Author: Daniel Abraham
Cover Artist: Stephan Martiniere
Publisher: Tor
Binding: Hardcover
Publication Date: August 2007

A while ago I read Daniel Abraham’s début novel A Shadow in Summer and I was very impressed. Of course I immediately got the second book in the Long Price quartet, A Betrayal in Winter*, after which it was swallowed by the ever intimidating to read stack that resides on the desk next to the computer I am writing these reviews on. Earlier this week I finally picked it up. Again, I found a well written, tightly plotted novel featuring a number of interesting characters with complex motivations. There are some notable differences with the first book too though. While A Betrayal in Winter is a good book by any measure, I think I prefer the first book.

More than a decade has passed since the events in A Shadow in Summer. Maati has returned to the village of the poets and is regarded as a failure. Liat and her son have left him and he spends his time doing the most miserable work in the community. Itani/Otah has left Sarayketh as well and been making is living as a courier for one on the trading houses. In the mean time the situation in Machi, the city state ruled by Otah’s father, has become tense. The current ruler of the city, known as Khai Machi, is dying and succession is traditionally determined by his son’s killing each other until one remains. The three older brothers have made a pact that held so far. Now the issue needs to be decided however. When one of the three is murdered, a deadly game begins and although Otah has renounced his claim on the throne nobody has forgotten his existence.

The Dai-kvo, leader of the poets’ community, decides Maati can be useful after all. He is sent to Machi to find Otah. It cannot be apparent that the Dai-kvo, usually strictly neutral in matters of succession, has taken an interest in the situation so he is sent with the excuse of searching the vast library of the city for texts from the imperial age. Otah in the mean time decides he too has unfinished business in the city. He didn’t count on being expected however. As soon as he’s recognized both Otah and Maati are drawn into a deadly game of court politics with an unexpected participant driving events. Otah’s sister Idaan

Like the setting of the previous novel, the city of Sarayketh, Machi is one of the states that was carved out of the dying empire. They share language and cultural background, including the interesting use of gestures to supplement spoken language. Should they ever decide to adapt this work for television or make it into a movie, these gestures are going to be an actor’s ultimate challenge. Where Sarayketh had a strangle hold on the cotton trade thanks to Seedless, Machi too has an economy based on the powers of an Andat, an idea in physical form. In this case the Andat Stone-made-Soft, held by the poet Cehmai. His powers are a great benefit to the local mines and related industries as well as a formidable military threat, but by his very nature he continually struggles to break free from his unnatural enslavement. Events in Sarayketh have driven home just how unstable this prosperity is. Maati now sees what he might have become had events in Sarayketh gone differently. This is one of the better parts of the book, Abraham has managed do convincingly change the way Maati looks at his occupation.

More than in the previous book all major characters struggle against the limitations and traditions their society imposes on them. Whether it is the dependence on a kind of magic not fully understood any more, the wasteful tradition of the ruling Khai’s sons slaying each other, or the fact that women in the ruling class at least, are seen more as commodities than people. Where it takes the main characters in A Shadow in Summer until the last part of the book to run into the political realities of the world, in A Betrayal in Winter it has shaped their lives. Both Machi and Otah have tried to roll with the punches and it has not gotten them anywhere. In fact, to put it in terms you won’t find in any fantasy book, both of them are heading for a mid-life crisis.

It is a fine bit of characterization to develope these characters in such a way, but combined with the gloomy atmosphere of the Winter cities, to brutal process of succession and the exposure of how unstable the government of the city really is, it makes for a quite depressing story. Not that the situation in the previous book was that much different but the mistakes, passions and rashness of the younger characters give the story an air of energy that the more subdued drama of A Betrayal in Winter can’t match.

I am impressed with Abraham’s skill, the plotting and characterization of A Betrayal in Winter is superb, but for sheer entertainment value I think A Shadow in Summer is the better book. That being said, I wouldn’t miss reading the next novel in this series, An Autumn War (check out the sample chapter we are hosting here) for the world. And I will make sure the to read pile doesn’t swallows this one too.

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_{*For those of you who have read Jay’s review of A Shadow in Summer and the interview he conducted with Daniel Abraham, both of these articles refer to A Betrayal in Winter as Winter Cities. In fact, in my copy of A Shadow in Summer, this book is announced as Winter Cities. Apparently they decided to chance the title but it is the same book.}

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Topics: A Betrayal in Winter, Daniel Abraham, Stephan Martiniere, Tor