient world.

Great series, great narrator

Story is progressing nicely. Narrator does a good job with all of the characters involved.

This series just gets better and better

This series just gets better and better. Such a fascinating world, and such wholly believable, completely fleshed out, complex characters! It's so rare to get BOTH of those things right. Often in sci fi and fantasy you get great characters in silly plots, or cardboard cutouts but great world-building. This author seems to be a master of it all. Really, really well done.

Still good...

...but it has the same issues as the previous book. Keeping a lot of the characters around without giving them much to do, or reason to be there.. This, while introducing more and more new characters. So it all feels a bit diluted.

The big positive that is keeping me around are the world building. It's still really interesting to explore this world.

so engaging

fantastically read again by Ben Allen I'd say easily my favourite reader on here.
the story feels like a bridge to something bigger in the next book and I mean this in the best way possible I know what my next credit will be spent on