Book Review | The Dragon’s Path- Daniel Abraham

The Dragon’s Path

Author- Daniel Abraham

Paperback (Advance Reader’s Copy)

Page Count: 592 pages

Publisher: Orbit Books

Release Date: April 7, 2011

ISBN-10: 0316080683

ISBN-13: 978-0316080682

Daniel Abraham is one of those criminally under-appreciated authors that always  has deserved more. Despite earning some glowing praise from review press and being regarded as a seminal genius from the small but dedicated legion of fans that Abraham established with his debut series, The Long Price Quartet did not sell well. And when TOR Books dropped Mr. Abraham (and didn’t bother to push the final novel, The Price of Spring, to a mass-market paperback) fans cried outrage. Wherever he went, success would surely follow. How could it not? It wasn’t that long before Orbit Books scooped him up off the ground. And with good reason. The Dragon’s Path is the first book in the Dagger and Coin series, a series the author says is cultivated by influences such as Walter Tevis, Alexandre Dumas, Tolkien, J. Michael Strazinski, Joss Whedon, GRRM, Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Dorothy Dunnett,  and Tim Parks. It is a series that takes all the best of what could form a potential fantasy world, and executing from these sources in an extremely satisfying way.

In quote, from Daniel Abraham himself: ‘In the way that The Long Price Quartet was a semi-tragic meditation on the epic scale of an individual life, The Dagger and the Coin is a love letter to fantasy adventure intended to keep the reader from getting enough sleep...’

The story follows four major characters, with other minor perspectives dispersed throughout the pages, a format similar to the transitioning perspectives used in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire and Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy. Antea, a great nation indubitably inspired by early Renaissance Europe, is looking to expand its reign into the Free Cities; Geder, a minor nobleman, is driven to war in looking for the proper respect he deserves, but his heart is not in the clash of arms, but rather, the translation of speculative essay. Dawson Kalliam is a court baron engaged in an inner struggle for control of the Severed Throne, trying to keep things from sparking into turmoil as a clandestine uprising threatens to tear from within the Antean border. Marcus Wester is a hired guarding captain stuck in events bigger than himself as he tries to escape his troubled past and make a honest profit. Cithrin Bel Sarcour is a banker girl trying to smuggle the fortune’s of an entire city out into the country and to safety, meanwhile trying to keep up the ruse of her disguise as a boy caravan handler intact. All the common ingredients for a traditional fantasy, but the mixture makes for a scrumptious Abraham blend.

And although it is written in a more traditional vein, people should understand that The Dagger and Coin shouldn’t be regarded as just another same-old high fantasy series with the same basic tropes. It isn’t. In The Dragon’s Path, Abraham uses some conventional fantasy aspects and also tosses some aside- our first encounter with the thirteen races of humanity, for example, is with a female Tralgu, a tusked “giant” human that is basically a reverse of a Tolkien dwarf- and in doing so makes makes some key observations on what makes a fantasy world click. Face it: much of what has formed our picture of fantasy conventions is derived off of old-school Tolkien, and this is where The Dagon’s Path kneels more closely in its shadow than the Long Price Quartet did. Except that it is different from Tolkien’s Middle Earth, as it drops the occasional swear word, it deals with economics more closely than the LPQ, and it features an interesting take on human anthropology (Abraham put up a blog post on the thirteen races and a companion piece on racial balance in fantasy to clear up any confusion on it). Overall, the book is a more modern take on the faux medieval European world that Tolkien fostered from the start.

There is a smooth hand here, a penmanship confidently crafted through his trademark focus on deft characterization. As the story goes along, we journey with the characters through trials and evolutions that reveal that their agendas and traits are somewhat more complex than we thought. Some, like Cithrin and Geder, develop in leaps and bounds, and others are given enough leverage to be  more closely scrutinized and fiddled with in subsequent volumes. We go through alcoholism and loss, tragedy and war, political struggles and the finding of first love. Amid all of this are the epic events, but they tend to take a backseat to character development. It all comes together nicely. But, above all, these are characters that make mistakes, and  they sometimes even do things that the reader might not agree with. One character for example falls so far off the path of redemption that it is hard for him to return back. The fact is, everything is done for exposure to good storytelling, and if the decisions have to be hard to accept in order for this to happen, then so be it.

Most of all, even though everything- characterization, backdrop, themes, plot- is given 100% effort, I truly realize Abraham’s understanding of  the secondary fantasy world through the little lines, the observations of this world through the lens of the characters that end up breathing extra life into the pages. Sometimes, these observations or voiced thoughts might not even happen, but it makes the people more real. Take these out and you might not notice it, but these little bits add a whole lot more to the text. It makes it feel whole. He’s informing the readers with descriptions and features, but he’s doing it in a way that feels customary because it’s the character’s natural observations about the land, the cultures, and other primary and subsidiary characters.

A few examples:

“Why do you apologize for everything you say?” she asked.
Master Kit turned to her, bushy eyebrows hoisted.
“I wasn’t aware that I did,” he said.
“You just did it again,” Cithrin said. “You never say anything straight out. It’s all I believe this or I’ve found that. You never say, The sun rises in the morning. It’s always, I think the sun rises in the morning. It’s like you’re trying not to promise anything.
Master Kit went sober. His dark eyes considered her. Cithrin felt a chill run down her spine, but it wasn’t fear. It was like being on the edge of finding something that she’d only guessed was there. Master Kit rubbed a palm across his chin. The sound was soft and intimate and utterly mundane.
“I’m surprised you noticed that,” he said, then smiled at having done it again. “I have a talent for being believed, and I’ve found it problematic. I suppose I’ve adopted habits to soften the effect, and so I try not to assert things unless I’m certain of them. Absolutely certain, I mean. I’m often surprised by how little I’m absolutely certain of.”
“That’s an odd choice,” Cithrin said.
“And it encourages me to take myself lightly,” Master Kit said. “I find a certain value in lightness.”
“I wish I could,” she said. The despair in her voice surprised her, and then she was weeping.

-pg 251 of the ARC

“You let him in?”
The Tralgu slave bowed his head, an icon of fear and distress.
“The lady insisted, my lord.”
If Issandrian had laid his hands on Clara, this would be the shortest and bloodiest revolution in the history of the world. Dawson would burn Issandrian’s bones in the square and piss on the fire.”

-pg 264 of the ARC

“Callers walked under rough wooden signs, announcing whatever news they were paid to repeat: a particular butcher had been soaking his meat in water and selling it by weight, an outbreak of the pox had been traced to a brothel in tanner’s row, a boy had been lost and a reward posted for his return.
It was the gossip of any great city, and Geder enjoyed the sound of it without paying attention to the meaning of the words. Every syllable had been paid for, and it was safe to assume most were lies.”

-pg 343 of the ARC

I’ve always Daniel Abraham as a writer by how much content he can pack into a smaller number of pages, and still come out with a pure and refreshing reading experience. For instance, if writers of the same genre can write a good book in a 1000 pages, Abraham can write a likewise good book in half that amount. It is no small feat that I can read both these kind of books and still come away more profoundly impressed (most of the time) with the slimmer Abraham novel than its massive partner. His writing( different in feel from LPQ and more prosaic) can turn on a dime here, from crudeness to sophistication, and it just feels right. Needless to say, I enjoyed it.

As you can very well conclude, The Dragon’s Path solidifies to me that any Abraham-related project is worth keeping an eye on. And definitely worth reading. Even in a year stuffed fat with triple A releases (Abercrombie, Rothfuss, GRRM, et al) The Dragon’s Path is sure to appear on many people’s “Best-Of” lists for 2011. I know it will appearing on mine.

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