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A review by cupiscent
Blade of Dream by Daniel Abraham
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Short version: What Abraham is doing with this series is blowing my mind, and I cannot wait to see how the third book rounds things out. It's also absolutely beautiful work on character and setting and themes.
What Abraham's doing: telling the same story - or at least the same events over the same time period - with different POVs. This time, we're spending the book with Garreth Left and Elaine a Sal, who were tangentially essential to the cast of events in the first book. It's an audacious decision - telling the story in character focus rather than the usual chronology that would see the first book be the first third of the story from everyone's POV.
It feels like it shouldn't work, when the reader knows what's going to happen, knows who survives and who doesn't, knows the central mystery. And yet it works, mostly because it's so deeply seated in the character focus; though I knew the mystery and the end, I needed to see Elaine's journey to it (and there are bigger questions at stake than mere bodily survival). The deeply embedded viewpoint gives new perspectives on the city (such an important part of the story) and whole new themes. (Where the first book was about grief and denying death, this is about love and defining self, and that shows up in so many layers.)
This series certainly won't be for everyone. It's gentle and implacable and almost poetic in ways that won't be the preference of many fantasy readers. But it's bold and elegant in so many ways; I am absolutely fascinated by what it's doing, and what the third book might add to all of that.
What Abraham's doing: telling the same story - or at least the same events over the same time period - with different POVs. This time, we're spending the book with Garreth Left and Elaine a Sal, who were tangentially essential to the cast of events in the first book. It's an audacious decision - telling the story in character focus rather than the usual chronology that would see the first book be the first third of the story from everyone's POV.
It feels like it shouldn't work, when the reader knows what's going to happen, knows who survives and who doesn't, knows the central mystery. And yet it works, mostly because it's so deeply seated in the character focus; though I knew the mystery and the end, I needed to see Elaine's journey to it (and there are bigger questions at stake than mere bodily survival). The deeply embedded viewpoint gives new perspectives on the city (such an important part of the story) and whole new themes. (Where the first book was about grief and denying death, this is about love and defining self, and that shows up in so many layers.)
This series certainly won't be for everyone. It's gentle and implacable and almost poetic in ways that won't be the preference of many fantasy readers. But it's bold and elegant in so many ways; I am absolutely fascinated by what it's doing, and what the third book might add to all of that.