I finished book five of "The Dagger and the Coin", a fantasy series written by Daniel Abraham. Yes, the Daniel Abraham who is one of the two writers who make up the pseudonym of James S.A. Corey, who wrote "The Expanse" series.
With "The Expanse" done, I was hungry for a series. All my favorite authors are... not cranking the stuff out... and Abraham was recommended to me.
I got "The Dragon's Path", book one of his "The Dagger and the Coin" series and quite enjoyed it. I think I was a third of the way in when I got the other four books: "The King's Blood", "The Tyrant's Law", "The Widow's House", and "The Spider's War".
The series is written in a style similar to "The Expanse" or the "Song of Ice and Fire" books (remember those?). Each chapter is told from the point-of-view of a character.
The main characters are:
- Cithrin bel Sarcour, an orphan half-breed child raised by the great bank. Turns out she's got a genius for banking and a wild, impulsive, inclination for risks.
- Marcus Wester, a bleak-mannered and aging mercenary captain whose wife and daughter were burned alive before him. He's killed kings and doesn't have a lot of patience for shit.
- Geder Pallinko, a somewhat-nerdy nobleman who is thrust into power. A shame he's also a bit of a sociopath, a tyrant, and a mass-murderer.
- Kit, a master actor with quite the secret in his past.
- Clara Kalliam, the wife of Baron Dawson Kalliam and a woman who goes through all kinds of hell to save her family and her homeland.
All told, I found the series to be a fun read. Abraham created a fascinating world. Once ruled by dragons, the human race were bred as slaves. Multiple ofshoot races were bred for specific purposes and after the dragons fell, the various races of humanity inherited the world and get along about as well as you'd expect. I like the protagonists of the series. They're engaging, flawed, but not so much so that I didn't want to read about what they were going through. While I personally loathed Geder Pallinko, his character arc was fascinating. Abraham did a marvelous job of showing how we're all heroes in our personal narratives. Especially delusional sociopaths.
The politics were well-written and while the racial stuff got a bit heavy-handed at times, it rang quite true. Disturbingly-so given the times we're in.
There were a few cons. I thought some of the "war is hell" narratives dragged on a bit too long. I could have done without the dragons. I find it odd to say that for a fantasy series, but the whole dragon thing felt a bit shoehorned in and didn't really flow well with the plot, to my mind. And that's kind of funny given the dragons are kind of central, though in a removed way. The series does conclude, but the conclusion feels rushed, a bit overly-contrived, and oddly-abrupt. Lots of threads were left hanging, making me wonder if he's planning a sequel series.
If he writes it, I'll read it.
