So I’ve loved pretty much everything Daniel Abraham has written—both his Long Price Quartet and his Expanse series of SF. So as soon as Daniel Abraham’s Dagger and Coin series was finished, I started in on the first book.
And pretty much didn’t stop until I came to the end, because it turns out this series is absolutely excellent, probably the best epic fantasy series of this millennium. I’m not going to talk about the plot, because this is one of those books where part of the pleasure is seeing the shape of the story forming, without knowing even the big picture about how the storyline shapes up. So don’t read any book jackets or capsule descriptions or anything, because they’ll spoil too much.
But what I can safely say is that it combines the virtues of “modern” epic fantasy—the genre that George R.R. Martin really brought into being with his Game of Thrones, all full of psychological and political realism—with the virtues of traditional ‘80s-era quest fantasy, with their found-family D&D party characters and worlds deep in ancient magical mysteries.
It actually reminds me a lot of Robin Hobb’s Assassin/Ship/Fool/Dragon serieses (which I also love enormously), except that where Hobb’s books tend toward the bleak—usually staying on the right side of the line to my taste—Abraham puts enough humor into these books that I actually laughed out loud a couple of times.
Recommended super-highly for anyone looking for a serious-but-not-grim mix of quest fantasy and political intrigue.
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