The Long Price: Shadow & Betrayal (A Shadow in Summer & A Betrayal in Winter) (The Long Price Quartet, (Vol. 1 & 2))

This book is an omnibus consisting of the first two novels in Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet - A Shadow in Summer and A Betrayal in Winter. At the time I am writing this review, the third and fourth novel have not yet been published, but the third one will apparently be named An Autumn War. These novels are set in a world with a bit of an Asian feel to it (particularly the first novel, A Shadow in Summer). The novels are set in two city states (the first in a warm climate, the second in a very cold climate) led by royal monarchs called Khai. The magic in the world comes from men called poets. The successful ones can capture abstract ideas and turn them into embodied flesh called andat. The andat are enslaved and mentally fight against their poets in attempts to become free. An example of an andat we meet is called Seedless. Under the command of his poet master, Heshai, he is able to separate out the seeds from the cotton at harvest time - or cause every pregnant woman and animal in an entire country miscarry simultaneously. And Seedless is considered a relatively week andat. So there is not much magic in the world, and it is usually used to help out the various city states in helpful fashions (such as the forementioned cotton harvest or in softening the rocks in mines to make ore extraction easier) - but it has huge huge huge potential for destruction. This world also has an empire on the rise - the Galt. They cannot invade and conquor the city states because of the potential power of the andat in warfare. So they are trying to move in and gain power and influence through machiavellian style political and economic moves. The Galt have no magic - but they do have technology, such as steam engines. And they are very very wealthy through trade and conquest. The main plotlines of the novels follow Galtish attempts to weaken the city states, and efforts to stop that. The main characters of the novels are very well developed, as are the plots. These books might not be for everyone - there are no huge battles or earth shaking uses of magic (though the potential is there for both in the subsequent two books of the quartet). But those who enjoy well crafted characters and well crafted plots filled with political machinations might enjoy the Long Price as much as I did.