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Daniel Abraham


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Speaking of which, you can't buy the American (ie Tor) Long Price books on Amazon, what with the ebook wars between Macmillan and Amazon. I can recommend the UK (ie Orbit) Omnibi off Amazon UK or the Tor books from BN.com or Powells.com or ordered from your local independent bookseller.

In fact, I'll tell you what. Anyone who gets the books from a local independent, drop me a line at [email protected], I'll send out a signed bookplate or something equally fun.

I've been boycotting Amazon for a while now. I don't like the way they do business, and this newest fiasco just adds to the long list of what's wrong with Amazon. BN.com works just fine if I need to order something off the internet (which I don't often do, unless it's from overseas, as I really enjoy going to bookstores).

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I didn't think much of Shadow in Summer when I first read it; I think what I said at the time was that I wanted it to be a better book than it was, and that colored my take. I decided to give the series another chance when I read Abraham's work in the first Wild Cards book and after I talked to him at DenverCon and he told me that it got a lot better.

Wow, did it get a lot better.

Betrayal in Winter has just phenomenal characters and a Dune-like quality to the politics in that you know basically everything in terms of what people are doing and who is doing it, but you don't know what will happen or how the events will converge. Actually, that's probably not the best example; the best example is something like No Country for Old Men. The tension in this book was palpable, and it really drove things.

But An Autumn War takes it to a whole new level. Here is the book I've been looking for since I started reading Martin. Here is the book filled with characters who you understand and sympathize with, even as they do horrible things. Again he gives the reader the absolute knowledge of what's going on via the characters; there aren't surprises that way. The way things unfold has this horribly delicious inevitability to it, and as others remarked above the sense that these people have been around for 40 years and what has happened to them has so shaped what they are going to do is so clear; the characters are utterly brilliant and true in that way.

But the ending...was amazing.

The twist got me in a way that only Ned's death has from a book. I didn't see it coming, but it was perfectly set up by the prior books and I should have. It was outstanding in its horror and resolution; it hit on a personal level that few endings can. I had thought that Martin doesn't pull punches, but Abraham did him one better here.

Just incredible.

Can't wait to read the Price of Spring, and looking forward to reading the rest of his work.

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I think An Autumn War is my favorite volume of the 4. A Shadow in Summer was the one I liked the least. I enjoyed it, I found the culture of the Khianesse to be interesting, but I don't know it just didn't impress me as much as the later volumes did.

Overall though, I think for a completed series this probably ranks #1 on my list of epic fantasy.

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I think for a completed series this probably ranks #1 on my list of epic fantasy.

Could not agree more.

Absolutely.

BTW I have yet to read a critical comment on the series. The praise is unanimous and The Long Price has reached a special status as THE excellent series.

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I just had to say that I'm about halfway through the first novel of Long Price and LOVE it.

If it does indeed get even better I will be a happy camper.

I think I'll have to pick up your urban fantasy series for my girlfriend, because she likes that sort of thing.

Thanks Daniel.

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Absolutely.

BTW I have yet to read a critical comment on the series. The praise is unanimous and The Long Price has reached a special status as THE excellent series.

The first and second books cover a lot of the same ground.

There, a critical comment. :P

I just finished the series the other day and... well, yeah. There's little bad to say about it.

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I just had to say that I'm about halfway through the first novel of Long Price and LOVE it.

If it does indeed get even better I will be a happy camper.

I think I'll have to pick up your urban fantasy series for my girlfriend, because she likes that sort of thing.

Thanks Daniel.

Tadams, I'm happy to tell you you have NO idea what you're getting into yet. You can suss out a lot of Daniel's style and intent early in Summer, but truly appreciating what it provides will take some time. :thumbsup:

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I agree with everyone about An Autumn War. Up until then, I liked the series a lot ,but didn't love it. That book just blew me away though. I knew something awful was going to happen, and I dreaded getting to the end, but I just kept reading faster and faster. The Price of Spring was similar in brilliance. Really, the worst part of the books for me is that they were all so engrossing that I finished them in two or three sittings.

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Absolutely.

BTW I have yet to read a critical comment on the series.

In the reading threads I've seen several people say they gave up on the series because they couldn't get over the poses.

One poster, dbcooper, just stopped reading in the middle of A Betrayal in Winter because he thought he knew exactly where the book was going.

And then this was posted in a thread today (that I coincidentally pulled some posts from this thread to put there):

I read A Shadow in Summer, and I was really expecting to like it, but to be honest I found it dull. I keep wondering if I'm missing something due to all the praise it gets here. Does it improve after the first one? (Subtle threadjack :ninja:)

So not everybody loves the books, but most do.

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The first and second books cover a lot of the same ground.

There, a critical comment. :P

I appreciate the effort :)

In the reading threads I've seen several people say they gave up on the series because they couldn't get over the poses.

One poster, dbcooper, just stopped reading in the middle of A Betrayal in Winter because he thought he knew exactly where the book was going.

[...]

So not everybody loves the books, but most do.

Right, I now remember reading on the board a few negative comments.

. I had no problem with the poses and even thought them an interesting element of the World from a linguistic point of view.

. Contrary to dbcooper I could not predict where the story would go and was absolutely amazed by some of the twists and the way the series ended.

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It was outstanding in its horror and resolution; it hit on a personal level that few endings can. I had thought that Martin doesn't pull punches, but Abraham did him one better here.

It was quite a gut-puncher of an ending, although I felt some schadenfreude at the time about what happened to the Galts. A Betrayal in Winter was probably my least favorite book in the series (Price of Spring is my most favorite), but I did like that ending.

As for why I didn't like it as much . . . not sure. I probably should re-read it again - at the time, I just remember not particularly caring for the non-Otah, non-Matti, and non-Liat parts, and rushing through to see how Matti would do with his prospective Andat. That I said, it's still a very good book, but my least favorite of the series.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, read it all. Comments:

1) My first omnibus and second omnibus covers do not match - nor does the size of the books. :thumbsdown:

I am NOT going to spend money on a book I already own just so the covers would match!! And the fact that publishers make more money off this - people needing covers to match is disgusting. But what can we do?

2) I was not thrilled with the overall direction the books took in the end. The whole magic dying out of the world thing is just being done to death these days, no?

3) Some heroics in 4 volumes of a fantasy series is not too much to expect. Not all the time and not from all protagonists, but come on...

4) Four books and only about 6 andat mentioned by name.

That's 1.5 andat per book. Could have been more.

5) Other than that- mature, competent writing and an ending of sorts. These days, that's practicaly a stellar triumph!!!

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Well, read it all. Comments:

1) My first omnibus and second omnibus covers do not match - nor does the size of the books. :thumbsdown:

I am NOT going to spend money on a book I already own just so the covers would match!! And the fact that publishers make more money off this - people needing covers to match is disgusting. But what can we do?

2) I was not thrilled with the overall direction the books took in the end. The whole magic dying out of the world thing is just being done to death these days, no?

3) Some heroics in 4 volumes of a fantasy series is not too much to expect. Not all the time and not from all protagonists, but come on...

4) Four books and only about 6 andat mentioned by name.

That's 1.5 andat per book. Could have been more.

5) Other than that- mature, competent writing and an ending of sorts. These days, that's practicaly a stellar triumph!!!

Maybe you should stick with Malazan. Lots of uber powerful heroic shit happening there.

Personally I think uniting tradition rival city states to oppose a massive invading army that has already destroyed most of your empire to be rather heroic, or fighting through blindness, and risking your life to bind an andat to save an enite nation of people kind of heroic as well.

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