Daniel Abraham's second thread

[Werthead]

Seems a good place to start a new thread, with a review of the first of Abraham's books for this year:

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck)

Holden is a crewman on the Canterbury, an ice-hauler traipsing back and forth between the inner planets of the Solar system and the outer colonies. When his ship is attacked by unknown forces whilst investigating a derelict, a series of events is set in motion which will lead the three great powers - Earth, Mars and the Belt - to the brink of war. Meanwhile, Miller, a cop on Ceres, is tasked with investigating the disappearance of a young woman. His search leads him closer to a far-ranging conspiracy, and into contact with Holden and his crew. The stakes are high as they uncover a threat to the entire human race, a threat which some see as an opportunity...

Leviathan Wakes, the first book in The Expanse series, is an unapologetic, old-school space opera. There's been a few of these recently, but few with the elan and furiously page-turning readability of this book. Part of this can be attributed to its writers: James S.A. Corey is a pen-name for Daniel Abraham, the author of the brilliant Long Price Quartet fantasy series, and Ty Franck, George R.R. Martin's assistant who created the setting for an SF roleplaying campaign. Abraham's experience and steadying hand and Franck's ferocious enthusiasm have combined here to create something quite compelling. In the acknowledgements section they reveal that a number of other major SFF authors had a hand in critiquing the book and offering advice, such as Walter Jon Williams (himself a space opera veteran) and astrophysicist Ian Tregillis, who helped out with the hard science part of the book.

Part of the appeal of the book is its structure. Like Donaldson's Gap Series and Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, it uses a rotating POV technique. Unlike those big, sprawling series, Leviathan Wakes only has two major POV characters, Holden and Miller, and bounces back and forth between them in turn. This has the effect of keeping the book very tightly focused, helping keep the pace fast but not so much that subtler nuances of plot and characterisation are lost. The authors aren't reinventing the wheel here and the two characters are pretty standard types: Miller is the embittered, cynical, divorced, hard-drinking cop with trust issues, Holden the idealistic, righteous and optimistic officer. Naturally they're chalk and cheese and don't get on very well at first but eventually strike up a good working relationship and earn some mutual respect.

Luckily, the authors are too good to let this transform into a 1980s buddy cop movie. The characters are well-motivated with convincing motivations and rationales for their actions, and they are steered away from cliche as their relationship takes some unexpected turns as the book progresses. There is also a nice contrast in that Holden has a small crew of well-drawn characters supporting him, whilst Miller is working alone. The supporting cast, such as Holden's crew, is also well-depicted, but the important character of Fred seems a bit too convenient and good to be true, and hopefully we get more into his head in later books in the series as he is a bit flat as a character at the moment. The other major character, Julie, is presented in an intriguing manner: missing when the book opens, Miller constructs a mental version of Julie to help him get through the case and then has to keep readjusting that image as he encounters the life story of the 'real' Julie.

The book appears to have many influences. John Carpenter's The Thing appears to have been one, whilst the small ship and the loyal crew elements recall Firefly and Blake's 7. Using a (relatively) small cast as a window onto larger events, mostly reported through news reports and tension-filled long-range transmissions, is reminiscent of Babylon 5, as is the general tech level and the use of real Newtonian physics in the space battles. I'd also be surprised if Donaldson's Gap Series hadn't been read by both authors, whilst the cop-in-space-noir-thriller angle is reminiscent of some of Alastair Reynolds' work. The tensions between the 'stations' (as the asteroid settlements are derogatorily called by the people of Earth and Mars) and the planets also recalls CJ Cherryh's Downbelow Station. But these influences are never worn too overtly on the sleeve: Leviathan Wakes also forges its own path.

Leviathan Wakes (****½) is a ridiculously entertaining space opera, let down perhaps by only a couple of coincidences and moments of dramatic convenience. Otherwise it's a relentless, page-turning novel with some great character-building. The book will be published in the UK on 2 June 2011 and in the USA on 15 June 2011. The second volume, Caliban's War, is apparently already nearly complete and should follow in a year or so.

Clarification: The thread subtitle refers to the fact that Daniel now has multiple threads about him as others have been maxed out. Only a few other authors have achieved this, hence the 'big leagues' comment. Absolutely not a comment on the quality of his work, which has been very high since his first book was published ;)

[Tom the Merciful]

Enough! I'm ordering it! For days I've been just one click away.

Thanks, Wert!

[afterroots]

Well, i'm keen!

[red snow]

Sounds good. Chris Wooding has got me enjoying crew based adventures again and the colonised solar system is a sci-fi concept that appeals to me these days (probably because it feels within our grasp if we could be bothered).

Is there a bit at the back explaining the division of labour? I thought that was a pretty cool feature in Hunter's run.

[Tears of Lys]

Intriguing! I'll be picking it up for sure. Abraham can do no wrong in my eyes. :love:

[RedEyedGhost]

I finished Vicious Grace earlier today, and I think it's the best of his MLN Hanover books so far. I'm really enjoying the expanding mythology of the books - really good stuff.

[Werthead]

150 pages into The Dragon's Path and it's pretty solid stuff so far, though not quite as immediately page-turning/attention-grabbing as Leviathan Wakes. Path is working on a bigger canvas though, more characters, a more unfamiliar world to set up, and Abraham's handling that with aplomb. Definitely a different tone and feel to The Long Price, somewhat more familiar. Oddly, a somewhat similar atmosphere and tone to The Way of Kings, though Abraham is a lot more concise and better at elements such as characterisation.

I must admit that my ARC would have benefitted from the map and maybe a glossary on the 13 different races of humankind. Remembering which races have which traits from memory is hard work. Beyond those surface issues, this is a very good book. I sense it's going to be more serialised than The Expanse, where Leviathan Wakes was somewhat self-contained (though the ending is left wide open, it's not an actual cliffhanger).

[DanielAbraham]

Just as a heads-up, there is a map in the final version, and we'll be putting it up on the website too.

The glossary of races is a freaking great idea, and I think we all wish we'd had it in time to include in the printed copy of the book. I'm actually writing a little essay about the races that will be on the website, and hopefully in later editions of book or at least an appendix in The King's Blood.

[dangoodman]

Just as a heads-up, there is a map in the final version, and we'll be putting it up on the website too.

The glossary of races is a freaking great idea, and I think we all wish we'd had it in time to include in the printed copy of the book. I'm actually writing a little essay about the races that will be on the website, and hopefully in later editions of book or at least an appendix in The King's Blood.

As I near the end of my Dragon's Path ARC, I feel the same on the consensus on a race appendix. It's really awesome that, as an author, you've taken this to heart and listened to the fans- without naming names, some would probably just say "suck it up!" to everyone.

[Werthead]

Two-thirds of the way through THE DRAGON'S PATH, this is top stuff. Really good, also some really surprising twists. Definitely one of the better fantasy debuts I've read, maybe the best since THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA in 2006. If the book keeps up like this I might have to extend that back a lot. Terrific stuff.

[Lupigis]

Definitely one of the better fantasy debuts I've read,

Wert, that sounds great, but "debut"???

[aidan]

Is he making a joke because not many people are aware of TLPQ and will think this is Abraham's debut? I don't get it either.

[Migey]

I suspect that he said that because it may feel like a debut, seeing as The Long Price, while very good, didn't read at all like conventional fantasy (which isn't a bad thing).

Either that or he screwed up, or is getting confused. Old age, y'know.

[red snow]

I think Wert merely means "start of a new series". I can see how people are confusing the use of "debut" as it's more often used for an author's first work.

It's interesting to see how quickly his opinion of the book has improved once he gets into it though. Sounds like the latter part of the book must up the ante.

[aidan]

I think Wert merely means "start of a new series". I can see how people are confusing the use of "debut" as it's more often used for an author's first work.

It's interesting to see how quickly his opinion of the book has improved once he gets into it though. Sounds like the latter part of the book must up the ante.

Yah, Adam clarified on another forum that he meant first-in-a-new-series. In which case, I agree with him wholeheartedly.

[TheHalfman]

I've been wanting to check out Abraham's work but I'm a little 'fantasy'd' out lately and reading more sci fi, Leviathan's Wake sounds like the perfect start.

[Werthead]

The Dagger and the Coin #1: The Dragon's Path

The thirteen races of humanity have survived the downfall of the Dragon Empire and forged new kingdoms. The great nation of Antea now seeks to expand its influence into the Free Cities, sending its army to conquer the city of Vanai. Ahead of the Antean advance, the Medean Bank evacuates its Vanaian treasury by caravan, escorted by a young ward of the bank, Cithrin Bel Sarcour, and one of the most respected soldiers in the city, Captain Marcus Wester.

Meanwhile, in Camnipol, capital of Antea, Baron Dawson Kalliam finds himself engaged in a clandestine struggle as two factions clash for influence over the Severed Throne, with the assault on Vanai just one of the intrigues in motion. Geder Palliako, a minor nobleman accompanying the army, is less interested in glory and plunder than in knowledge and lore, and in Vanai finds hints that will lead him to unexpected ends. And in a remote and distant mountain range, a shadowy organisation holds secrets that the world has long forgotten...

A bald plot summary suggests that The Dragon's Path is the same old: armies marching and lords politicking whilst an ancient threat lurks in the wings. To some degree this is understandable: after completing the Asian-influenced Long Price Quartet, Abraham decided to pen a more traditional fantasy series. The Dagger and the Coin is set in a land more overtly influenced by late Medieval/early Renaissance Europe, complete with powerful kingdoms, feuding city-states and a banking institution reminiscent of the Medici. On the one hand this may be considered a retreat by Abraham into writing something less original, but on the other it may have been a wise move, given that readers responded to the near-blanket critical acclaim of The Long Price Quartet by not buying it (at least not in the United States).

Still, whilst Abraham may be swimming in more familiar waters, that's not to say he doesn't put 110% effort into it. His trademark impressive characterisation remains the focus of the book: whilst major and epic events rock the world, his interest is more in the development of Dawson, Geder, Cithrin and Wester, our main POV characters (there's a few other minor ones, likely to rise more to the fore in future books). These characters are somewhat complex and all deeply conflicted. Dawson is presented somewhat sympathetically as a loyalist to the king, but he's also a staunchly traditionalist opponent of any change in the social order calls for greater freedom being to resonate from the populace. Geder is selfishly only interested in pursuing his interest in book-learning, which seems harmless enough until he is given a position of authority and promptly displays a side we hadn't seen before. Cithrin is a confident negotiator and investor who is utterly lost when faced with the day-to-day realities of surviving on the road, whilst Wester is the old soldier who strives for cynicism but keeps being drawn to idealistic causes.

For The Long Price, Abraham used economics as a casus belli for the conflict, but didn't fully engage with the economics in depth. This is understandable as making economics interesting to the average reader can be tricky, though in the past Scott Lynch, KJ Parker and, perhaps unexpectedly, Raymond E. Feist have made good fists of it, whilst it is a minor but important driving point in conflicts in both A Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time. In The Dragon's Path Abraham deals with the economics in a more direct fashion, making one of the main characters a banker and one of the most powerful institutions in the world a bank. He avoids tedium by showing how the bank's activities impact on the wider politics of the world, though I suspect this will be more critical in subsequent volumes.

Abraham's prose is enjoyable to read, though perhaps a tad more prosaic here than in the more lyrical moments of The Long Price. The book isn't as fast and furious as his other 2011 release, Leviathan Wakes (under the pen-name James S.A. Corey), but is still well-paced, laying out the world and the stakes alongside the characters and politics.

On the weaker side of things, there are some moments when each of the four main characters loses the reader's sympathy (one of them never gets it back, but remains a fascinating protagonist). Intriguing side-characters get less page time than might be wished (Dawson's wife, Clara, has a solid subplot of her own and is one of the more interesting characters in the book). If you've read interviews with Abraham about what his influences were on the series, there are a few moments when those influences become a little too apparent (especially the parallel between Geder and events in a certain SF series; not Firefly). More problematic is that Abraham, having established thirteen different branches of humanity, doesn't give us much info on what these differences are, reducing them to just names, though in fairness Abraham has acknowledged this issue and promised to put more information in the sequels and on his website.

Overall, however, The Dragon's Path (****½) is a winner. The characters are engaging and well-motivated, the plot intriguing despite some surface familiarity, and events are resolved enough to not make the wait for the second book, The King's Blood, too painful. The book will be published on 7 April in the USA and on 21 April in the UK.

[Gabriele]

This must be a conspiracy. :) I had told myself not to start any more ongoing series but then TOR posted so many excerpts from Way of the Kings that I couldn't resist, and now Abraham's new series gets such great reviews that I suspect I'll get weak again. Add Tchaikovsky to this (though his series is running at nice speed so far) and two historical fiction ongoing trilogies, and I'm doomed to spend the rest of my life waiting for half a dozen series to continue. ;)

That includes the Malazan books, in a way, though while the main series is finished now, there are enough sequels, prequels and side-books on the horizon to keep me busy.

[DanielAbraham]

As I near the end of my Dragon's Path ARC, I feel the same on the consensus on a race appendix.

Arright. This is up at:

http://www.danielabraham.com/books-by-daniel-abraham/the-dagger-and-the-coin/the-dragons-path/an-introduction-to-the-taxonomy-of-races/

I think the url's as long as the essay, though. :(

(Digs up tinyurl... ) Arright. How about: http://tinyurl.com/dandcraces

[aidan]

Yay!