More than "I liked" and slightly less than "I really liked" but a promising fresh discovery nonetheless. Basically two stories told in parallel, crossing paths once along the way. The protagonists were charmingly flawed, even if a few of them were a bit lightly sketched (guilt-wracked mercenary h...
Book 3 of the Dagger and the Coin series. Keeps getting better. Daniel Abraham's fantasy that takes place in a post-Dragon multi-species world that looks like medieval times. War breaks out and keeps growing with the ministers of the Spider Goddess, who have the ability to instantly tell if som...
This series wraps up with one of the items that has nagged me the entire time. How the actual use of the powers that Abraham created would be and could be used offensively. How from nearly the start that I understood this magic system, I saw that they would be used, and until this fourth book, th...
Wow. It's been awhile since I've felt a series built up to a great pay-off like this. He continues to build a world and characters that feel so real and organic, which of course creates a very believable unpredictability.And the antagonist; so terrifying and yet fragile all at the same time. The ...
Agree with another reviewer. It was unspectacular. I thought that by book 4, an obvious path to a conclusion to the story would begin to crystallize. I will read the next book(s) only because I am now committed to the story. As a rule, I only start trilogies/epics if they are all available. An ex...
"A Shadow in Summer" has been on my to-be-read radar for quite a while now even though I can't quite recall exactly why I put it on the list. But when Jaws Read Too began her Summer of Series program, I looked over at the first installment in the series, sitting on my to be read pile, mocking me ...
Daniel Abraham delighted fantasy readers with his brilliant, original, and engaging first novel, A Shadow in Summer. Now he has produced an even more powerful sequel, a tragedy as darkly personal and violent as Shakespeare's Macbeth. As a boy, Otah Machi was exiled from his family, Machi's ruli...
Like so many others, Ramon Espejo ran from the poverty and hopelessness of the Third World to the promise of a new world--joining a host of like-minded workers and dreamers aboard one of the great starships of the mysterious, repulsive Enye. But the life he found on the far-off planet of Sao Paul...
7 "No, I will not forbid her a goddamned thing. The girl's got more spine than all the rest of us put together. We could learn something from her," Farrer Dasin said, his arms folded before him, his chin high and proud. And when he said the rest of its, Otah was clear that he meant the Galt...
Marcus brought the actors out to the gardens, drilling each of them in turn, Yardem at his side. Geder, thankfully, went back to the Kingspire to make a full night of preparations there. As many of the servants and guards as could be sent away from the great structure would be. Even the royal gua...
His servants powdered him, dressed him, and prepared him for the grand and glorious world. He told himself, as he did every morning, that the servants barely noticed what he looked like naked. And even if they did, he was the Lord Regent, and their opinions of him ought not matter. But always in ...
For a long moment, his face was a blank confusion as he struggled to make sense of what he saw. Slowly, she watched him recognize her. In all fairness, she might not have known him either, had she not sought him out. Time had changed him: thickened his body and thinned his hair. Even his face had...