A Shadow in Summer (The Long Price Quartet) Review

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A Shadow in Summer (The Long Price Quartet) ReviewThe 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.A Shadow in Summer (The Long Price Quartet) Overview

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