Book Review | A Betrayal in Winter (Daniel Abraham)

Fifteen years after the events of A Shadow in Summer, we return to the world of the Khaiem with A Betrayal in Winter, the second book of Daniel Abraham's The Long Price Quartet...

Scanned by yours truly.
Warning: this review contains spoilers.
From A Shadow in Summer we skip ahead fifteen years and find that ourselves with familiar friends Otah and Maati, familiar with different, and with new characters as well: Idaan Machi, Otah's sister, who is scheming with the Galts to make her lover Khai, and Cehmai Tyan, the poet of Machi, who holds Stone-Made-Soft.

This fifteen-year separation means that you do not need to have read any of the previous books. Indeed, one could, in theory, read any of the books as the first of them. But, though possible, it is far better to begin with A Shadow in Summer and watch what happens.

One of the beautiful aspects of this fifteen-year separation is that stuff still happened in-between. Abraham did say in an interview once he had this notion of how epic a normal life was, using the example of his grandmother:

... My grandmother's my example on that. When she was born, we hadn't had a world war yet, much less two of them. My daughter lives a world where you watch cartoons on Daddy's phone. The change in worlds between when Gramma was a kid and now is more profound than anything I could make up. And I wanted to write about that.

And so we find Otah and Maati in much different places from the first book: the former has built a life as a courier, and the latter, thanks to the events at the end of the previous book, is something of an embarrassment to the Dai-kvo, Liat having walked out on him along with her son.

Then, there are the new characters. Abraham's ability to paint a rich, heartbreaking portrait of people remains as strong as it was in the first book, and with Idaan, it if anything strengthens. Idaan is a woman, daughter of the Khai Machi, and she hates it, feeling helpless and despising being bound to her roles.

And yet, she finds a way to exercise power, plotting with another House residing in Machi and with the Galts to place her lover - and later, husband - as Khai Machi. To do so, though, she must kill her brothers. It is the tradition of the Khaiem that the first three sons of the Khai must kill each other. The survivor becomes the new Khai.

Her ambition is beautifully rendered and wholly understandable. Her descent from ambition into even evil, her loss of feeling as the consequences of her actions stack themselves around her, is masterfully depicted. Even as you hate what she does, I can't help but understand why. The dynamics of her and her lover, and later husband, and between her and Cehmai, who she begins an affair with, are heartbreaking.

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Speaking of the poets...

Maati once again is paired with a "proper" poet - on this occasion, Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft. Cehmai is a far different creature from Heshai, more child-like, I felt, more innocent. But he too is weighed down by his andat. Stone-Made-Soft is a far, far different creature from the cruel and clever Seedless, simpler. But he wants to escape just as any andat does.

Maati is sent to Machi, sent by the Dai-kvo - who tells Maati it is a chance for him to redeem himself - to discover what's really going on after one of the Khai's sons dies and the other two come to the village as part of a truce. I shan't say more.

The plot, as you can guess, is much different from A Shadow in Summer. Here, the poets and the andat take something of a backseat to the internal politicking of the Khaiem and the utkhaiem (other houses, basically, the nobility). It is, once again, sparse with the action and deliberately paced.

Once again, as with A Shadow in Summer, a theme of feminism runs through the fabric of the book. The choices that Idaan, a woman of the Khaiem, has available to her when society sees her value as marriageable chattel: she expects to rule as the power behind the throne, but as things turn out, there's little chance of that.

More prominent, but another theme that runs through the series, is the idea of history weighing on your shoulders. Idaan, Otah, Maati, even Cehmai - all of them are weighed by, controlled by even, their past, even as they fight against it. This theme, though present in all the characters, is strongest in Idaan, though with her it is more the world itself. But this is a theme that will become stronger as the books go on and the main characters age from their prime here to middle-aged to the old men of The Price of Spring.

A Shadow in Summer was fantastic but A Betrayal in Winter manages to better it. This remains atypical fantasy, with little action or violence. Much of the drama is in the characters', their decisions, how they interact with those around them.

And the characters are richly portrayed, complex and nuanced people. There is no true antagonist, no dark lord of evil. Even Idaan, the closest to the an antagonist the book has, is wholly understandable in what she does. And yet the consequences are ugly for her and for her eventual husband.

Love, morality, fate. Who we love, why we love them. The difference between what is right and what is just. The weight of history on our shoulders. Each of these runs through every character, in some way, however small. Abraham deftly portrays it all and makes it look easy.

Next on the agenda of course is reviews of An Autumn War and The Price of Spring (and back to online scans as well since I don't own copies) as well as of that issue of Asimov's.

Comments, thoughts, remarks, etc. are, as always, welcomed with a smile.