#Daniel Abraham

[yumyumpod]

Watching The Expanse for the first time: Season One

[benedictusantonius]

[2023|89] Tiamat’s Wrath (2019) written by James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck)

[mapas-fantasticos]

Map from the Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abraham.

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[mindfully-absent]

“Every age had left its mark here, every generation growing on the ruins of the old until the earth below the dark cobbled streets was not soil, but the wreckage of what had come before.”

The King’s Blood

Daniel Abraham

[fallowhearth]

Branching out into book reviews...

Just finished Age of Ash (Kithamar Trilogy) by Daniel Abraham. Abraham is the author of the Dagger and the Coin series, as well as one half of the Expanse pen-name.

I had mixed feelings about the Dagger and the Coin series, despite liking it enough to finish all six books. There were many elements I thought were well done, and the character work was mostly excellent (one or two glaring exceptions in the cast), but the negative elements were weighted heavily enough that they brought the whole thing down for me. Some truly eye-rollingly cliche character beats, and most damningly for me, despite it being a series about "the Coin", Abraham does not understand economic history. Baru Cormorant this ain't.

That is all to say, I liked Age of Ash much better. The conceit is that two impoverished girls become embroiled in a high political intrigue plot reaching the highest echelons of the city after the murder of one girl's brother. It improves on pretty much every element I disliked in the prior series.

The two main protagonists are well drawn and believable. Alys spends much of the book in the role of antagonist to pure cinnamon roll Sammish, and Abraham here excels as usual in putting you in the head of someone behaving poorly. It's a believable and compelling portrayal of someone in the throes of grief, and the distorted thinking that can cause. And for all I jest, Sammish also comes out as a fairly rounded character. She is my favourite though.

The world of Kithamar the city balances lush (but occasionally overdone) prose with an apparent new-found understanding of how economies work. It's one of the better portrayals of how a 'low end' of town could function. Longhill comes through as a place with a real living culture, and significantly, a place with actual economic function. We follow Sammish as she strings together the various small jobs she can access, and it feels like a believable portrayal of paycheck to paycheck living.

In terms of the main plot, I was initially intrigued by reviews I'd read that complained of a nearly incomprehensible cloak and dagger plot occurring offscreen that was impossible for the reader to understand or follow. This sounded great - I love Harrow the Ninth! Unfortunately (fortunately?) I have to report that these reviewers may just be stupid. I love a convoluted cloak and dagger plot, but the intrigue here is fairly straight forward, presumably to account for the fact we are seeing it through the eyes of characters on the periphery. The factions emerge fairly early and there aren't really any great reversals or reveals. This is fine for its part - it's less about wallowing in the intrigue and more about the personal/interpersonal for Alys and Sammish.

You may have noticed that the other series I've mentioned so far have been in the 'lesbian space atrocities' genre, and that's not just because they are the only referents I know how to reference (though that is also true). Age of Ash may not exactly be in the neighbourhood of lesbian space atrocities, but it's... a neighbour to the neighbourhood. If only because it's far less ambitious than is characteristic. Sammish is in love with her friend, a hopeless puppy love that leads her to act in ways she knows to be foolish (relatable). In an interesting variation, Sammish does not get the girl - she realises she can do better than that specific girl. (Which, she can.) The emotional throughline of the book is partly a coming of age for Sammish: gaining confidence and letting go of her youthful dreams for the future when they no longer serve her.

Overall, would recommend, and I'll likely read the sequels, but not revolutionary.

[joncronshawauthor]

Scott Lynch's Revolutionary Impact on Fantasy Literature: The Influence of 'The Lies of Locke Lamora'

Scott Lynch’s tour de force, ‘The Lies of Locke Lamora’ burst onto the fantasy scene in 2006, marking a significant turning point in the genre’s evolution. The book, and its subsequent sequels in the ‘Gentleman Bastard’ series, introduced readers to a unique and innovative world of fantasy that has since greatly influenced countless authors and contributed to the development of modern fantasy…

[eightopals]

Predictions for Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham

1. Sammish is going to do something awful and something awful is going to happen to her, not necessarily in that order.

Like, she’s going to betray her friend or something.

2. In fact, the whole thing is going to be Crapsack World Central.

[jbk405]

I don’t know how I never noticed this before, but last night it hit me how many similarities Amos Burton from The Expanse has with Konstantine Bothari from the Vorkosigan Saga.

It starts with their shared childhood and background, and extends to the way they are written as latching onto somebody else to serve as their moral compass and create their identity.   The authors of The Expanse have to have taken inspiration from Bothari when generating the character.

Bothari followed Cordelia Vorkosigan, and her son Miles, because she made him a better man than he could ever have been on his own.  Amos follows Naomi Nagata, and later James Holden and the whole Rocinante crew, for the same reasons.  Because by letting them guide him he can act as a better man than he would be on his own.

Where the characters diverge is where they try to go themselves: Bothari wants nothing more than to be Cordelia’s “dog”, so he stays as he is for his entire life and is even buried at the foot of her grave when he dies.  Amos instead decides that he wants to become better himself, and so makes an effort to form his own judgements and build an internal moral code.

In a way, Amos is who Bothari could have become if he a group of people supporting him (The entire Roci family) instead of just one person holding him together.

There’s so much here to discuss that I never realized until last night.

[noah-luck-easterly]

The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics

For as many years as anyone in the city could remember, Olaf Neddelsohn had been the cambist of the Magdalen Gate postal authority. Every morning, he could be seen making the trek from his rooms in the boarding house on State Street, down past the street vendors with their apples and cheese, and into the bowels of the underground railway, only to emerge at the station across the wide boulevard from Magdalen Gate. Some mornings he would pause at the tobacconist’s or the newsstand before entering the hallowed hall of the postal authority, but seven o’clock found him without fail at the ticker tape, checking for the most recent exchange rates. At half past, he was invariably updating the slate board with a bit of chalk. And with the last chime of eight o’clock, he would nod his respect to his small portrait of His Majesty, King Walther IV, pull open the shutters, and greet whatever traveler had need of him. [...]

[benedictusantonius]

[2023|028] Babylon’s Ashes (2016) written by James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck)

[mapas-fantasticos]

Maps from the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham.

[roseunspindle]

Books by “A” authors I own and need to read. ^_^’

*3-4

*read about half then got distracted a few years ago...ooops

[yumyumpod]

We are first time watchers of The Expanse and podcasting our experience with this series and we're nearing the end of the second season. You can now hear our latest discussion! YouTube: https://youtu.be/3h-Nl1OkLKE Podcast: https://linktr.ee/yumyumpod