What is The Thirteenth Prince about?

Gene and Kostya are moderately unimportant imperial functionaries who discover something amiss in the doings of the widespread bureaucracy in which they work. Thematically the book is about economics and commerce as weapons of war, imperial decline, and love and friendship.

The Empire in which the book is set takes elements from Han China under Mongol rule, Cambodia and Malaysia, Byzantium, and maritime London. Then it shakes them vigorously.

What sort of fantasy are we talking, here?

In my definition of fantasy archetypes I claim that low fantasy is "Fuck, a dragon." 

The first line of the book was "It's those fuckers in the Interior again." I decided fuckers was just too abrasive, so it got dialed back to "wankers" for a more Anglo charm.

The stakes here are epic, this is fates of nations, freedome, liberty, love. But the main characters are basically comptrollers and clerks, with some mercenaries, pirates and carpenters thrown in for good measure.

I'm going to say "scrollpunk".

Tell me about the writing style!

This is very English. There is swearing.

Tell me about the cover!

Dean did it. There are Easter Eggs on it.