I briefly met Daniel Abraham along with Tobias Buckell at the 2005 World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin. Both were two new authors for Tor books. Their first novels were yet to be released. However the beautiful covers of their books adorned the wall at the Tor party, and there sitting beneath one of them were the two authors, chatting with party goers and just generally enjoying themselves. Both seemed like really down-to-earth guys.
At WorldCon in Anaheim, I attended a kaffeklatsch with Jim Frenkel, the Tor editor responsible for bringing Terry Goodkind to press. Jim couldn’t recommend Daniel Abraham’s A Shadow in Summer highly enough.
A Shadow in Summer has one of the best prologues I’ve ever read, reminding me of some of Orson Scott Card’s strong early works. It stands alone as a story in and of itself. Read this prologue if you happen to have a little time in a bookstore. I’m only sorry that the relationships and emotion of the prologue never returned full circle to affect the climax of the book all that much. Although there are a few tie-ins, the ending didn’t build enough on the prologue. This was somewhat disappointing because there was so much opportunity for the beginning to strengthen and amplify the ending.
The inciting moment of the book happens near the middle, and the rest of the book is about what the different characters do in reaction to what happens. The weakness to this plot form was not in the structure itself, but in the handling of the defining moment. Abraham didn’t draw enough dots for this reader to connect everything until the characters started discussing what happened, and even then, things remained a little bit nebulous.
Character motivations seemed at times trite, as if Abraham developed roles instead of characters. Some of their reasons for doing things felt more like they were forced on the characters rather than being outgrowths of their own character. Nevertheless, there are some hard choices that characters have to make in this book and some actions and motivations that were very painful and believable. These things left me still thinking about the book days after I had finished it. I especially loved reading about the witty and conniving andat Seedless.
As far as content, there’s more drama than action–and that’s the brilliance of the narrative, that it held my attention without being boring. Also the world is well-crafted and immersive, with a strong eastern feel. It’s good. It’s a strong first novel. And it’s worth reading.