It's really smart. It's fantasy, what Daniel referes to as "High Fantasy." In other words, its on the intelligent and literate side of fantasy, versus the formuliac stuff churned out for adolescent boys. It has romance, grimly realistic politics, and characters that come alive off the page. It's very human, there's a lot of ambiguity, its genuinely on of the best new books I've read for awhile. Especially if you like fantasy, you should give it a try.
You don't have to just take Jae and I's word for it. He's getting some rave blurbs from big league writers, such as Connie Willis.
"Reader, be warned: If you open Daniel Abraham's A Shadow in Summer, he will lead you into a strange, seductive world of beatings and poets and betrayals, intrigues you do not fully understand and wars you cannot stop and places you are not sure you want to go. Intricate, elegant, and almost hypnotically told, this tale of gods held captive will hold you captive, too."
--Connie Willis, Hugo Award-winning author of To Say Nothing of the Dog
The book is _A Shadow In Summer_, by Daniel Abraham.
5 comments:
I will request that our library stock this.
That's a great idea. I was trying to figure out why people every buy hardbacks of a new author. I don't. So this is a great way for it to happen.
The books you list on your blog right now sound interesting. How is the _Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town_?
Well, I didn't need to ask for an order to be placed. They already have 4 copies on order.
_Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town_ is bizarre so far, as I expect it will be throughout. I'm not too far in yet. I think I'm going to enjoy it but not be sure if I should recommend it because it is so odd that some people might not be able to take it.
_Go to Hell_ is an incredibly light read. It is about the lightest non-fiction read I've done in ages and ages and I'm enjoying it. It really is written for mass consumption and is written for breadth, not depth of topic. The thing I've really liked is that it introduces you to all sorts of devils/demons/spirits/underworlds/etc from throughout history and I can remember where these characters or places have been the roots for names and places in books that I have read. This is particularly true of the Robert Jordan series, _American Gods_ by Neil Gaimann, and the two books that I really enjoyed called _The Knight_ and _The Wizard_ (can't recall author right now). So now I feel particularly "literate" that I understand the root and history of the names and places these authors use and don't think they are just meaningless made-up proper nouns.
You may also like to know that I am number 3 in the Pikes Peak Library District's hold queue for "A Shadow in Summer".
Cool! Sounds like Colorado Springs is a good market.
I'm not one of those people you need to avoid recommending bizarre stuff to :-)
Gene Wolfe. I really like his stuff. I think I recommended this to you once:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312890176/sr=8-1/qid=1141758331/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-1675902-8786551?%5Fencoding=UTF8
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