Sometimes, I just get slightly over excited when I do these things... But then, I really loved the book/series, so I suppose I can excuse myself... 

isn't that illustration gorgeous?

 

 
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When I finish the first book in a series I don't usually go straight to the following volume, leaving myself some time to… digest the story and the characters. Not this time: after closing A Shadow in Summer I began immediately to read book two, and that might explain the undefined feeling of something missing that had me struggling to go on for the first few chapters.  Luckily for me that sensation passed quickly and once the story started to unfold I was once more totally immersed in Daniel Abraham's world and completely absorbed by the unfolding tale.

 

Such elements that were more lightly touched in the first book, as the cruel custom of sending away the "excess" sons of a ruling house so they don't create further contention with their warring brothers over succession, take a more defined and dramatic shape in the second book where the story develops with the characteristics and rhythms of a Greek tragedy, where the reader (or spectator) knows that it can only end in death and anguish - and that's one of the hooks that grab the reader and never let go until the end.

 

The level of political intrigue and scheming is taken to new levels, at the same time giving a broader and deeper insight into the world's society and its customs, and at the same time it forces the characters - both old and new - toward choices that can be both cruel and unavoidable.  I am amazed at Mr. Abraham's skill in world building and the way he makes the background of the cities and the world at large interact with those characters and create a solid, believable, three-dimensional story animated by people I care about - both in the positive and negative way.

 

With a very few exceptions I tend not to re-read books, but I suspect these will end up in that short list, because I'm certain that revisiting them will prove even more entertaining, and that I will discover more facets that I might have overlooked now.

A sequel to ‘A Shadow in Summer,’ set in the same location and a few years after the events of the previous book, but it also works as a contained story.

The Khai of Sarakheyt is ailing. Tradition demands that the next ruler of the city will be the last son of the current Khai left alive – it is the duty of brothers to kill each other to ensure an uncomplicated succession. However, one of the Khai’s sons has never had any interest in ruling. He’s left the city and has been living under an assumed name, pursuing a quiet life with an innkeeper, whom he loves, and making a living as a combination bike courier and spy. It’s the gathering-information part of the job that’s becomes a problem, because when one of his brothers is reported poisoned, he’s assigned to go find out what’s happening. Otah Machi would rather be as far as possible from these events – but he’d also rather not blow his cover by refusing the job for no logical reason.

Unfortunately for him, his cover is blown when he runs into an old friend (or maybe an enemy), Maati, one of the “poets” who sustain the economy (and the land’s defense) through the elemental golems called ‘andat’ that they summon into being through words. Maati is also interested in keeping informed on what’s going on, as politics is essential to the poets.

To his further dismay, Otah’s carefully maintained low profile is working against him, as public opinion has focused on his mysterious disappearance. No one will believe that Otah is not secretly plotting.

The reader, however, knows the identity of the real plotter from the outset: Otah’s sister Idaan. No one in this patriarchal world expects a woman would be involved in politics, but Idaan is brilliant, ambitious, and believes that she has her lover (whose name she expects to rule in), and the situation, under her thumb.

The story proceeds as a combination of court intrigue and murder mystery; with a rich setting and complex characters controlled by and fighting against their pasts, their ‘proper’ place in society, tradition, and their own emotions. Very well done.

Superior to the first volume in several respects, this installment does shed some additional light on the central mechanism of the setting, the supernatural master/slave relation, thus remedying one of the principal defaults of the first volume, which withheld information on this point, perhaps in an attempt to generate mystery and suspense that simply came across as coy.

This central mechanism is kinda cool insofar as it is platonist Forms taken literally and made manifest in the setting. (RSB and mieville do the same with more modern philosophical bits.) The platonist Forms naturally enough do not like being reduced down to material things, with limited perspectives, restricted consciousness, memory; the platonist Form made manifest has desires (typically the nihilist's desire for self-abnegation)--which desires indicate an absence, a lack, objet a, &c., something perfectly material and non-ideal--a corruption of the platonist Idea, for which suicide is the only remedy. It is what happens when Parmenides is combined with Heraclitus, but instead, as in Plato, merely on paper, here it's in a person--a nasty psychomachia, and the writer is to be commended for thinking through it. The most moving moments in the narrative typically involve the supernatural slaves.

The coolness here, however, continues: the platonist Forms are not typically engines of war (no high DPS ticking AoE WTFLOLBBQ!!, &c), but are used for economic purposes (volume I saw the platonist Form made manifest for intervention in the agricultural & manufacturing of textiles; this volume has it used for mining). There is apparently plenty of belligerent potential here, with some menacing hints about the deep history of the setting--but the violence is kept toned down.

Otherwise, a fun read. Will continue to volume III.