Daniel Abraham

[Winterfella]

Its a jump of 15 years or so chronologically, so there are no real contuniung plot points. Basically if you remember who Otah and Matti are, you should be good.

Cool, thanks Race.

[Calibandar]

Daniel, if you're reading this, do you know when Leviathan Wept is coming out?

[DanielAbraham]

Daniel, if you're reading this, do you know when Leviathan Wept is coming out?

Last I heard, May. I'm talking with Bill over at Subterranean about putting a new short story together for the magazine for the release.

[Rimmer]

I've got 'Shadow and Betrayal', a nice two-volume edition of the first two novels. Is a similar one coming out for the last two books?

[Werthead]

I've got 'Shadow and Betrayal', a nice two-volume edition of the first two novels. Is a similar one coming out for the last two books?

Yes. It's called Seasons of War and should be out next month.

Actually, I didn't think the new version of Shadow and Betrayal was coming out until next month either. It was released previously with a depiction of brown pea soup at the front cover, but Orbit are redoing it with some kind of heroic-looking figure on the cover (which isn't really true to the books, but if it gets people buying them, fair enough).

[beniowa]

Last I heard, May. I'm talking with Bill over at Subterranean about putting a new short story together for the magazine for the release.

Ah, good news! I had been wondering about this and hadn't been able to find anything new about it. I'm looking forward to reading this.

[oneeye]

I am looking forward to the next series! I also found myself losing interest a little towards the latter third of the long price quartet, but definitely kept on reading.

[boiled leather]

I am looking forward to the next series! I also found myself losing interest a little towards the latter third of the long price quartet, but definitely kept on reading.

Personally, I loved the Long Price Quartet. The only thing I didn't like was waiting between books, but it wasn't too terrible as compared to other waits (yeah, I've been on the hook since 1996)

[Ran]

Finally had a chance to read and finish the third in the Long Price series, An Autumn War. Had it since the summer but one thing after another, and only had the time to read it now. I admit, I found a little hard to get into it to begin with, and I'm not sure how much of that was just my not being quite in the right frame of mind or if it was something in the opening. But about a quarter of the way in, things clicked and I found it very hard to put down.

What I love about this book -- and the series -- is that there's a core of emotionally-consistent characterization that informs so much about the characters. How they've changed over the decades feels very real. The things that happen in AAW seem to flow naturally from what happened in the past. The big event was one that I failed to have any real inkling of, simply because I had gone too long since reading A Betrayal in Winter, but I suspect that had I had it fresh in my mind I would have had a foreboding. The events just seemed so true to what came before.

[RedEyedGhost]

When I work out I like to listen to podcasts, and I normally let a good chunk of episodes for one build up and listen to them in a row. Today I was thrilled to find Daniel's wonderful The Curandero and the Swede: A Tale from the 1001 American Nights from October 21 on podcastle.

It's a fantastic story, but I did enjoy Daniel reading it himself, at Worldcon '08, much more.

And although Kip Manley does a pretty good job reading it, the sound quality is abysmal, it's appallingly bad. That was probably the worst sound quality that podcastle has ever put out, and it saddens me that it was on such a quality story.

They've also put out his equally (if not more) impressive The Cambist and Lord Iron, from May 6, 2009 and its quality is topnotch.

Personally, I loved the Long Price Quartet. The only thing I didn't like was waiting between books, but it wasn't too terrible as compared to other waits (yeah, I've been on the hook since 1996)

:lol:

I read Shadow and Betrayal both in late '07, so the wait for War wasn't too bad. The wait for Price definitely sucked though. I would say it's a good thing I've become accustomed to waiting as a GRRM fan, but really that doesn't help too much.

OT: As I was trying to find my post about listening to Daniel read The Curandero and the Swede at Worldcon (which seems to have been sacrificed to the gods of the board), I stumbled onto this series of posts:

Lately I've become a fan of Urban Fantasy (thanks to Butcher), but I've been having a very hard time finding a series that doesn't focus on a super hot kickass chick who's always agonizing about how poor her sex life is even though she has two super hot vampire boyfriends, and a super hot werewolf on the side. I am hoping that your series will not be one of these blood soaked sexcapades.

So, Myshkin, I remembering seeing that you bought the UK version awhile back; have you read it yet?

[Ran]

"The Cambist and Lord Iron" is a terrific, clever little story. I was actually thinking of it in relation to "The Long Price", because of the part of that series which could be described as "economic fantasy". Sort of like Stross's "Merchant Princes" series, I suppose. Sometimes people with too much time on their hands wonder why magicians don't do useful-but-mundane stuff with their magic in fantasy series, but in the quartet the andat are basically economically-oriented magical artifacts. Abraham shows the impact this has on innovation, in a way that's implicit but never really shown by most other fantasy authors (GRRM included).

[RedEyedGhost]

"The Cambist and Lord Iron" is a terrific, clever little story. I was actually thinking of it in relation to "The Long Price", because of the part of that series which could be described as "economic fantasy". Sort of like Stross's "Merchant Princes" series, I suppose. Sometimes people with too much time on their hands wonder why magicians don't do useful-but-mundane stuff with their magic in fantasy series, but in the quartet the andatare basically economically-oriented magical artifacts. Abraham shows the impact this has on innovation, in a way that's implicit but never really shown by most other fantasy authors(GRRM included).

Yes! This is one of the main reasons that I'm happy to have read The Long Price at the age I am now, versus if I had read it when I was 21 or so - I just wouldn't have 'got' the story at that point in my life. It is 'Adult Fantasy' through and through.

[Ran]

If Daniel pops in, I'd like to know what sort of research -- especially anything economics-directed -- that might have influenced such details in the series.

For some reason I've a vague recollection of his mentioning Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel somewhere or other, but I could be wrong, and the context may have had nothing in particular to do with the series...

[Myshkin]

So, Myshkin, I remembering seeing that you bought the UK version awhile back; have you read it yet?

I actually left the book in Mexico when I was there in August. I ordered a new one, which got here a month or so ago, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

[RedEyedGhost]

I actually left the book in Mexico when I was there in August. I ordered a new one, which got here a month or so ago, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Ohhhhh, that sucks! Hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as I did, and all the trouble you've went through to read it will be worth it :cheers:

[Calibandar]

The first sign of a release date for Abraham's new series has been put up by Orbit UK on Amazon UK, it's June 2011 for The Dragon's Path.

[red snow]

Just ordered a copy of the first "long price" omnibus. Interested to see how I handle the "controversial" poses, as well as seeing how his own worlds work. I'm currently reading "Hunter's run" but I'm not sure how much is Daniel's writing and know it's not his baby.

[beniowa]

Just ordered a copy of the first "long price" omnibus. Interested to see how I handle the "controversial" poses, as well as seeing how his own worlds work. I'm currently reading "Hunter's run" but I'm not sure how much is Daniel's writing and know it's not his baby.

It's my understanding that each author worked on a section of the book before stopping and later passing it on to the next author. So Dozois did the first third, Martin the middle, and Abraham the ending. I thought the styles blended together very well. I had to read very closely to distinguish each author's contribution to the novel.

[Switchback]

i've lurked here for many a moon, but just felt like pointing out how cool this joint is. a major talent like daniel abraham responds to posts on christmas day. now to be fair, i don't even know if daniel celebrates christmas, but that just strikes me as neat. carry on.

and daniel, thank you so much for the long price. please, keep hitting that pad and pen. cheers.

[DanielAbraham]

If Daniel pops in, I'd like to know what sort of research -- especially anything economics-directed -- that might have influenced such details in the series.

For some reason I've a vague recollection of his mentioning Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel somewhere or other, but I could be wrong, and the context may have had nothing in particular to do with the series...

I'm a huge fan of Jared Diamond, and I especially broke my head on Guns, Germs, & Steel. As far as specific influences on how the andat worked, I don't have anything specific to point to. I've read a *lot* of popular economics books. Naked Economics is one of my favorites, and there's an economics course by Timothy Taylor over at The Teaching Company.

I do remember a long conversation with Ted Chiang about the nature of magic. Ted's formulation (and I'm working from memory here and presenting the thesis of someone who's smarter than I am, so forgive me if I biff it a little) was that magic can be differentiated from technology because magic is elite and technology is democratic. If you build a magic system that anyone can learn and that becomes more available to more people over time, you're writing about alternate technology. If it's something that cannot diffuse out to more people over time, but that requires an elite class to whom it is exclusively available, it's not technology anymore. (And really, Ted's better at expressing all this than I am.)

My take on magic at the time was that it was an extended metaphor of the body. A fantasy magic user can affect the world through an act of will in more or less the same way that a normal person can control their body. I decide to make my hand rise, and it does, extended out to I decide to make the rain stop and it does. So that magic is best depicted as an extension of your body out beyond the limits of your body.

I think both those schema got into the Long Price books, but the idea of magic as something that concentrates power v. something that broadens it chimes specifically off what Ted was talking about. And then from that the idea of an empire in its winter days, where the magic is getting less and less tenable but any advance in technology is drowned because it threatens the elite. I wanted a place that was great and grand and glorious and doomed by its own failure to change.

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.