The King's Blood - Daniel Abraham

I walked into Barnes and Noble earlier this week. What I saw shocked me. I rarely buy books in a store (bad, I know), but I often go in just to see what's being advertised, what's on the shelf, and more importantly what isn't on the shelf. Those who follow me on Twitter will know by now that I consider Daniel Abraham one of the best writers in the business and among writers of epic fantasy he might be the best, period. With the stage thus set, scouring the shelves of my local B&N, it wounded me to see only one Daniel Abraham title on the shelf. This would be an appropriate time to gasp.

Believe it or not, there were no copies of The Long Price Quartet or The Dragon's Path, the first book in The Dagger and Coin series and the preceding volume to his newest release, The King's Blood (there were eight copies). How's an author supposed to find new readers when they can't find his books? How many shoppers will pick-up Abraham's new book, realize it's a second book, look for book one, can't find it, walk out, and purchase it on Amazon (or not at all)? And we wonder why book stores are going out of business.

It's a tragic circumstance as far as I'm concerned. Not only is Abraham a great writer, but when Dagger and Coin is finished it will be hailed as the most impressive work of epic fantasy to date. Maybe that's a lot to hang on a series two books in, with three (at least) still to come, but King's Blood is that good. It demands hyperbole.

Unique among epic fantasies, there is no clear conflict in Abraham's series. No Dark Lord, or bellicose neighboring savages, or king gone mad, Dagger and Coin is fundamentally a study in character. Abraham creates a sandbox in which his children play, lacking the supervision of their parents and only cruel ingenuity at their disposal to determine who holds the shovel.

It's not really even a particularly vibrant sandbox as far as such things go. His magic system is based solely on the ability to manipulate conviction. Interesting to be sure, but nothing quite as inspirational as Aes Sedai or Allomancers. His world is also fairly two dimensional, constructed around the notion that dragons once ruled the earth, created thirteen slave races, and then disappeared, leaving their creations behind to bicker over what remained. The places and history that populate the canvas are only illuminated when the characters require them to be, thus lacking the true sense of place that George R.R. Martin's Westeros or Brandon Sanderson's Scadrial evoke.

That said, King's Blood, by the very nature of having spent another five-hundred pages with Abraham's characters, allows a far clearer picture of the world to emerge. While it still isn't the novel's strongest aspect, there's enough of a milieu to get lost in once his lush characterizations set their hooks.

To that end, the cast from Dragon's Path is back, including the points of view of Geder, Dawson, Cithrin, Marcus, and the introduction of Clara, Dawson's wife. Through these individuals Abraham's novel thrives. He depicts fully formed, painfully conflicted, layered characters that entrench themselves in the reader's mind and refuse to leave, taking up residence like stray cat you wish you'd never fed, but can't bear to send away.

Cithrin, an orphaned ward to the Medean Bank, an alcoholic, and a financial genius, is the coin:

"Cithrin mulled over how much of the performer's craft relied on excellence in a small range and how much competence over a wide variety of performances. It was, of course, a single instance of a more general problem, and it could be applied to the bank as well. A certain range of contracts -- insurance and loans and partnerships and letters of credit -- required relatively little additional expense. To widen the business into renting out guardsmen or guaranteeing merchandise in bank-owned warehouses required more resources and higher expenses, but it also brought in coin that wouldn't have come in otherwise."

A microcosm in Abraham's novel, Cithrin has no discernible key by which the reader can define her moral barometer. She's neither good or evil, merely a woman trying for self-reliance. One of the hallmarks of the series, it's a facet likewise demonstrated by Dawson whom always seeks to do the right thing, but possesses a point of view rarely shared by the modern man,

"Before this same window, his father had explained that the walls of the holding were like the fabric of the kingdom, that the noble houses were the jade. Without their constancy, even the most glorious structure would eventually fall into ruin."

His stubborn denial of change and progressiveness, juxtaposed with the warmth and love for his family make him one of the most ambivalent characters I've ever read. It's a style Abraham wields with precision. Even Geder, a mass murdering insecure man-child, becomes an object of some sympathy in Abraham's hands as he caves in the face of someone who dared oppose him.

If Cithrin is the coin, Dawson and Geder are the daggers -- blunt instruments good for little else but destruction. Unable to think beyond the moment; the necessity of response to a perceived action. In one of the earliest chapters a minor character begins,

"Wars are easier to start than end, and where they take you is rarely where you intended to go," the ambassador said. "It will be better for all of us to avoid it."

Would that Geder and Dawson could conceive of such foresight. Instead it's left to Clara and Cithrin, who see the board many moves ahead, to pick up the pieces. Knowing Abraham, I suspect it's too easy levy the charge that women are the coin and men the dagger. Perhaps more appropriate is the notion that everyone, man or woman can be either. There is no black and white. A merchant one moment can be an assassin in the next. I can't wait to find out how wrong I am.

As disappointed as I was to see a bookstore lack the requisite staples of Daniel Abraham's work, I am just as pleased to advise my readers with every ounce of conviction I possess to read The Dagger and Coin series. Make it the commercial success it deserves to be.

The Dragon's Path and The King's Blood are available now, while The Poisoned Sword (or is The Tyrant's Law?), the third volume in the series has already been turned in to Orbit. I couldn't be more excited to read it this time next year. I trust it will blow my mind.