I am a bit behind on my reviewing, but here we go.

Blood of the Mantis is the 3rd book in the Shadow of the Apt series. What started as a typical 'fellowship of the ring' style story in the first book, with a group of young students setting out to fight the evil Wasp Empire, turned into something like a world war novel in the second book. In the 3rd book, we go back to something more similar to the first book. We have three different groups of protagonists in different locations, all with different goals to weaken the Wasp Empire. For what it's worth, very little actually happens. We have Che and Nero visiting the spider city of Solarno, and they meet one of my favorite characters so far: Taki, the reckless Fly-kinden pilot lady. In Sarn we have Stenwold himself trying to prepare for the next part of the war, and in the skater-kinden city of Sarn we have the Inapt crew around Achaeos trying to locate the Shadow Box. The Jerez chapters were my favorite, because it sounded like such a sinister, dark place, with much dark magic (but also technology) afoot.

Ultimately, few things happened, and the author is juggling many different story threads, maybe too many. I am excited to maybe learn more about Princess Seda in Capitas, and am still recommending this series that is pretty far removed from your classical fantasy.