Adrian Czajkowski, 'Shadows of the Apt' *Tchaikovsky for publication purposes)
Just coming to the last two in this series. Rather interesting premise, but the plotting can beseen as reflecting obvious Earth real-life history. The premise:
A fantasy world filled with lots of different races of humans, each race (kinden) having a non-human 'totem' that affects their physical nature and mindset. For example, Mantis Kinden are near-psychopathic and very efficient killers. Wasps are utterly nasty empire-builders.
Each kinden has an Art, a sort of magic trick, that can be deployed. This can involve, e.g, wings, so that wasps have 'light airborne' troops, and flies are rather short people who are employed as messengers.
The kinden, and individuals within them, are divided between the Apt and Inapt. 500 years before the time of the books, the world was run by the Moth mystics with their Mantis troops, but there was an Apt revolution. The difference between Apr and Inapt is the ability to use machinery and carry out certain aspects of abstract reasoning. For example, the Inapt can use swords, bows, etc, but cannot work door handles or read stylised maps. They have other abilities, depicted as being just as valid.
The technology is a sort of steampunk. As an example, there are many 'automotives', many of which are walkers. A typical aircraft is an ornithopter, made of wood and silk, powered by a clockwork motor and armed with two Roman style repeating ballistae. The engine can be rewound by trailing a drogue chute, which does rather impinge on the laws of thermodynamics except in very specific circumstances, such as soaring unpowered flight on thermals being used to gain the necessary potential energy for rewinding.
Not too badly written, if a little repetitive now and again, but any set of books whose lead character is a bald, dumpy and middle-aged man is worth a look.