Daniel Abraham - The King's Blood

The King's Blood is the second volume in Daniel Abraham's Epic Fantasy series, The Dagger and the Coin. As fans of Abraham's diverse bibliography have no doubt come to expect, this is a novel filled with gripping characters and momentum, and it is a supremely gripping Epic Fantasy novel. The flaws that it does have come as a result of the series' size and scope, which can threaten to leave a single plotline's potential unexplored or shoved aside.

In my review of the first volume, The Dragon's Path, I said that it "ended before its most interesting elements could come to the fore." Does that still hold? Well, yes and no. Like A Song of Ice and Fire, The Dagger and the Coin has a series of political plots and struggles against a far larger mythic background. Like (the first three novels of) A Song of Ice and Fire¸ that political plot charges forward, twisting and turning about, while the larger arc contents itself with hints and crawls. The spread of the Spider Goddess' priests is certainly an important event of the book, mind you. Their growing presence inspires a fair bit of foreboding in forward thinking characters and readers alike and the actions they inspire from others are certainly dramatic. But that last part's the key. The priests are important so far primarily in how other characters react to them, whether that reaction's gullible (inevitable?) following or violent (doomed?) resistance. The priests themselves, however, have yet to become central; the earthshaking threat that they pose is still nothing more than vague whispering on the horizon.

That slowness of pace might have, after two volumes, grown obnoxious if not for the gripping nature and fast pace of the political plotline. Abraham uses short chapters and a multiplicity of viewpoints to progress quickly through momentous events without short changing them. He is adept at showing less to imply far, far more; by giving us the key scenes in a war, and making discussion of it play into the chapters and lives of the characters not directly involved, Abraham is able to get across the scale, importance, and impact of a massive conflict without trudging through its every escalade. By using each point of view to reinforce the others, Abraham is able to create a far wider tapestry than he would be able to otherwise and to make every stroke far more convincing.

Furthermore, Daniel Abraham is a master of making his characters likable. Now, mind you, likable is very, very different from blandly good. This is not a cast without depth or variation. But Abraham removes moral ease by a seemingly infinite ability to show us what is most dear to the characters and feel it alongside them. We may be horrified by what they do, but we understand why. When we are in their heads, we know their joys and their terrors. Their most despicable acts seem wholly justified, until we free ourselves from their perspective and realize the horrors we have watched unleashed. The main example of this is no doubt Geder, the noble propelled through the ranks by his allegiance with the priests and surfeit of blind luck. Geder is prickly skin personified, but his small wishes, his love of reading, and his desire to avoid humiliation humanize him. His nigh limitless power then makes him terrifying. Always, Geder's perspective dances on the razor's edge between endearing and sickening. No matter how much the reader tries to disconnect from him and focus on his crimes, it tips back.

As in the first book, Dawson is an unyielding conservative, a man who believes change is always wrong and that order and etiquette are all that hold us back from the abyss. He is the kind of man who will die before surrendering what he believes. He comes to view the priests as an abomination polluting his beloved Antea, and he will die to expunge them. He is an elitist, a man who believes that: we [nobles] have been born better (p. 274) and who says: When a low man crosses me, I execute him. (ibid) Abraham's said that he based the character on the German author of Diary of a Man in Despair, who hated the Nazi's lower class origins. The idea of evil pitted against a greater evil is certainly a strong one, and one that's been made to work innumerable times in the past, and Abraham imbues Dawson with an incredible force of character and personality. 

But while Dawson faces incredible worldly challenges, he faces no real ideological ones. In my review of The Dragon's Path, I said that "Abraham seems to have left out the part where his reprehensible character has equally reprehensible foes." Here, the problem is rather the opposite. Outside of a very few utterances like the one I quoted above, Dawson's prejudices are never put to the test or even brought to the fore. He never interacts with characters of a lower class, never has to either disregard the merit of an inferior man or overcome his beliefs. His idea of natural superiority is, here, a background part of his character. Outside of a few such observances, he could simply play the part of the purely loyal white knight; he's a Ned Stark burdened with blemishes, but whose blemishes never come into play.

Cithrin and Marcus both begin the story struggling to keep control of the bank branch that Cithrin established in The Dragon's Path. By the book's end, both have wandered rather far afield, called from that local struggle to larger things. For Cithrin, the change happens quickly. In order to defeat the notary that's strangling her local bank, she goes to the headquarters of the Medean bank, which leads to some of the novel's wittiest lines, such as when she tells Komme Medea that his notary has the soul of a field mouse and the tact of a landslide. (p. 193) From there, Cithrin finds herself involved in great happenings around the map, including the turmoil in Antea.

The biting dialogue is not the only successful part of her plotline. As in the seminal Long Price quartet, Abraham weaves economics into a larger narrative to the great benefit of it all. Money, as well as swords, presents a route to power in Abraham's world. Cithrin says of her childhood dreams that: The dragon turned out to be money. […] Coin and contract and lending at interest were what let me fly. (p. 362) Of course, as Marcus' stint as a bank enforcer goes, coin and blade are not wholly divorced; the former, in fact, might be as hollow without the latter as the latter would be insignificant without the former.

Despite its excellent use of money and the bank's structure, however, Cithrin's story suffers from being divorced from the bank she worked so hard for in the prior volume. Here, she ventures damn far afield, and it can be difficult at times to relate each step on the way to her larger purpose. Immersed in the politics of Camnipol in particular, the unique aspects of Cithrin's story are endangered by the weight of the more intricately tied together narratives around it. The threatening feeling of aimlessness is certainly not aided by her justification of a major decision as a whim, a moment's madness. (p. 285) Abraham is too gifted a writer of character to allow things to totally devolve, but one coincidence in her storyline in particular does verge on making the whole affair feel less like a plot than an artificially guided wander.

Though he stays put for most of it, Marcus Wester's plotline suffers worse than Cithrin's for their splitting up. When she departs, his role as her protector is made rather difficult, and he's more than aware of the problem. The solution seems to be Master Kit, a character from the first novel and an apostate member of the priesthood. Kit tries to enlist Marcus in a grand quest to defeat the Goddess, and, though Marcus refuses at first, it's clear that he'll eventually acquiesce. That certainty, and his continuing fixation with a plotline that Cithrin has already moved past, serve to make most of his scenes until near the end feel like treading water, no matter how enjoyable the small parts of each of them might be. As for Master Kit, it does make the reader wonder than his urgent quest, established in the prologue, had ample time to wait about in one place until Marcus finally got around to changing his mind.

Much of the criticism, my own no exception, of The Dragon's Path seemed to center on its worldbuilding. The King's Blood does add a great deal to what we know, it does not fill in every detail of its world in the way that some other fantasy novels (The Wheel of Time, The Way of Kings, etc) do. That being said, the nature of the world, and of its impact, becomes far clearer here. Every character is driven by the recent past, by the shape of the nations on the map and by the history formed character of the men that inhabit them. As one character says, the nature of history defines us. (p. 204) But what is known about history is not the entirety of it. The Dagger and the Coin is as driven by the limits of historical knowledge (p. 43) as it is by the history that is known. Almost everyone knows that: Anything could be buried below Camnipol, and no one would ever find it. It was a city of lost things. (p. 337) This is the story of those lost things coming to the surface, the causes and events buried beneath the causes and events that seem to shape the characters and present world, and this deeper history threatens to throw everything that built up after off its back as it rises.

As for the magic system, we may not have gotten to understand all of its origins or consequences yet, but what we do see of it is fascinating and filled with unsettling promise. The priests' power lies on the barrier between the truth and the lie. They can always tell when you are lying. And they can always make you believe that they are telling the truth.  The priests say that words are the armor and swords of souls, (p. 210) and their claim seems true; with their power, they can remake any man they meet. This ties into the line between being and being thought of, the difference between truth and certainty, and the difference between pretending to be something and being it, all of which are chief themes in much of Abraham's work (such as in the story The Curandero and the Swede from Leviathan Wept). As one character says, We are the stories people tell about us. (p. 441)

Having reached the end of its second volume, I can say that The Dagger and the Coin has so far still not awed me to the same extent that The Long Price quartet did. That being said, it is intriguing, fresh, fast, and fun, and its every ominous motion is on a canvas that threatens to be torn through in the next few pages. The Dagger and the Coin is so far one of the most entertaining fantasies I've read in a while, and its next volumes promise to be far better still.

Best Releases of 2011

Yesterday, Strange Horizons put up their Year in Review post, with my own paragraph-long thoughts among those offered. Head on over and take a look. Once you're done, though, keep reading, because the discussion's not yet over. See, at the time of writing the Strange Horizons piece, my computer was down and seemingly dead (thankfully, it recovered soon after). As a result, I didn't have access to my list of books read and so, rather unsurprisingly, forgot the dates of a few notable releases, most importantly Daniel Kraus' Rotters, a YA horror novel about grave robbing that one me over in short order due to the fantastic descriptions of that so-sordid crime and the depiction of the novel's main character. And then there are all the series books, few of which I mentioned. Both White Luck Warrior and The Crippled  God were quite good. The latter maybe even excellent, even if it wasn't my personal favorite Malazan volume. Both, though, lost their places on the list because they were too tied up with the preceding (and, in the case of the former, to come) novels for me to really judge them on their own merits. Finally, there's certainly the matter of Historical Lovecraft, the anthology that came out midway through the year bearing my very first published story.

My post with overall best reads for the year will come out next week. 

For those interested, the full list of newly released books I read is as follows:

1. Joe Abercrombie – The Heroes
2. Daniel Abraham – The Dragon's Path
3. R. Scott Bakker – The White Luck Warrior
4. James S. A. Corey – Leviathan Wakes
5. Steven Erikson – The Crippled God
6. Daniel Kraus – Rotters
7. Mark Lawrence – Prince of Thorns
8. George R.R. Martin – A Dance with Dragons
9. Robert McCammon – The Hunter from the Woods
10. Haruki Murakami – 1Q84
11. Adam Nevill – The Ritual
12. K.J. Parker – The Hammer
13. Patrick Rothfuss – The Wise Man's Fear
14. Brandon Sanderson – The Alloy of Law
15. Sam Sykes – Black Halo
16. Catherynne M. Valente – Deathless
17. Historical Lovecraft

Reading in June

I haven't since July posted one of my supposedly monthly reading recaps, with the books being discussed being from way back in May, and, while they're far from the blog's centerpiece as far as content/insight go, I do miss them a tad. Wandering about the delightfully cluttered "Hat Rack" section of my hard drive I noticed I'd actually written a summary of my reading in June but never posted it, so I decided it was high time for a jump back to the halcyon days of summer, the distant days of June...

Leviathan Wakes, the creation of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, is a Science Fiction novel manages to be a gripping mixture of Space Opera awe and a horror-derived, maybe even noirish, sense of claustrophobia. In the midst of all that, the book's fast paced, fun, and stars two excellently portrayed characters.

I'll admit to some measure of disappointment with The Blonde on the Street Corner. This is the third novel of Goodis's I've read – coming after The Wounded and theSlain and Black Friday – and both of those were downbeat tales of the low and the lonely, each depressive and captivating in its way. The Blonde on the Street Corner has the majority of the formula down. Our protagonists are deadbeats in the depression, bumming off their families with no prospects whatsoever. So the theme's there, and Goodis's prose is dotted with the same flares of poetic sorrow that I've come to expect. But what's missing is anything to grab the reader. This is a book that simply meanders along, but, unlike The Wounded and the Slain, we're never really presented with a reason to care. Though this certainly isn't a bad read, it's nowhere near the level that Goodis is capable of operating on.

The Hour of the Dragon is the only full length novel of Conan the Barbarian that Robert E. Howard ever penned. It's filled with all the hallmarks that are associated with the character – or, perhaps I should stress, those hallmarks that come from the creator's tales and not the lobotomized cinematic or otherwise later versions. This story is filled with adventure, intrigue, and tension, and though Howard manages to drag Conan through almost every aspect of his former life – pirate and thief and so on – it never feels like a rehash or like there's an author up above the pages dragging the characters this way and that without giving them any say. As for the writing, it's Howard's usual, which is to say that it's equal parts painfully exuberant excess and vivid mastery. If you're a fan of the character, this is a necessary read.

The full version of Thomas Ligotti and Brandon Trenz's screenplay Crampton – the earlier, abridged, and derivative version of which I read earlier this year – is a fascinating read for any Ligotti fan. The expected themes – the ephemeral and illusory nature of the world, the hollowness of all existence, and so forth – are present, but the author's hypnotic prose is absent, replaced by tightly written dialogue, bits of banter, and even expletives. Crampton moves at a fast and enjoyable clip, and the finishing anticlimax is powerfully done, but I still do have to say that, overall, the depressive and vivid ecstasy that Ligotti's writing normally brings is, by necessity, absent here. This is an interesting item to be sure, but it's most certainly just for the diehard collector, and not just because of the forbidding price tag.

George R.R. Martin's as adept at short stories as he is at doorstopper epics, and almost every one of the tales in this collection shows his mastery of the form. Reviewed here.

Fevre Dream, Martin's novel of Vampires and steamboats, has lost nothing with time, and it wasn't diminished on reread either. This is a novel rich in characterization and atmosphere, something not to be missed by any fan of Martin's work. Reviewed here.

In many ways, All the Pretty Horses is an inversion of the author's landmark Blood Meridian. John Grady Cole, our protagonist here, is a romantic and a dreamer trespassing on the brutal and unforgiving Wild West that McCarthy's become so justly famous for, and the results are at once heart breaking and even, at times, beautiful. Though I can't say that this novel's as revelatory as Blood Meridian, it's still an excellent read.

The third collection of horror writer Reggie Oliver, Masques of Satan is a volume of subtle ghost stories woven into theater backdrops. My reaction to Oliver is very similar to my reaction to the M.R. James stories I've read, and I mean that both in the positive ways that Oliver's adherents cite and also in the negatives that those Weird Tales-devotees would most certainly not agree to. Like James, Oliver writes in a formal but inviting style, and his words draw you in and make you feel like a part of the conversation. Also like James, his mastery of his subject area is obvious from every word he speaks, but – due to the aforementioned welcoming tone – the knowledge imparted is interesting rather than onerous. Oliver's ghosts, however, are – like James – the least interesting parts of his stories by far, little twists of the supernatural that aren't particularly memorable in and of themselves. I enjoyed this collection a fair bit, but I'd hesitate to recommend it at the forty or fifty dollars you're likely to find it for, and I certainly was not enamored enough with the stories here to spend the several hundred needed to read the author's first and second collections.

I'll admit it: I'm just bewildered here. Boneshaker was a forgettable read packed with problems and a few good ideas that weren't even taken advantage of. How, again, did this ever get near a Hugo? Reviewed here.

Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

My review of Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path is now up at Strange Horizons.

The format of this review's a bit different from my other reviews at the site, in that I and another reviewer - the perceptive and articulate Maria Velazquez - each appear in the same post with our views, creating a double review of sorts that has thrice the insight of any other review. As for what we focus on, I spent most of my piece on the characters while blithely dismissing aspects of the world that Ms. Velazquez then went on to reveal all sorts of damning implications about, none of which I'd ever considered. Our impressions couldn't be much more different, but that's no doubt the point of us being jammed together, so head on over and take a look.

Reading in May

I've mentioned my love of Daniel Abraham a fair few times on this blog, and reviewed his short story collection from Subterranean Press, and so I dove into The Dragon's Path as soon as it crossed my doorstep. I can't quite say that the novel possesses as much depth or power as The Long Price at its height, but The Dragon's Path is an interesting and enjoyable book that serves to set up many an interesting thread for future volumes. Review coming.

 The White Luck Warrior, the second volume in the second of Bakker's three connected trilogies, can be easily compared to the middle volume of the first trilogy, The Warrior Prophet. As there, here we focus on an army on the move dealing with supply problems, and so on – but this book lacks the galloping pace of actions and revelations that made that first trilogy such an unforgettable experience. This is not, however, a weak book by any stretch of the imagination. Though I wish more ground had been covered, and less retread, the writing here is powerful and resplendent with metaphors and hidden meanings, and the thematic and philosophical ideas explored are as insightful as the standard that Bakker has set for himself.

Though I enjoyed many of the stories in The Martian Chronicles, I'll admit that, come the collection's end, I still wasn't convinced that Bradbury deserved his legendary status. Now, having read Something Wicked This Way Comes, I'll gladly admit that I was wrong: Bradbury most certainly deserves his praise. Something Wicked This Way Comes is a story about danger and change, but it's also – and most of all – a story about childhood. The exuberance of its characters and the skill of its prose is mesmerizing, and, though the novel does occasionally verge on the saccharine, there are six moments of awe and majesty for every half stumble. This is required reading for anyone interested in our genre's greats.

 Spurred on by my Breaking New Ground challenge, I began Moon Called and found a fast paced and enjoyable Urban Fantasy book with well drawn characters and a generally quietly believable approach to world building. Though Briggs has yet to show herself exceptional in any way, Moon Called is still an enjoyable novel that promises better things ahead.

 Like Hard Man, Savage Night is crime so bleak and brutal it's impossible to react to with anything but a terrified, strangled laugh. Guthrie reacts to the borders of sanity and general taste like most of us view finish lines, and his characters are slammed together so hard and fast that the gruesome mess that's left is likely to leave you as sick as you are satisfied. This is a roller coaster ride of cleverness and tension, but, like all the best four hundred foot drops, it's best to brace yourself before going in.

 Dashiell Hammett's debut is noir writ large, a single amoral detective pitted against an immoral city. Like Savage Night, this isn't a novel that will win any points for restraint, but the laconic honesty of its telling and force of its words is impossible to ignore. Review here.

 Kiernan's Subterranean Press collection, The Ammonite Violin & Others, weaved nightmarish and erotic tapestries out of lush language and surreal descriptions. The Red Tree mesmerizes the audience in a way as different as can be. Here, Kiernan's speech is unadorned and honest, crude and raw and vulnerable. And the image that she paints is both vivid and disorientating, at once horrific and run through with desire.

 I think it's rather well established that I liked Nevill's first two novels, Banquet for the Damned and Apartment 16 a fair bit. I even interviewed the man here.  After all that, I went into The Ritual with damn high expectations – and the book's first half blew even those away. Here Nevill displays excellence in atmosphere and character, creating a taut and terrifying adventure that rivaled anything in Nevill's first two books. And then, alas, the book's second section began, and the characters were gone, and the pacing was gone, and the atmosphere was gone. Review coming.

As I read the first hundred pages of Stone, I was deeply in love. Roberts writes with all the penetrating honesty of a confession and the intricacy of a carefully considered narrative, and his ideas are fresh and riveting. Alas, soon after the imprisoned protagonist wins his freedom, narrative momentum grates to a meandering halt and never returns in force. Still, the ideas that Roberts explores are interesting, and the prose fantastic throughout. I'll be reading more of Roberts in the future for sure, though I hope that his other novels maintain a more even pace throughout.

Best Releases of 2010

I've read eighteen books released this year. Of those, four stood out as head and shoulders above the rest.  Each of these books is something I would recommend to any genre fan.

So let's get to some books, shall we?

Review here.

The Halfmade World excelled in just about every category I can think of to judge fiction. The world is immersive, well thought out, and interesting, and the characters that populate it are both larger than life and crippled by flaws. Liv is ineffective and, for much of the novel, incapable of surviving on her own. Creedmore is narcissistic and self pitying. Lowry is an automaton, unwilling to acknowledge that he’s walking right off a cliff. Gilman's created a focused work that feels epic, a fascinating cast of characters, and a gripping plot. I’d compare The Halfmade World to the other releases of the year, but there’s really no need. 2010 has a clear winner, and it’s standing right here.

Review here.

Like The Halfmade World, Terminal World uses a personal struggle to illuminate vast, world changing events. Admittedly, none of Reynolds’ characters here have the sheer power of Gilman’s in the above book. But Reynolds has never been a character writer, even if his characters have grown immeasurably. I read Reynolds books to be wowed by concepts and shifts in scale, to be awed by creations I could never have conceived of. The ideas in Terminal World will blow your mind. The Spire’s varying levels of technology allow clear demarcations within the text, and Reynolds gets to play in a half dozen different playgrounds. Every level is exquisitely rendered, from the opening to the steampunk to the endless wastes. Reynolds’ tone is no less variable, ranging from pure fun to awe to terror, and all in the same ten pages. If he’d wanted to end the book with the characters’ view of the Swarm below them and call it a day, I think I would have still walked away trying to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Review here.

The Folding Knife shares a limited cast with the prior two books, but it differentiates itself by not really being about the imagined world at all. Oh, Basso is in charge of the country, but we really only care about the Vesani as far as Basso feels like being compassionate that day. Parker’s newest novel is cynical, witty, and incredibly deep. It would be easy to make a novel about a single, narcissistic antihero who gets his way and have it be off putting and tensionless, and it’s true that the secondary characters here show a disappointing lack of depth, but Basso himself is humanized by his flaws and fascinating for his peculiar morality. If I were to pick an Epic Fantasy read of the year, it’s undoubtedly this.

Review here.

Apartment 16’s cast is uneven, and the climax is ultimately disappointing. On the other hand, the book’s atmosphere is oppressive enough to smother you on a sunny beach in Florida. Nevill invites the reader along as he splits his characters’ world in two and sends Seth down the dark path. Watching the main character gradually recede from humanity is a painful experience, and it’s only made more so by his occasional intersections with the world that we recognize. This is a dark and uncompromising read that will stay with you long after you’re done with it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Review here.

Abraham's short fiction proved as multifaceted as his novels. Leviathan Wept is a varied and powerful work, capable of terrifying you with one story and warming your heart with the next. The collection was brought down slightly be a few slightly weaker stories as it went on, but this is still an essential read.

Review here.

Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction work is as insidious as his short fiction. The ideas presented in The Conspiracy Against the Human Race are interesting and well argued, if not always persuasive. I didn't put this in the upper list because I've no idea how one can conclusively state that a book of philosophy is "better" than a book of fiction, but this is a work that had to be mentioned in any proper summation of the year.

Habitations of the Blessed is a stunningly original novel that's atypical down to its very structure and framing. This is very much the first book of a longer work, and it's difficult to draw conclusions about Valente's world and its ramifications from just what's here. Still, the barrage of exquisitely bizarre imagery that Valente unleashes makes this a must read for any fans of fantasy fiction or gorgeous prose.

DISCLAIMER

Some people seem to have a rather skewed impression of what Best Of lists actually are. I know that it says Essential Reads on top of this post, but you know what? I’m aware that those are not necessarily the ultimate, objective books of 2010. They are simply my favorite released books of 2010. That does not mean that I have read every book released in 2010 (or even every book I want to read in 2010), or that I have used some sort of unbiased criteria to determine these. The complete list of 2010 releases I've read is as follows, provided to give my picks context and to explain the absence, of, say, That Book You Love That I Haven't Read on my list.

Shine

Daniel Abraham – Leviathan Wept

Iain M. Banks – Surface Detail

Justin Cronin – The Passage

Ian C. Esslemont – Stonewielder

Felix Gilman – The Halfmade World

N.K. Jesmin – The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Thomas Ligotti – The Conspiracy against the Human Race

China Mieville – Kraken

Adam LG Nevill – Apartment 16

K.J. Parker – The Folding Knife

Alastair Reynolds – Terminal World

Patrick Rothfuss – The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle

Brandon Sanderson – The Way of Kings

Brandon Sanderson/Robert Jordan – Towers of Midnight

Sam Sykes – Tome of the Undergates

Cathrynne M. Valente – Habitations of the Blessed

Jeff VanderMeer – The Third Bear

The Dragon's Path [Cover Art]

I like this one quite a bit. It's more epic than the last draft, and, though it's most certainly not groundbreaking, it's a fun cover that promises an exciting read. It's a bit worrisome that one of the Dagger and Coin's selling points seems to be its (at least comparatively) traditional nature. Still, after The Long Price and Leviathan Wept, I'll give Abraham the benefit of the doubt.

Reading in October

Generally a good month, starting some interesting series and wrapping up some others, as well as quite a few collections and stand alones. No Breaking New Ground books this time around, but I haven't abandoned those and will fit in some more next month.


Daniel Abraham is fast becoming, in my opinion, the ultimate unsung hero of epic fantasy. Tor never published a paperback version of The Price of Spring, and yet The Long Price was a series almost unmatched for its decisive pacing and marvelous, evolving characterization. Leviathan Wept, a collection of Abraham’s short fiction, lives up to the lofty expectations any reader of his previous work no doubt has. Review coming.


Close this tab. I’ve heard that Barker – close this tab – is a master of horror for years, and this (closethistab) is the first work of his that I’ve read. I’m closethistab more confused than awed, though. As far as I can tell shutoffyourbrowser this is a fairly standard, meandering and unexciting novel, albeit occasionally an amusing one, that’s rendered almost unbearable by the book’s nonstop begging (don’t read the rest) for you to put it down, putting you in the mood to do nothing so much as throw the book at the wall and yell (one last chance, close this tab): Alright, Mr. Barker, I think I will!


Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrell is a beautifully written novel. It’s more than a little meander happy, but excellent nonetheless. This is one of the very rare books that I can seriously call delightful every time I open it up. Not perfect, no, but dazzling enough to make up for that.


The Passage, at least in terms of marketing, seems like this year’s big novel. I did enjoy it, but I didn’t love it. Review coming.


My first Sherlock Holmes story is a success. Despite some pacing problems, I’m already looking forward to reading more of Doyle’s stories. Review coming.


The Halfmade World ran roughshod over my expectations. I was expecting good, very good even, and it delivered great. Comparing The Halfmade World to Thunderer is like comparing night and day. And that’s coming from someone who really liked Thunderer. Review coming.


I really, really love some aspects of Hamilton’s writing. And I really, really hate some other aspects. Judas Unchained seems to have magnified just about every good and bad tendency of its creators, and my opinion is mixed, though I did enjoy the read. Review of it and Pandora’s Star coming.


I always find M.R. James’s writing to be engrossing, but the reason isn’t the scare factor. There is something about James’s style, part formal antique and part colloquial, that makes me feel like the man is sitting across from me, telling me his experiences first hand. That isn’t, by the way, to suggest that these stories are tame. There are a few that the reader desensitized by the loudness and often excessiveness of modern horror will, sadly, find a bit hard to feel the horror of (I think the modern standard is for the doll’s to brutally murder at least three people; wood replaying old tragedies in the night simply isn’t bloody enough), but there are no weak stories here…

Except for the first tale in the collection, The Residence at Whitminister, which, for some reason, I found almost impenetrable. I’m not sure if this is a result of James’s writing or simply me being unused to his style after a long hiatus, but a reread did not solve the problem, and I’m left with a collection of out of order facts and occurrences without the slightest emotional thread to tie them together.


Newton’s debut is ambitious, well written, and not without the occasional flaw. Review here.


I loved The Folding Knife, and I went into The Engineer Trilogy with very, very high expectations. Devices and Desires is very good, and has quite a few very interesting elements, but it also has a few aspects that I’m more hesitant upon. All the same, I’m looking forward to starting Evil for Evil in a few days. Review coming when I finish the trilogy.

Daniel Abraham [Cover Art]

I love this cover.

That's probably a weird announcement coming from someone who panned Morgan's recent covers, which follow almost exactly the same design, but it's true. I guess the difference is between something serviceable and plain and something garnished and polished to a state of blinding brilliance. The sword conveys some nice epic, adventuring fun, while the background displays the background conveys both further epicness and, also somewhat important, depth. At least to me.

The Dragon's Path is something I've been looking forward to ever since I heard about it, after loving The Long Price Quartet, which, we need to all remember, has quite possibly the best set of covers in fantasy (or, at least, did until the omnibus editions came about). On the subject of the Long Price, I'm planning to reread and review it at some point, though likely not for some time.

In addition to The Dragon's Path, one of Abraham's psuedonyms [though this psuedonym's done some inbreeding with Ty Franck] has something coming out, too:


It is, I hear, a rather kickass space opera. It's got a great cover too. Do I see a trend? Wait, nevermind. Still, Abraham's still got quite a few covers, and books, under his belt to be quite proud of.

Up and Coming (and Essential?) in May

I quite liked The City and the City, but it only felt tangentially like a Mieville novel. The weirdness and interesting themes were there, but everything felt quite muted. Even if it’s not set in Bas Lag, Kraken looks like it’s going to be a lot closer to Mieville’s more colorful works. There’s a decently sized sample floating around I haven’t read the whole thing (I generally prefer to devour something in a few sittings, rather than taunt myself with excerpts), but I couldn’t resist the opening, and I love the writing there. Several reviews of this are out so far, all glowing, including Wert's and The Speculative Scotsman's.


Apartment 16 looks like a dark, claustrophobic horror novel, but what’s got me most excited are the great reviews. James came first, and he convinced me that this was something I had to look into. When the Speculative Scotsman joined him, I knew I needed to read this sooner rather than later. If you’re into horror, this seems like a pretty safe bet from where I’m sitting.


Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet was an excellent read and just the kind of thing that makes me desperate to read more of an author’s work. The prose was both beautiful and precise throughout, the characterization superb. Leviathan Wept is a collection of his short stories (some of which are award winning) that looks perfect for filing that urge. You can get one of the stories, the The Cambist and Lord Iron, here for free.

UPDATE

And, finally: