Beautiful, original, and thoroughly enjoyable. This is definitely a series I will continue!

S'alright. Annoyed that certain literary personages, who are apparently of some economic and narrative importance, are not under armed guard at all times.

Rather liked the postures & gestures.

Had a hard time getting too interested in the nauseating adolescent lust plot, and am hoping that one of the adolescents doesn't turn out to be both a hidden monarch and a member of the pokemon master club.

Loved the other plot, regarding the consigliere.

The pokemon was slick, and the text could've meditated more on what it is, what it does, the literatures that generate it, and so on. I suspect that an ounce of explanation that creates a mystery is more valuable than 200 pages of exposition, though. Hoping that author exposes more about the pokemons as the story progresses.

4.0 to 4.5 stars. A very impressive debut novel. While very light on fantasy elements (think George R. R. Martin and the Song of Fire and Ice), the one major fantasy component is original and simply superb. That idea is that "poets" create and bind ideas made flesh and control them in the use of commerce and war. I was really impressed. This, along with a well developed world and a great story make this a strongly recommended book.

A smart older woman, a person running from power, a poet made to serve the greater good.

Saraykeht is the most powerful nation in the world, reliant on trade dependent on a captive andant. This relies on Poets who are able to bind thoughts and concepts into god-like human forms and control them.
The city’s enemy is planning something that could mean war.

I don’t know how much could happen in a relatively short fantasy book.
There is a lot of politics, character motivations, and relationship dynamics that shape this story.

’And love is more important than justice,’ Seedless said.
‘Sometimes. Yes.’
Seedless smiled and nodded.
‘What a terrible thought,’ he said. ‘That love and injustice should be married.’

There isn’t much action in this book which I appreciated it. I tend to grow bored of lots of action scenes due to their repetitiveness. This kept me riveted just through the manoeuvrings and push and pull of the characters.

The descriptions are either rich or too sparse. For example, close up details of places and sounds and smells are very immersive, but a wider picture of the world and the magic system was loose. I would have loved more information on the andats and the world’s history.

"The andat aren't criminals. Before they're bound, they have no thought, no will, no form. They're only ideas. How can an idea enter into a contract?" "How can one refuse?" Maati countered. "There are names, my boy, for men who take silence as consent."

There is a light Asian inspiration with different poses and terms of respect, yet again this is not fully explored.

This is an extremely unique fantasy book that is a promising start to a quartet.

Bookstagram

After sitting and thinking about this I am going with this start rating because I do not think I was in the right head space for an Epic Fantasy like this. By that I mean, this first novel is devoid of any mythical creatures and action like non. This was a very political, character driven story and had I known that going in I think that would have helped a little bit. Now don't get me wrong this novel was written extremely well and executed just as well. Daniel Abraham has created a very unique world which is unlike any other fantasy stories I have read and I have read a lot. But with that all I said I am reading these books in the Long Price Quartet Bind Up but I want to count them all as books and not just one big book. I am really enjoying this series and I think the second book was a tad better.

This book was so fascinating! We get so much detail of this world, both in terms of the magic system and the land itself. We dive deep into the trade and political intrigue and I loved that! It’s a very slow book, without a lot of action, but there is so much deep character work. I felt like I knew these characters better than most books I’ve read. I didn’t always like them, but their motivations were clear and their decisions made sense in terms of their thinking. I felt so immersed in this world and its characters.

I will give you a warning to check trigger warnings before reading this book (StoryGraph lists them). Nothing is graphic, but there are elements you may want to know about before going on (either to prepare yourself or decide whether or not you want to read it).

RTC after I finish the series.....It was a bit difficult in the beginning of the book but then it grabs you and keeps you up til 3am. Not that I did ;)

So disappointed, again. I picked up this book because my heroes Connie Willis and George R. R. Martin, hands down my two favorite scifi/fantasists writing today, had been quoted as saying generous things about this series. Obviously the lesson here is to never trust blurbs, ever, even if you think the people writing them have bigger brains than you. I mean, it started out well enough. The first scene with Maati and the andat was hair-raising in its eeriness, and I liked the idea of poetry transcribing an essence so perfectly that it could give that essence a corporeal form, beauty of face, volition, and of course the ability to snark indiscriminately and at length. Seedless had a lot of potential as a symbolic entity -- there's little more profoundly scary to humanity than the idea of fertility made forcibly void (+ all the accompanying symbology -- blood on a birth bed, blackened and collapsed vegetation). The hobbling old ass-kicking accountant grandma was cool too.

BUT THEN IT WENT NOWHERE. Or at least nowhere that wasn't frustratingly contrived and/or yawnworthy. This makes me sad because I was so ready to /like/ this book, if only because GRRM liked it -- god knows I come across a single volume of worthy genre fiction about once every few months. The characters were drawn without any sort of depth or even certainty. Like, really? Otah the granite-faced, brooding, commitment-proof wanderer? Watch him angst and moan for pages on end. Liat the beautiful young woman who everyone loves for no apparent reason whatsoever? Well I guess she's hot. Maati, oh god: for the poet who will inherit the greatest burden of the day he sure snivels a lot, even when he becomes a "man" by the end of the novel. IN FACT, THEY ALL SNIVEL A LOT. And their angst is characterized by a frenzy of "her guilt was a stone in her stomach", "she murmured her sorrow into his hair". I don't mind reading pages of self-reflective angst in which the protagonist gazes tearily at her reflection in a still pool of water as the cherry blossoms swirl down around her in a symphonic haze -- it's just that Abraham isn't very good at rendering it in a convincing or sympathetic way. Pseudo-restrained but too self consciously artsy. Not to mention the propensity of slaves to burst into (beautiful, melancholic) song at every opportune moment and how every open market place smells like tea lemons and almond cake.

Even Seedless, conniving and serpentine, doesn't reach the levels of awesome that he should've. What a waste (of time for me).

I abandoned "A Shadow in Summer" because the characters are boring. I don't care. I was interested in Otah because the version I read introduced us to him first. He was cool, he figured out who he was, stood up to his teachers, walked away, etc. Then there were chapters and chapters about these other people that suck. And honestly, the magic concept in this? Not as awesome as it could be. Poetry turns concepts into people with powers? It is just kind of, meh.

The plot is also extremely boring. It's all talk, talk, talk, talk. I was too bored to continue.

All in all it is a remarkable debut which doesn't look like a debut. A Shadow in Summer is a great example that fantasy can be so multifarious. A more subtle, sensitive, emotional novel which unperceived casts a spell over you. It is obviously not a book for everyone. I would not go as far as to say that it is fantasy for highbrows.
But if ink, pen and words are your preferred weapons.........


Read my full Review: A Shadow in Summer

The debut (and first in a quartet) from a new voice in fantasy. . . . Which apparently I'm having trouble describing in fifty words or less, meaning it impressed me more than I quite realized. Okay, so skipping to the really interesting bit, poets are people who can express an idea so perfectly in language that they render form and volition out of unbounded power. They create minor gods, not to put too fine a point on it, who play a vital role in the economic and political security of the realm. And because this is about money and power, there are schemes.

The good things: Awesome concept, a setting that is actually vaguely Asiatic rather than yet another version of not!Italy, unobtrusively good gender politics despite background patriarchy, the way the magic is deeply psychopersonal.

The . . . could be better: that vaguely constructed feel you get in a lot of debuts where it feels like the plot is shoving everything else along, see also: love triangle.

The next two are out – I'm definitely snagging them when I can. Interesting!

3.5 stars