Daniel Abraham: King's Blood (2012, Orbit)
paperback
Published May 1, 2012 by Orbit.
War casts a shadow over the land dragons once ruled. Only the courage of a young woman with the mind of a gambler and loyalty to no one stands between hope and universal darkness. An age of madness and death approaches, with only a few doomed heroes to stand in its way. The high and powerful will fall, the despised and broken shall rise up and everything will be remade. And a jaded mercenary and renegade priest begin a terrible journey with an impossible goal: destroy a goddess before she eats the world. - Back cover.
Daniel Abraham continues building his fantastic world of political intrigue and backstabbing.
My one negative is that as much as I love the different 'races' in this book than the regular fantasy fodder, I find myself pulled out of the book trying to remember what all 13 races are supposed to look like.
Even if he were to tell the story, it would be a tale told and not the thing itself. The difference between these two was the division between life and death: a lived moment and one entombed.
On the surface The King's Blood could be seen as a slow and dull affair. The action is infrequent but it's what happens between those pivotal battles that makes this a fantastic read. The character growth can be for good or evil, personal gain or loyalty; and seeing how each character takes their journey is a pleasure.
I enjoy Abraham's writing, the world he has crafted and the touch of magical history that is unsaid.
There are numerous factions vying for power (military, religious and financial) and having a few more story threads cross over with others the alternating POV's made for a nice treat.
Entre la primera parte y esta segunda, nos encontramos una historia dividida en 2 frentes, sin que tengan mucho en común y sin que aparezca la gran amenaza típica de la literatura fantástica.
A pesar de esas diferencias, la trama avanza al ritmo necesario para que empieces a querer saber más de los personajes, ya te caigan bien o mal.
Sobre el mundo, se aleja de lo tradicional en la virtual ausencia de magia. Hay distintas razas creadas por unos dragones extintos, y hay más muestras de esos dragones que ya no están, pero la magia como tal prácticamente no existe, al menos al nivel al que se queda la trama en esta segunda parte.
Resumen: Si quieres fantasía que no sea épica, pero tampoco el grimdark que se ha puesto de moda, aquí tienes una buena opción.
Has characters that make me feel sorry, annoy, and make me want to find out more about how they're doing. Thumbs up.
“The King’s Blood” picks up more or less where we left “The Dragon’s Path”. The writing style & major POV characters remain the same.
Abraham does a great job with the moral ambiguity of some of these characters. Because portions are presented from their POV, characters whose actions (& at times motivations) are repugnant become somewhat sympathetic. I found myself liking the characters even while they did horrible things.
My major complaint is that this book is not enough of a stand alone novel. I felt that “The Dragon’s Path” reached acceptable levels of plot resolution. “The King’s Blood”, however, just seems to end. It’s not that there are cliffhangers, it feels more like Abraham simply decided to stop once he got to a certain page count. If you are reading this once the next novel in the series has been published, that won’t really be a problem.
