The King's Blood

too often excessively slow and over-wordy for my taste; the characters are actually less complex and the world is still too complex in its races (does anyone really know all of them?)
on the other hand, still a very good story, with interesting, believable and alive characters, excellent dialogues and intrigues, nice dilemmas, well-written surprises.
A very good series that I am eager to continue.

Executive Summary: Another great entry in this series that steps things up a bit.

Audio book: I remember being not all that impressed with Pete Bradbury with book 1. Maybe it was my confusion getting used to the world, or maybe his performance has improved with this second book. I'm not really sure.

Either way he has a really great reading here. He does voices for at least some of the characters such that I can now identify who is speaking just by the voice he's using. Highly recommend doing this series in audio.

Full Review
It will be hard to give an extensive review without spoilers for not only this book but the first one, but here goes nothing.

I was pleased to find that Clara the wife of Baron Dawson Kalliam, is promoted from one-off POV character to full time in this book. It's a nice change of pace to see a female noble perspective who isn't plotting horrible things to her fellow nobles like those in Song of Ice and Fire. She just wants to do right by her husband and children.

Meanwhile Mr. Abraham delivers a few important revelations pretty early on this book that set up where the story would be heading next. Once again this book is light on magic and action and heavy on politics and economics. The stakes are ramped up in this one.

He also does an excellent job of character development, especially in regards to Geder Palliako. He does a great job of balancing his characters and plot. Often times in a multiple POV story, there is one or more character whose chapters I just don't enjoy, but thankfully that's not the case here, despite an additional POV being added.

You might call this a transition book as several of the characters are transition from one role to another, but I never felt like I was bored or that Mr. Abraham was simply moving pieces into place. You do get a sense of daily life for each of the characters that may not appeal to all readers, but that I found to be well executed.

Overall another solid entry to this series, and I moved right on to book 3 upon its conclusion.

This installment in The Dagger and the Coin series is almost as good as the first. I think I only just barely preferred the first because it had a little bit more action. The last 100 or so pages of this book seemed a wee slow for my ultimate liking, but still extremely enjoyable overall.

The characters in Abraham's novels really shine! Take the deeply flawed Geder Palliako for instance. The question being asked is “how does one become a true tyrant?”. Geder has all the ingredients for a delicious bully stew: he himself was bullied in the first book, he comes from a home without parental attention or appreciation, he's chubby, and he mostly enjoys the company of a young boy Prince when he's not reading. None of these alone could produce the tyrannical character fully introduced in The King's Blood, but them altogether along with a priest who can tell if a person is lying, and voila, a terror-based dictatorship forms. I found the “judgement chamber” to be particular terrifying.

Cithrin, Marcus, Clara, and Dawson are other POV characters that also get developed intricately. Cithrin is the Doogie Howser of medieval banking, trying to take over her little bank branch officially even though she isn't even old enough. Marcus is still trying to fill the void left by the death of his wife and daughter with Cithrin playing the part of the daughter. Clara is the supportive and loving wife, whose focus in life is her family, and lastly there's Dawson who can see right through Geder to witness the power of the spider goddess and her priesthood.

Where to begin with the second volume of the Dagger and the Coin? This is still the story of a brazen girl turned banker and a bookworm too afraid to know when to stop. It's still the story of a mercenary and an old defunct priest as they head out to deal with a goddess whose priests have spiders for blood.

But it's also so much more.

The second volume is no place to start the series, but it is definitely a good place to continue it. Some of the elements are almost reminiscent of Martin's Ice and Fire series - empire in turmoil, dragons, and (SPOILER - can't tell you that bit). The execution, though, is completely different, and where Martin draws a long, deep story out, Abraham punches you in the stomach runs away laughing maniacally.

It's books like this that make Daniel Abraham such a force to be reckoned with in the fantasy genre. I read this book on an e-reader, and more than once I found myself flailing with my free hand to find a bookmark before I remembered it would do me no good. The King's Blood is an engrossing novel that seems slow to suck you in at first, then races all the way to the finish line.

These books are ok, not great just ok. I'm finding I like the story of the bankers much more than the supernatural story of the “spider cult”. It has taking such a long time for the story to develop and I guess I'm just not getting into it as much as I'd like to. However, saying that it is interesting that the “big bad” in the story is subtly moving and taking over. I do think that the author is trying to make a point as to what can happen if you don't keep your eyes open to evil in the world. Sometimes it isn't as cut and dry or black and white as we all believe it to be. That evil can be described as truth and if not common sense is applied then terrible things can happen. Specifically, I kind of refer back to what happen in Germany with the rise of Hitler and how the Holocaust was allowed to happen.