Possible continuity error? (Heirs of the Blade & Scarab Path spoilers)

[Asmor]

I'm currently working my way through Heirs of the Blade, and something
occurred to me.

1. In the first few books, it's established that mantis-kinden have a
long-standing grudge with spiders from time immemorial.

2. As part of their "pitch" to Che, in order to demonstrate their
ancient nature, The Masters of Kanaphes say they know the original
cause of the grudge mantises hold for spiders.

3. In Heirs of the Blade, we learn that Commonweal mantises don't
share the same grudge.

4. In Heirs of the Blade, Che realizes (or, at least, believes... I
suppose she could be wrong) that the slug-kinden also created the
castles in the Commonweal.

So here's the leap in my logic that I'm making. The fact that the
Masters mentioned their knowledge of the grudge would imply that it's
something fairly monumental. It seems a lot less... significant if
it's just "this particular faction of mantis-kinden" as opposed to
"all mantis-kinden".

The only real explanation I could see for that is if the Masters
didn't know about the Commonweal mantids. However, given that they
built castles in the Commonweal, that seems unlikely.

The only other thing I can think is that the Commonweal mantids may
have been part of the grudge, but gotten over it.

Completely unrelated: In trying to figure out the "best" plural for
"mantis", I did a google search on "mantises mantes mantids". Google
helpfully change that: "Showing results for mantis mantis mantis" I
found that rather amusing, at least. Now I'm picturing Marcia Brady as
a mantis-kinden.

[AdrianTchaikovsky]

No continuity error - it is just a Lowlander Mantis issue. The Masters
use it as a hook because Che is a Lowlander (and if you want to go
behind this, it shows that they underestimate her/patronise her).

Plural for Mantis - I use Mantids, which sounds right, but isn't
correct as I think it would properly refer to varieties of mantis.
Fabre uses Mantes, which I like, but was felt a bit difficult for
people to get their heads round.

BTW - check out recent postings - another reader is interested in
doing a Wiki - something you might be up for contributing to?

[Ian Toltz]

One of the greatest things of the Internet age is being able to talk directly to your favorite authors. Thanks for the reply, Adrian! :)

Where's the posting about the wiki? This is the only message in this Google Group, so I'm guessing it must be a reply to one of your posts on your blog? I think the user tweeted me. I asked him to send me an email, but it looks like he doesn't use twitter very often.

Definitely something I'd like to help with. I've thought a wiki would be really helpful as well. Though I'd like to see a forum before there was a wiki (or just using this google group...), so there's some place to discuss it.

-Ian

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-Ian Toltz

[Asmor]

Oh, quick question... If I knew a way for US (and other) citizens to
purchase the books from the UK kindle store, would you be averse to my
sharing that info? It's just a workaround for the geo-restrictions;
you still have to pay for the book (indeed, with the weak dollar, I
actually paid a bit more for Heirs of the Blade than the first
six...).

[Jackson Cordes]

I have now started a discussion and a place for people to start
working so check it out! - Jackson

[AdrianTchaikovsky]

I think you can get the UK editions from Amazon.com. It's awkward. The
US situation is being looked at right now, so I'm hoping there will be
some movement soon.

[Ian Toltz]

You can not get the UK editions from Amazon.com (at least, not for Kindle; I don't know about dead-tree).

You used to be able to; I have the first 4 books in American editions, and then Scarab Path and The Sea Watch in the UK editions. I was lucky in that I purchased those two ahead of time; A few months later I wrote a blog post pimping your series, went to throw up links to all the books, and noticed that the latter two were no longer available.

I was able to make purchases from the Amazon.co.uk site by setting my Kindle's address to a UK address (I used Buckingham palace, actually). I got an email a couple days later from an Amazon staff member saying something along the lines of "I noticed you tried to purchase a UK title from the US. Please get in touch so we can resolve this". I never replied to the email, and nothing ever happened. Finished up Heirs of the Blade last week.

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-Ian Toltz