The King's Blood by Daniel Abraham

[dbcooper]

Skipped over this thread since I didn't want to read any potential spoilers but I just wanted to say thanks to Mr Abraham for your works. I've been really looking forward to this novel (first 20 pages in) and hope to enjoy it as much as I did the first.

[Emo Jon Snow]

One of my favorite aspects of Abraham's writing is his little musings or instrospections that his characters will have about life in general, I find these to be very relatable at times and really helps me idenify with the characters, it also makes me stop and think for a minute about myself.

I'm about a third through The King's Blood and its every bit as great as Dragon's Path.

[Werthead]

The Dagger and the Coin #2: The King's Blood by Daniel Abraham

Imperial Antea, the greatest nation in the world, is on the rise. Thanks to the hitherto-unexpected skills of Geder Palliako, a young nobleman, a conspiracy to murder the heir to the Antean throne has been exposed and defeated. Now the Anteans are pursuing the roots of the conspiracy into neighbouring Asterilhold, an investigation which threatens to explode into full-scale war. Baron Dawson Kalliam is summoned to serve his country, but as he works with Geder he discovers the shadowy roots of Geder's new political skills and is left with a critical decision to make.

Across the continent, Cithrin Bel Sarcour's position as the face of the new Medean Bank in Porte Olivia is undermined by the arrival of a new notary determined to stop Cithring doing her job. Furious, Cithrin undertakes a journey to Carse to convince the leaders of the bank that she can do the job. This fateful decision will lead her into the heart of the growing storm that threatens to plunge the known world into chaos and war.

The King's Blood is the second novel in The Dagger and the Coin and the sequel to last year's promising opening volume in the sequence, The Dragon's Path. With this series Daniel Abraham has moved away from the Asian-tinged fantasy of his debut Long Price Quartet in favour of tackling a more traditional, Western European-based fantasy. Whilst he's moved the date to one later than normal (Renaissance Europe rather than the traditional medieval period, with a banking institution modelled on the Medici), he's still swimming in more familiar waters.

However, this move has not dented his enthusiasm or writing skills. The Dragon's Path was a very solid opening novel, but The King's Blood eclipses it on almost every level. The writing is more confident and assured. The characterisation is richer, both of the established cast (Cithrin develops into a more layered character than before; Marcus Wester's psychological state becomes clearer; Geder becomes a lot more disturbing) and of relative newcomers. Clara Kalliam had a subplot in The Dragon's Path but in this novel develops into a key protagonist as she deals with a minor scandal in her family and then has to engage with the developing political crisis. There is more action, including a skirmish with pirates and several sieges and battles, but also more introspection as the characters evolve into more fully-realised figures. Particularly fascinating are Yardem and Marcus, a fine fantasy double-act who provide a great deal of the book's humour but are also potentially storing up tragedy between them.

The worldbuilding is also improved upon from The Dragon's Path, where the differences between the various kingdoms and the thirteen distinct races of mankind were not very well-established. This is immensely improved upon in The King's Blood (and not just by the addition of a glossary), with the world becoming more convincing and the distinctions between the races better-established. An area that requires more work, however, is the political landscape in Antea, which still feels somewhat under-developed. This wasn't so much a problem in the first novel, but risks becoming an issue in The King's Blood, particularly in the concluding section of the novel which suffers a little from a lack of scope due to the very narrow focus.

The book unfolds at a fairly swift pace, which results in the pages flying by so fast that the book's end, and the resulting year-long wait for Book 3, comes upon the reader unexpectedly. The book's excellence overcomes the occasional resorting to epic fantasy contrivance (journeys are either major undertakings or are completely skipped over depending on plot needs) or its inspirations being worn a little too openly on the sleeve (the Geder plotline's parallels to the Londo Mollari storyline in Babylon 5 risk it becoming predictable until it starts to swerve away from that structure late in the novel).

The King's Blood (*****) has a few minor flaws but overall is a very fine epic fantasy novel, a huge improvement over the already-fine Dragon's Path, and notable for its focus on finely-judged characterisation as much as the more traditional furniture of the genre. It's also a fast, addictive read that elevates The Dagger and the Coin into the position of one of the finest in-progress fantasy series around at the moment. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

[Nearly Headless Ned]

Its good to see this is an improvement over The Dragon's Path which was a slight disappointment when you consider how good The Long Price was. I was considering not carrying on with the series but may reconsider now.

[Sci-2]

Is there art for the 13 races somewhere?

[aidan]

Is there art for the 13 races somewhere?

Rule 34.

[polishgenius]

Just finished.

A better book than the already impressive first one, but it does suffer from the same problem that Long Price did to an extent, which was that in places it covered a lot of the same ground. Most obviously,

Dawson tries to thwart a plot that ends in open fighting in Caminpol, and Marcus spends a lot of time trying to get over the death of his family by being overprotective of Cithrin. However, with the ending of the book making the state of play entirely different, I suspect we'll see only escalation from here.

Also, the Antean characters are still imo more interesting than the other; Cithrin and Marcus are engaging, but to an extent their place in the first two books has been to dole out information and set up future plots, whereas the weight of the story lies with Geder, Dawson and Clara. And Kit spent the entire book doing fuck all - for a man so convinced the world was in danger he didn't exactly hurry, did he? That said, I don't believe for a second that his quest will end up as simple as he makes it out to be. And I get the feeling that Cithrin's propensity for building great big houses out of cards will bite someone on the arse soon - maybe not her, but her plan at the end is almost certainly just going to spread the war, especially if Geder finds out it was her who councelled so strongly against him,

Overall though it built on the foundations of the first; the characters were more rounded- Geder is a great piece of work, in particular, a petty, selfish, vindictive little man who's combination of good will and cowardice causes atrocity, and yet with genuinely noble instincts in his protection of the Prince. The action was better, and like Wert says the worldbuilding more rounded.

And Clara's last line had me cackling out loud and lifts my anticipation for book 3. She's going to be a good deal more dangerous an opponent than poor limited Dawson ever was.

It's not hit Long Price heights, yet, but then it's a very different project from Long Price; the motivations and situations being set up are more complex and the tension is more slow build. Already can't wait for more. :P

[Blue Roses]

Must stay away from this thread.........150 pages in and its good so far. Loving Yardem's ears.

[Ser Plissken]

Must stay away from this thread.........150 pages in and its good so far. Loving Yardem's ears.

Indeed. The most awesome ears in fantasy.

[TrackerNeil]

Edited. Sorry about that.

[Grimnir]

Is there an audiobook available for The Long Price, perchance? Cannot locate one.

[john]

So the Timzanae (or whatever they're called) were built as a block against the Righteous Servant? Presumably because they can, acccording to the appendix, seal up every orifice of their body so wouldn't be influenced by their "truths." But I wonder why ordinary firstbloods can't just bung up their ears with wax or whatever. It was very frustrating when the priests are telling people exactly what they can do but they just carry on trying their best to ignore it rather than doing anything about it. At the very least Dawson understood it well enough that he could have done something about it, played music or make noise to drown them out at least.

[russjass]

Just finished this yesterday; very very good. I dont think it quite matches up to the Long Price yet, but that series started slow, if still gripping, and just built and built. I think that is just Abrahams style, and it certainly makes you want to read the next one very badly.

I am very Intrigued by the Timzanae, and despite the appendix I do not think they were intended for Beekeeping!. I had not considered that the races were made by a single dragon, I though they had been made by all the dragons, in the way that humanity domesticated cattle, sheep, horses etc not by one person (Unless you believe Jean Auel. But to think that a race was created by one dragon as a weapon or a counter against another dragon is fascinating. Presumably the Timzanae do not know why they were created, so finding out there purpose will be interesting. Does anyone remember any mention of the Timzanae in the first book? Or if other races were said to be created by a specific dragon? Specifically Morade, he made the spider god, but did he make any of the races?

[Spring Bass]

I just finished it now. I liked it overall, although I think Geder was more interesting in the first book than he was in this one.

[john]

There was some indication that he wasn't a complete and total arsehole in the first book. I felt somewhat sorry for him. But now - fuck him. He needs to die painfully.

[Spring Bass]

He's quite an interesting character, mostly because he illustrates how much having a POV of his own can affect our perception of him ("Hero of his own story" and all that). If we only knew him from the perspectives of other characters, he would come across as Joffrey-esque in The King's Blood, except with books and victimhood complex added. Instead, we get to see why he's the way he is, and there are some legitimate grievances - not that they justify his atrocities. His childhood was rather dysfunctional, with him growing up with no peers or friends to relate to. He was the target of bullying and worse (such as being left a city to command where he was intended to fail and get himself killed in the process).

The same thing goes with Dawson Kelliam. We can understand and sympathize with him because of his family and internal POV, but he's also a reactionary, short-tempered snob of an aristocrat with hair-trigger sensitivity for anything that crosses class lines. He can be kind and good enough to those who make themselves useful (such as Vincen Coe), but he's also aloof and uncaring about most common folk. Just look at the "hilarious" story he remembers from his youth spent hunting with King Simeon, when they chased a deer round and round a poor farmer's house, trampling his vegetable garden into mud - and the "comic" expression on the farmer's face at finding his entire garden ruined. I suspect that Happy Ent would love him - Dawson's got a totally pre-modern mindset that you'd expect from his position in his society.

It's a pity he has to die before he gets to experience being an impoverished outcast, like his wife/widow. I would have loved to see how he would react to being dumped at the level of a common nobody.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

I loved this book. Probably puts Abraham above Bakker as my favorite fantasy author. The fact that he's less batshit crazy (as far as I know) helps.

I do have a quibble about worldbuilding-

It's that the greatest empire in the world with an incredibly opulent capital and enough wealth for the noble class to each keep two luxurious, well furnished and staffed households running, is put at risk of starvation by keeping less than 6000 men in the field for one planting season. I understand that Abraham's trying to avoid the huge medieval fantasy armies and the food shortage might be an important plotline later, but if we assume that just 1% decrease in planting is a significant shock to the food supply, then we're talking an able bodies male population of 600,000 farmers, putting the total population at around 2-3 million. And that's assuming that women, children and old men can't do a little more work to pick up the slack or that it's only farmers serving in the army.

I don't know, maybe I've just been a consultant for way too long

I've also really warmed up to Dawson. Maybe it's having read the The Righteous Mind and The Better Angels of Our Nature makes me think he actually has a point. When he said that it never works when people design society from the ground up or that rules and etiquette keep us from descending into violent savagery, I felt almost like I was reading Haidt or Pinker talking about the Middle Ages.

[polishgenius]

It's that the greatest empire in the world with an incredibly opulent capital and enough wealth for the noble class to each keep two luxurious, well furnished and staffed households running, is put at risk of starvation by keeping less than 6000 men in the field for one planting season.

Well, two things there:

first, although I'm not that good at applying scale, I got the impression that while it might be the biggest empire in that world it isn't actually that big by the standards of our world - the whole continent seems quite small - and second, it seems to be a theme that the nobility is rather taking the piss out of the lower classes and therefore can totally see them living by very fine margins.

[Spring Bass]

I've also really warmed up to Dawson. Maybe it's having read the The Righteous Mind and The Better Angels of Our Nature makes me think he actually has a point. When he said that it never works when people design society from the ground up or that rules and etiquette keep us from descending into violent savagery, I felt almost like I was reading Haidt or Pinker talking about the Middle Ages.

Dawson's argument was more that Everything Has a Place, which is convenient for him since his place is one of privilege and power over those of lesser station. Meanwhile, all that talk about the importance of etiquette and rules in keeping us from violent savagery sounds hollow coming from a man who frequently resorts to violent savagery in politics.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

Dawson's argument was more that Everything Has a Place, which is convenient for him since his place is one of privilege and power over those of lesser station. Meanwhile, all that talk about the importance of etiquette and rules in keeping us from violent savagery sounds hollow coming from a man who frequently resorts to violent savagery in politics.

It is convenient for him and he's obviously being hypocritical. Though the fact that we can see his inner monologue makes it seem less so. Still he has justification behind it, for example, from Aidan's review:

There are no clean starts, Dawson thought. Just as there are no clean endings. Everything is built like Camnipol: one damn thing atop another atop another reaching down into the bones of the world. Even the forgotten things are back there somewhere, shaping who and what we are now.

That's pretty the intellectual basis for modern conservatism in a nutshell. Things are the way they are for reason and we may not know what the reason is, but changing things could screw everything up. And for all his arrogance about his social class, he does appear to be willing to subsume his interests to those of the throne and the kingdom.