A Shadow in Summer (Long Price Quartet) [Hardcover]

Daniel Abraham (Author)

Book Description

Series: Long Price Quartet | Publication Date: March 7, 2006

The powerful city-state of Saraykeht is a bastion of peace and culture, a major center of commerce and trade. Its economy depends on the power of the captive spirit, Seedless, an andat bound to the poet-sorcerer Heshai for life. Enter the Galts, a juggernaut of an empire committed to laying waste to all lands with their ferocious army. Saraykeht, though, has always been too strong for the Galts to attack, but now they see an opportunity. If they can dispose of Heshai, Seedless's bonded poet-sorcerer, Seedless will perish and the entire city will fall. With secret forces inside the city, the Galts prepare to enact their terrible plan.
In the middle is Otah, a simple laborer with a complex past. Recruited to act as a bodyguard for his girlfriend's boss at a secret meeting, he inadvertently learns of the Galtish plot. Otah finds himself as the sole hope of Saraykeht, either he stops the Galts, or the whole city and everyone in it perishes forever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gesture and posture convey as much information as spoken words in Abraham's impressive first novel, a fantasy set in a world where poets create and bind powerful shape-shifting creatures called "andat." The Empire hangs on, literally, by a thread; the cloth industry depends on the ability of andat Seedless to magically remove seeds from cotton plants to keep commerce flowing and the barbarians in check. Seedless, who can also remove unborn children from their mother's womb, aims to drive his poet-creator, Heshai-kvo, mad with grief. A love triangle develops among a threesome—Heshai's apprentice, Maati; Itani, a laborer with a past; and the beautiful scribe Liat—as they unknowingly assist the andat in his plot to abort a wanted child. When Liat's master, Amat Kyaan, uncovers the plan, Amat must flee and live as a bookkeeper in a brothel. The complex characters all struggle to navigate a path between their duty to their Empire and to themselves. A blurb from George R.R. Martin will help alert his fans to this promising newcomer. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Debut novelist Daniel Abraham bolts out of the gate with an enthusiastic recommendation from SF guru George R. R. Martin. The critics agree with Martin's appraisal, and reviewers welcome Abraham's rich characterization, deft plotting, and the particularly ambitious central conceit that ideas can be made flesh—and controlled by poets, no less. Critics nitpick here and there (a communication method that involves posing rather than speaking furrows some eyebrows), but nothing dissuades reviewers from eagerly awaiting the Fall, Winter, and Spring installments. (Winter Cities will be published in 2007.)
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (March 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765313405
• ISBN-13: 978-0765313409
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #808,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Daniel lives in New Mexico. He keeps a blog at www.danielabraham.com. He also writes as MLN Hanover and (with Ty Franck) as James S. A. Corey.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Impressive debut: an anti-fantasy fantasy, August 23, 2006

By 

the_smoking_quill (South Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Shadow in Summer (Long Price Quartet) (Hardcover)

The Cities of the Khaiem shine like jewels in the East, and the brightest is the port of Saraykeht. The realm's profitable cotton trade flows through the city, quickened by the artistry of the poet Heshai. For in the East, a poet's art can become incarnate as a powerful spirit-slave (andat), and it is on the shoulders of Heshai, master of the andat Seedless, that the weight of Saraykeht's continuing prosperity balances ... a weight outsiders would gladly topple.

In these delicate times, first-time novelist Daniel Abraham chronicles the poignant choices of a handful of characters seldom seen in the "fantasy" genre: a middle-aged, female overseer of a foreign merchant house; her aging employer, the house's lord; her young assistant; the assistant's lover (a common dock-laborer); and Heshai's newly-arrived apprentice. Together and individually, without sword or spell, these elegantly-realized few will determine Saraykeht's fate.

Mr. Abraham, quite often a poet himself in fashioning the novel's lacquer-smooth prose, has written a marvelous novel--a "fantasy" by virtue of its setting and the andat's power, but a fantasy that can be gleefully dropped in the lap of anyone complaining of generic, Arthurian or Tolkien-esque settings; paper-deep protagonists; or unrestrained gore. "Shadow" (Book One of the planned "Long Price Quartet") is both fresh and literary, and as Mr. Abraham has spent years writing short fiction and honing his craft, he deserves every compliment that comes his way.

Although "Shadow" is not a perfect book--some will no doubt label the communicative custom of "poses" (e.g. "[he] took a pose half query and half command") as a device to cheat and tell emotions instead of showing them; and there is a plot issue as mentioned after the spoiler alert--it is a book worth owning and, likely, re-reading. Fans of Barry Hughart ("Bridge of Birds") and Guy Gavriel Kay ("Tigana") should take special note of this tale. Four summer-bright stars.


** Spoiler Alert **

The plot is driven by a Western conspiracy to remove the poet and andat and thus cripple the city. The execution of the story is solid enough that one may not pause to consider the larger picture; but in retrospect, it seems implausible that the conspirators would adopt their complex, innocent-life-taking scheme when assassinating the poet would work just as well. Of course, it could not be a blatant, traceable act, but a well-planned "accident"--perhaps a roof tile falling on the strolling poet (as it does on others in an actual scene), a mugging, or the consumption of "bad" liquor or drugs--would work equally well and with fewer contortions.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an extraordinary world with lively characters, March 9, 2006

By 

Elaine Isaak "fantasy writer" (southern New Hampshire) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Shadow in Summer (Long Price Quartet) (Hardcover)

As a fantasy writer, I find it very hard to get involved in someone else's world, but this book really blew me away. I kept trying to figure out how he did it--and how I could write more like that. The characters are marvelously believable and sympathetic--complex, with mixed emotions and motivations. I wanted them all to succeed, and knew that they could not.

Abraham is a master of resonance, building in layers of meaning and echoes that return throughout the work. Definitely not your standard fantasy. The plot moves slowly, on the one hand, and yet I was engaged by the characters & didn't mind the pace. I did find the ending a bit of a let down--but I am eager for the next book to see where the brewing troubles will lead.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Familiar elements, all new story., April 4, 2006

By 

Cathyn Lesanges "Iron Chef Whatever's Left" (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Shadow in Summer (Long Price Quartet) (Hardcover)

I am in love with this book. The characters, which in some ways are familiar (the Hidden Prince, for example) are richly written, real people with real lives rather than fleshed out stick-figures who only serve to advance the plot. The relationships are complex, both friendships and emnities are well founded, and the interactions are genuine, almost making the reader feel embarrassed to be evesdropping on conversations rather than reading them in a work of fiction.

Mr. Abraham amazes me with his ability to paint details into scenes with an economy of words, relying on mastery of vocabulary rather than volume of prose. Having only read of the place in this book, I feel I know Saraykeht. It's seedy dockside, it's glorious noble quarter, it's teahouses, inns, and places where workers toil at their labors are all familiar territory to me. I can hear the beggars singing for alms, the the prostitutes singing for clients, and the food vendors hawking parchment wrapped parcels of fish and ginger or sugar-glazed almonds. The climate of the place is so well detailed that it too seems like another character.

The plot and storyline are also impressive. I have read enough novels to this point to be tired of over-reaching tales of high improbability. Mr. Abraham's story is above all things believable, written on a scale that takes no great leaps of faith to bring to life in the mind's eye. Normal people doing business, living and working in a world where the greatest magic is not wizards raising armies of undead or lobbing fireballs about the firmament, but that of the Poet, who once in his lifetime chants a song that's taken him years to write, to capture a thought and make that thought flesh and purpose. Court intrigue is at play here, not high wizardry and grand adventure, and I applaud the author for it. This story is pure, well considered, and believable.