Ive been reading and really enjoying the collected works of an author who goes by multiple names:
As Daniel Abraham he writes "The Dagger and the Coin" series, which is a fantasy "epic" with a economic twist. With all his books, this author makes a clear effort to write outside the regular fantasy norms. In Dagger and the Coin the main character is a orphan girl brought up in a bank. When her city is sacked by an invading army this girl gathers up all the bank wealth and sneaks into another city, starting a branch of the bank for herself there. The author makes a deliberate attempt to avoid writing about the fighting and keeps the focus on how peoples lives are changed by the events around them. There are several other plot point characters that the book follows around, and the world it does so is well planned and "real" while still being full of dwarfs, orcs, dogmen, classic bug eyed space aliens and a spider god who wants to eat the world. The 3rd book is due in May.
Also as Daniel Abraham, the author pens "The Long Price Quartet". This is an Asian-themed fantasy series, again with a economic rather than martial twist. The fantasy take in these books is that "poets" train all their lives to write the perfect description of a force of nature. When they do, they effectively chain an avatar of that force and can order it to do their bidding. These Forces are used to bolster the economy, such as making farms extra fertile or stone easy to mine, so the City States with poets can compete with their neighbors in the west who have a Steam based industry. The same forces that help the harvest are also use in war to cause abortions and testicular cancer, which makes for an interesting dynamic when east and west collide. One of the most interesting writing from this series is how the characters communicate, which is not just done by words but by stance and body posture. Very ambitious move of the author and he pulls it off nicely. This series is all finished and the books are very short, making it an easy read for the train/plane bus.
As James SA Corey the author, with associate Ty Franck, authors The Expanse series, which is my personal favorite. This group of books, starting with Leviathan Wakes, is Science Fiction meets Noir, Firefly meets Dick Tracy. The science fiction in this series is in the near future, where humans have not left our solar system and the politics of the inner and outer planets sets a juicy backdrop for intrigue and mystery. The author borrows quite a bit from geek-fiction such as Firefly and other popular sci-fi television, but twists it enough to let it him get away with it. For the first book, the author sticks to 2 plot charecter, Detective Miller and Captian Holden, who are fleshed out and so well written that you really want to know what happens next. In the second book the author adds female points of view, most memorable being the Associate Secretary of the UN, who is a tiny, feisty foul mouthed old grandma that you really grow to care about. She reminds me a lot of Dan Brown's CIA chief Sato from Lost symbols. BTW Brown has another novel coming out in May called "Inferno", about mysteries to be found in Florence. The 3rd novel of The Expanse is also supposedly coming out newt month. Dont miss it.
This author has yet another pen name, MLN Hanover, who produced 4 novels titled "The Black Sun's Daughter" but I have been unable to get my hands on them.Along with being a writer, Abraham/Corey/Hanover works as the assistant to George RR Martin, author of Game of Thrones. One if left wondering if any of these alias' actually exist or whether Martins infamous long delays (which spawned the excellent song below) in between books is because he is writing under the pen name of his assistant.
As Daniel Abraham he writes "The Dagger and the Coin" series, which is a fantasy "epic" with a economic twist. With all his books, this author makes a clear effort to write outside the regular fantasy norms. In Dagger and the Coin the main character is a orphan girl brought up in a bank. When her city is sacked by an invading army this girl gathers up all the bank wealth and sneaks into another city, starting a branch of the bank for herself there. The author makes a deliberate attempt to avoid writing about the fighting and keeps the focus on how peoples lives are changed by the events around them. There are several other plot point characters that the book follows around, and the world it does so is well planned and "real" while still being full of dwarfs, orcs, dogmen, classic bug eyed space aliens and a spider god who wants to eat the world. The 3rd book is due in May.
Also as Daniel Abraham, the author pens "The Long Price Quartet". This is an Asian-themed fantasy series, again with a economic rather than martial twist. The fantasy take in these books is that "poets" train all their lives to write the perfect description of a force of nature. When they do, they effectively chain an avatar of that force and can order it to do their bidding. These Forces are used to bolster the economy, such as making farms extra fertile or stone easy to mine, so the City States with poets can compete with their neighbors in the west who have a Steam based industry. The same forces that help the harvest are also use in war to cause abortions and testicular cancer, which makes for an interesting dynamic when east and west collide. One of the most interesting writing from this series is how the characters communicate, which is not just done by words but by stance and body posture. Very ambitious move of the author and he pulls it off nicely. This series is all finished and the books are very short, making it an easy read for the train/plane bus.
As James SA Corey the author, with associate Ty Franck, authors The Expanse series, which is my personal favorite. This group of books, starting with Leviathan Wakes, is Science Fiction meets Noir, Firefly meets Dick Tracy. The science fiction in this series is in the near future, where humans have not left our solar system and the politics of the inner and outer planets sets a juicy backdrop for intrigue and mystery. The author borrows quite a bit from geek-fiction such as Firefly and other popular sci-fi television, but twists it enough to let it him get away with it. For the first book, the author sticks to 2 plot charecter, Detective Miller and Captian Holden, who are fleshed out and so well written that you really want to know what happens next. In the second book the author adds female points of view, most memorable being the Associate Secretary of the UN, who is a tiny, feisty foul mouthed old grandma that you really grow to care about. She reminds me a lot of Dan Brown's CIA chief Sato from Lost symbols. BTW Brown has another novel coming out in May called "Inferno", about mysteries to be found in Florence. The 3rd novel of The Expanse is also supposedly coming out newt month. Dont miss it.
This author has yet another pen name, MLN Hanover, who produced 4 novels titled "The Black Sun's Daughter" but I have been unable to get my hands on them.Along with being a writer, Abraham/Corey/Hanover works as the assistant to George RR Martin, author of Game of Thrones. One if left wondering if any of these alias' actually exist or whether Martins infamous long delays (which spawned the excellent song below) in between books is because he is writing under the pen name of his assistant.
No comments:
Post a Comment