A Betrayal in Winter (Long Price Quartet, #2)

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A Betrayal in Winter (Long Price Quartet #2)

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 1,504 ratings · 109 reviews

Daniel Abraham delighted fantasy readers with his brilliant, original, and engaging first novel, A Shadow in Summer. Now he has produced an even more powerful sequel, a tragedy as darkly personal and violent as Shakespeare's Macbeth.

As a boy, Otah Machi was exiled from his family, Machi's ruling house. Decades later, he has witnessed and been part of world-changing events....more

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published August 21st 2007 by Tor Books (first published August 2007)

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Jan 04, 2011 Ceridwen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Ceridwen by: Ian Tregillis

Shelves: books-about-books, fantasy, sci-fi, stolen-from-richard

Cross-posted on Readerling

It pisses me off how good a writer Daniel Abraham is. It pisses me off more that you lot don't seem to be reading him at all. I'm going to start buying his books and mailing them to you for your birthday, L. Ron Hubbard style. This is not an idle threat.

A Betrayal in Winter is the second in the Long Price Quartet. I always feel a little weird writing reviews for later books in series, because I'm going inevitably to drop spoilers from the first book. With that in mind,...more Cross-posted on Readerling

It pisses me off how good a writer Daniel Abraham is. It pisses me off more that you lot don't seem to be reading him at all. I'm going to start buying his books and mailing them to you for your birthday, L. Ron Hubbard style. This is not an idle threat.

A Betrayal in Winter is the second in the Long Price Quartet. I always feel a little weird writing reviews for later books in series, because I'm going inevitably to drop spoilers from the first book. With that in mind, there may be mild spoilers for A Shadow in Summer, but that can't be helped. (As an aside, I keep having to look up the names for these books as I write this review, which is a pretty serious problem, I think. I get how they work together thematically, or whatever, but they do not marry to their content well and are pretty forgettable. I never know who to credit/blame with titles - bad titles can be the fault of either writers or publishers, for different reasons - but these are straight up bad.)

A Betrayal in Winter starts roughly a decade after the first book, in another city, with some cast changes. I really feel the absence of the character Amat at first, with her mashalled, gendered anger, but she's found her corollary in Idaan. Maybe corollary is the wrong word; Idaan is more a cautionary tale. I keep getting surprised by these books, because they have this really sly, cutting gender commentary, and fantasy, Goddess bless it, often doesn't. Come to think of it, books that deal with fantasies of one stripe or other often fall into gender ghettos. Fantasies for women play out one register of stereotypes; fantasies for men another. (Arguably, Fantasy with a capital F is fantasy for men. I do not say this to start fights.) When either kinds of fantasies play out in semi-medieval settings, I think you get a lot of sexist play-set action. Not so, here, at all.

The plot is almost Shakespearean: the king is dying. There is no primogeniture; his sons will have to kill one another to determine succession. His daughters, well, they do not count. All of them are too old to start the killing game, but one of the four sons dies suddenly, of poison, in an opening gambit blamed on our Otah, our upstart, from the first book. This would probably have more frission with an Elizabethan audience, having just gone through the whole mess with, um, something historical that I have forgotten about? Scottish succession and what a total mess it was? Anyway, um, back to my point, which is that if I spend much more time outlining the plot, I'm going to make it sound like one of those court intrigue jobs that I have mixed success with. No. My Dad is fond of quoting the following aphorism: all politics are local. Then he winks and says: No, actually, all politics are personal. Sometimes I fall asleep when I'm reading court intrigue dramas because they forget the actors are people, and not just widgets in a system. At some point, one of the characters says, "We are all men under our robes," which is beautiful and perfect, because they are, of course, when they are men. But sometimes they are women, and that makes a difference. That difference fuels some of the plot.

There's other loves for me in here. The first book set forward some fantasy mechanics that have deepened here. There's the poets, who call into being andats - semi-living embodiments of an idea who are something between a metaphor and bound god. We met one in the first book, Seedless, and here we meet another, who changes our ideas of how the andats work, how metaphors work. There is still the gesture-language, not as fully utilized as in the last book, but one that puts a spin on the statements of characters in this book. And then there is the continuing metaphor of the sleeve, where people keep their correspondence, or have it spill on the pavement; the cloth that covers the wrist also conceals the heart, or reveals; the difference between the mask and the person, the clothes and the man. Or woman. Ah ah ah.

I think this book could almost be read as a stand-alone text, something that makes me quake. I blame Tolkien's editors for breaking LotR into three books when it should have been one, and giving later fantasists license to write a bunch of narratives that never culminate, never complete. I mean, sure, I like how Fellowship ends, with it's downbeat incompleteness, but I can't remember the break between Two Towers and King, and King is mostly appendix, and OMG, I'll stop nerding out here. This book does not ramble to its end, to be begun again where it finished like after a nap. That said, there are things in Winter that tighten into the next arc, a late moment when I realized that the library is at the heart of the metaphors in a way that makes my booknerd soul become incandescent with glee. I'm really impressed, and you lot should get up off your asses and start reading Abraham right now. Now.

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Feb 04, 2013 Christopher rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 14, 2012 D.w. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, reviewed

The first of this series showcased how Abraham was quite a unique talent. New, with a thought about magic and fantasy that we had never seen before.

That is all to the good. And here, as the world and story develop, we see even more that we had only hints of before. But, this is just not a fantasy, but a political work as well as a murder mystery.

As such we need to know a few things, and we need our heroes and heroines to not know a few things as well. We want to catch the killers of course. Yet...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

(First read:)

Sequel to fantasy epic about civilization based on, and undermined by, extraordinarily untrustworthy demons. I loved the first book but found this one merely acceptable. Not sure why. Two more are coming, and I guess I'll read them.

(On re-reading:)

Works much better when re-read immediately following the first book. I upgrade my mark.

Thematics: the first book gave us the (long) price of slavery -- from several angles, each rendered as an abusive relationship. (Cruelty; internalized s...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Jessica Strider rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pros: complex characters, world-building with depth, intrigue

Cons: some of the antagonist's plots worked out surprisingly well

The eldest son of the dying Khai Machi is poisoned and all eyes turn to the succession about to take place in Machi. When Otah Machi, the Khai's sixth son, hiding under the false name Itani Noygu, is told by his courier overseer to gather information there he knows returning to the city of his birth is potentially suicidal. He expects his low status and new identity will...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Benjamin added it

Shelves: bedside-reading

A Betrayal in Winter continues the strengths and weaknesses of A Shadow in Summer. I'm going to get very spoilery in the third paragraph, so let's get out of the way everything you might need to know about this book: It continues the story of the rogue Otah Machi, descendant of the ruling house of the city of Machi who has refused to become a poet (one of the magicians who controls the concepts-made-sentient called "andat") and so threatens the city's stability. See, in this fantasy land of city...more A Betrayal in Winter continues the strengths and weaknesses of A Shadow in Summer. I'm going to get very spoilery in the third paragraph, so let's get out of the way everything you might need to know about this book: It continues the story of the rogue Otah Machi, descendant of the ruling house of the city of Machi who has refused to become a poet (one of the magicians who controls the concepts-made-sentient called "andat") and so threatens the city's stability. See, in this fantasy land of city-states, the ruling family's sons all fight/assassinate each other so that there's always a clear line of succession. (What happens if all the sons die? Then one of the city's noble families get elected as the new ruling family.)

That's all strength: Abraham has an interesting fantasy world with serious ethical issues, mostly of the "can we kill lots of innocents to save other people" variety. Now, let's get to the weaknesses. First, like the first book, A Betrayal in Winter gets bogged down in some description that seems mostly unnecessary: it neither advances plot or clarifies character and the mood Daniel Abraham sets in a paragraph he might just as well set in a sentence. Second, Abraham likes his characters complex and nuanced, but there's a real danger of them becoming incoherent. Near the end of the book, one character says to another, "I don't understand. Why are you doing this?" (244), which was one of my constant refrains. So this is still an engaging series, but flawed.

Now, the spoilers. This second volume retreads some of the same issues as the first: a brewing conspiracy with the Galts (an industrializing people that seem European to me); a struggle over the affection and sanity of the poet; the poet's struggle with the andat, which is both inhuman (here, the andat Stone-Made-Soft is generations-old) and part of the poet himself; and the ethical issues of killing and progress.

But there's also an extension and transformation in this volume that makes me interested in the third. Whereas Otah was an outcast in the first and for much of the second book, by the end he has become the ruler of a city. Whereas before there was not too much interest in women's roles, here one of the central injustices is that the daughter of the ruler of the city has no place in it outside of marriage. So his descriptions might be long and his character motivations might be short, but Abraham does a very nice job of expanding his fantasy world without destroying the core of it. Which seems to be the test of what makes a good series.

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Apr 05, 2011 Eh?Eh! rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: babble-added

...and the real show begins.

This book starts about 10 years later. The character who turned out to be the main guy in the first book is now a courier, wavering towards leaving his trade. For a woman, of course. But his past ruins that plan and he ends up having to return to his first home that he hadn't seen since he was a child.

Each of the Summer Cities has a ruler who holds the throne on the blood of his brothers. Each ruler is expected to take many wives and have many babies. The females beco...more

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Feb 21, 2011 PaulineMRoss rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 4-star, genre-fantasy, price-cheap, reread

The second book of the series, 'The Betrayal of Winter', is a much more racy read than the first, moving along at a cracking pace. It focuses on the means of inheritance of the Khaiem (the three eldest sons compete for the right to inherit by killing their rivals, and all other sons are sent away to attempt to become poets, or be branded and live normal lives), and the action takes place in the northern city of Machi.
The central conspiracy which drives the plot is just as hare-brained as the one...more The second book of the series, 'The Betrayal of Winter', is a much more racy read than the first, moving along at a cracking pace. It focuses on the means of inheritance of the Khaiem (the three eldest sons compete for the right to inherit by killing their rivals, and all other sons are sent away to attempt to become poets, or be branded and live normal lives), and the action takes place in the northern city of Machi.
The central conspiracy which drives the plot is just as hare-brained as the one in the first book, but somehow the consequences of it are much more natural and therefore believable. The two main characters from the first book, Maati the poet and Otah/Itani the labourer, now a courier, are drawn into the political affairs of Otah's family in Machi, somewhat reluctantly. In both cases they resist being personally involved, but their past history and their own desire to do the right thing and protect the innocent drags them deeper in.
There are two significant new characters - Cehmai the poet at Machi, a young man who has successfully taken over the local andat from his predecessor, which underscores Maati's own failure in that respect, and Idaan, a daughter of the Khai, who resents her own unimportance in state affairs, since she is a woman. And there is a third character - the andat itself, Stone-Made-Soft, a very different personality from the acid intelligence of the previous book's Seedless, but just as resentful and resistant. The interplay between doing the things we are expected (or even forced) to do and what we truly want to do is one of the themes of the book.
So too is the idea of family, Otah's (and Idaan's) family which rejected him as an unwanted younger son and sees no value in her, and the family which Maati tried to have with his (and Otah's) lover Liat and failed. Then there is the fratricide which is essential by tradition to ensure a strong succession for the ruling family.
Much as in the first book, the plot is driven as much by people's mistakes and misunderstandings as by logical thought and decisive action. Sometimes they drift into situations, half awake, and sometimes they do the wrong thing or do the right thing badly, and sometimes they have to take huge risks because it is absolutely the right thing to do. But this time, the characters behave more believably, and the better pacing makes this a fine book. It speeds along at a cracking rate, quickly becoming an addictive page turner, and leads in very nicely to the next book in the series.
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Nov 04, 2010 Bookboy Brown rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A Betrayal in Winter – The Long Price Quarter Book 2

“There’s a problem at the mines,” his wife said. “One of your treadmill pumps.”

A Betrayal in Winter first introduces us to the character of Biitrah Machi, eldest son of the Khai Machi, ruler of the city of Machi. A forty-five year old man, he lives a peaceful life, as far away as possible from the politics of his father’s court, working as much as he can on the engineering projects he loves. As the prologue ends, though, we see Biitrah betrayed...more

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Jan 21, 2010 Jessie rated it 4 of 5 stars

A few years ago, a friend of a friend--who happens herself to be a friend of Abraham's--sent me a copy of his short story "Flat Diane." Then last year another friend lent me a copy of the first novel in the Long Price Quartet, A Shadow In Summer. It's good to have friends--I don't know that I would have discovered this work without help.

Abraham is a local and a collaborator with one of New Mexico's other outstanding fantasy writers, George R.R. Martin, whose rich, ruthless, and beautiful A Song...more

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Oct 12, 2012 Michele (Mikecas) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebook, fantasy

Da: http://www.webalice.it/michele.castel... Prosegue con questo secondo episodio la saga fantasy The Long Prize Quartet, di cui si incomincia a capire la ragione del titolo. Il prezzo alto sembra essere quello che i quattro protagonisti principali, perch� la narrazione � ricca di figure per cos� dire secondarie ma estremamente ben caratterizzate, sono costretti a pagare per ogni scelta di vita fatta. Non so se questa � l'interpretazione corretta, ma al momento mi sembra quella pi� probabile. Ho...more Da: http://www.webalice.it/michele.castel... Prosegue con questo secondo episodio la saga fantasy The Long Prize Quartet, di cui si incomincia a capire la ragione del titolo. Il prezzo alto sembra essere quello che i quattro protagonisti principali, perch� la narrazione � ricca di figure per cos� dire secondarie ma estremamente ben caratterizzate, sono costretti a pagare per ogni scelta di vita fatta. Non so se questa � l'interpretazione corretta, ma al momento mi sembra quella pi� probabile. Ho commentato il primo episodio di questa saga, A Shadow in Summer, come uno dei miei consigli del mese, perch� anche se non avevo ancora letto il seguito, la qualit� della narrazione e l'originalit� della storia facevano gi� risaltare questa opera, e quindi mi sono sbilanciato con un certo anticipo, anche se non sembra esserci intenzione di una traduzione italiana. Questa volta la vicenda si svolge principalmente nella citt� di Machi, dove l'andat al servizio del Khai locale � in grado di modificare la struttura delle rocce, far nascere o crollare montagne, e nel concreto facilita enormemente lo scavo delle molte miniere che fanno di Machi una citt� ricca e in cui val la pena di vivere nonostante il suo clima difficile. La pi� settentrionale delle citt� dei Khaiem, gli inverni rigidissimi e con nevicate abbondanti costringono la popolazione di Machi a vivere per diversi mesi in caverne scavate sotto la citt� stessa, quasi una replica sotterranea della citt� sovrastante. All'interno dello scenario generale dello scontro tra le due visioni di civilt� rappresentate dalle citt� dei Khaiem e dalla nazione dei Galts, questa volta la storia particolare, ancora autoconclusiva, riguarda la lotta per la successione al Khai Machi. Otah Machi, uno dei personaggi principali del romanzo precedente, � uno dei figli giovani del Khai Machi, che avrebbe dovuto diventare un poeta. Alla soglia di quel livello, Otah ha invece rifiutato l'onore, ma non ha nemmeno rinunciato al diritto ereditario, come sarebbe stato obbligato a fare dalla tradizione. Si � limitato a scomparire nell'anonimato di un lavoratore comune, ma questa � la storia di A Shadow in Summer. Ora invece il figlio maggiore del Khai Machi viene ucciso, e mentre tutti pensano che la lotta tradizionale per la successione sia iniziata, gli altri fratelli sanno bene di non essere stati loro, e sospettando in parte di Otah, chiedono consiglio al capo dei poeti, che decide di inviare a Machi il giovane poeta Maati, che conosce personalmente Otah, per cercare di capire se quest'ultimo � coinvolto nella faccenda. Nel frattempo Otah, che ha ormai una vita indipendente, finisce per accettare un incarico che lo porta a Machi, con un forte ed inconscio stimolo a rivedere il luogo di nascita e della sua infanzia. Otah e Maati finiscono per spazzare via l'intrigo familiare supportato dai Galts, e Otah si ritrova, non del tutto involontariamente, ad essere il nuovo Khai Machi, anche se ben poco intenzionato a seguire tutte le vecchie tradizioni. I prezzi pagati da ogni persona per poter fare quello che ritiene giusto continuano a diventare sempre pi� grossi. La storia generale acquista sempre pi� spessore, e i personaggi "fissi", che cio� appaiono sia nel primo episodio che nel secondo, e che sono probabilmente quelli seguiti per tutta la storia, si sviluppano in modo molto credibile. Diventano sempre pi� delle persone "vere" con tutti i problemi che le persone vere hanno, e qualcuno in pi� dovuto al fatto di essere anche delle persone centrali della storia, cio� che la storia la fanno.(less)

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Jun 10, 2013 Notyrmma rated it 2 of 5 stars

C'mon, this book is a total rip-off of George RR Martin's Game of Thrones books! Unfortunately, it's a boring, drab and generally uncompelling rip-off.

If you don't see the similarities, allow me to point them out (those I can recall, that is, as I really don't remember much, though I read it last month):

Let's see- angry princess daughter resentful for not being born a man and plotting her own family's demise? Cersei Lannister, anyone?

Co-conspirator of angry princess daughter seeking to become a...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I waited a long time to read this after finishing the first Long Price book (a month is a long time in my world, ok?).

Usually when I finish the first book in a series I either 1) dive right into the next book, 2) loathe it and never finish the series, or 3) whine because the next book hasn't been written yet.

But after my disappointment with the second and third books in C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy, which I read just prior to A Shadow in Summer, I was a little nervous about getting into anot...more

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May 24, 2010 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, summer-of-series, read-in-2010

Opening fifteen years after the events of "A Shadow in Summer," the second installment in the Long Price Quartet opens with the death of one of the Khai's sons, a signal that the battle for succession among his sons has begun. In Daniel Abraham's political system, the Khai's sons all fight and kill each other for the right to take over the throne when their father dies (similar to rising in rank in the classic "Star Trek" episode, 'Mirror, Mirror') while the women are either dismissed back to th...more Opening fifteen years after the events of "A Shadow in Summer," the second installment in the Long Price Quartet opens with the death of one of the Khai's sons, a signal that the battle for succession among his sons has begun. In Daniel Abraham's political system, the Khai's sons all fight and kill each other for the right to take over the throne when their father dies (similar to rising in rank in the classic "Star Trek" episode, 'Mirror, Mirror') while the women are either dismissed back to their original home (in the case of the wives) or married off for political gain (in the case of the daughters).

The first death sends two sons into hiding, fearing that it's their long-lost brother Otah returning from the shadows to inherit the throne. Otah vanished in disgrace but could be mounting a comeback, they fear and they could be the next targets. Maati is sent to the city to investigate the claim and to possibly flush Otah out into the open. Maati is one of the few who would recognize Otah from their dealings in the first novel and is facing a change to win a bit of redemption of his own. His failures in the first novel have left him in disgrace, even to the point of losing Liat.

In many ways, the political maneuvering at the heart of "A Betrayal in Winter" reminded me of the plots within plots of Frank Herbert's "Dune." The reader is clued in early on to who is really behind the plot to take out the brothers and seize power and watching as strings are pulled and things begin to unravel because they don't go according to plan is fascinating. The central schemer is the Khai's daugher Idaan, who wants to marry for love not just to win political points for her father. To this end, she arranges to maneuver the situation and marry Adrah, the son of a powerful rival political family and one who has powerful connections to forces in a neighboring country. Watching the duo plot and scheme is one of the novel's more fascinating storylines as is watching the best laid plans of both slowly become more and more complex and complicated. At several points, things don't go exactly according to plan, leading to some interesting shifts mid-stream to cover their track and assure the intended outcome.

Of course, this puts a strain on their relationship and watching it slowly come unraveled is another fascinating development over the course of the story.

By skipping ahead fifteen years, Abraham has allowed the story, characters and universe of "The Long Price Quartet" to grow, develop and change naturally, while still leaving much of what we came to know about them from the first book in place. Otah wants only to cut all ties with his past, only to once again see his attempts to distance himself from who he was catch up to him with unintended consequences. Maati is also haunted by his failures, but still isn't willing to compromise on certain things, including his defying orders to return once most of the evidence points to Otah's involvement in the political maneuverings to take over as Khai. Abraham fills in enough of the details of what the characters have been doing to satisfy readers but leaves out a few other tantalizing details so as to hopefully keep things interesting in the next two installments. (I'm dying to know what happened to Liat and her child after she and Maati went their separate ways.)

As all good sequels should, "A Betrayal in Winter" takes the foundation from the first novel and builds on it, expanding the characters and universe in the series. It's a story that you could read without having first picked up "Summer" though some of the references would be lost on you and the nuances of the characters might not be there. Again, the story is one that's self contained but there are seeds of a richer tapestry being developed here and one that continues to intrigue me. It's a sequel that's as good if not better than the original and one that sets up some intriguing possibilities for the next installment. (less)

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Feb 06, 2012 Luciusoso rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: jacob-fantasy-weld

When i read my previous review of A Shadow in summer, i said that it was a fair enough book. That it wasn't really lacking something, but it was a small part of what could come up next. And now i reassure that opinion.

From the start it totally caught me off guard by seeing again Maati and Otah. I don't know why, but because of the first book i expected a semi-long, boring introduction to new characters and a whole new story.

So back on topic, A Betrayal in Winter confirms my impression on this sa...more

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Jan 09, 2013 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf-fantasy

Otah is dragged willy nilly into a round of family violence as his home city slides toward a violent succession crisis. Volume two is as good or better than volume one, with an unusually well realized setting and a set of nonsimple characters with, often, mixed motives. I was a little disappointed that Otah's sister Idaan turned out to be all adolescent rage and wasn't more clever or intelligent--but if Abraham hasn't yet come up with a female character to equal his central male ones, that's nei...more

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Jun 23, 2010 Jesse Whitehead rated it 5 of 5 stars

I’ve mentioned before my frustration with most mystery novels. The authors seem to think that withholding information from the reader, even when the point-of-view character knows that information will make things more tense. It just makes me bored, or frustrated. Hiding information is immensely difficult to pull off and almost always fails. I can only think of one example that works (Ocean’s Eleven) and I think that only does because it’s the point of the story that nothing is fully explained un...more I’ve mentioned before my frustration with most mystery novels. The authors seem to think that withholding information from the reader, even when the point-of-view character knows that information will make things more tense. It just makes me bored, or frustrated. Hiding information is immensely difficult to pull off and almost always fails. I can only think of one example that works (Ocean’s Eleven) and I think that only does because it’s the point of the story that nothing is fully explained until the end.

A perfect example of doing it the right way, since I’m talking about movies, is the Bourne movies. (Not the books, the books are boring and poorly written.) In the movies, we, as viewers, are privy to the motivations and actions and plans of the bad guys as well as the good guys. That’s what introduces the tension. We know that there’s an assassin waiting just around the corner to off Jason Bourne and we can’t tell him. Take away that knowledge and there is no tension just another fight when some random guy jumps out the shadows and tries to kill the hero – we see that in every action movie.

After reading A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham last year I had a newfound respect for the power of his story telling and his brilliant, almost poetic, prose. With A Betrayal in Winter my respect for his skills has grown even greater.

Daniel Abraham has written a novel that teaches mystery writers how to write an engaging mystery.

It starts when the oldest son of the dying Khai Machi is poisoned, beginning the traditional war amongst his brothers for the succession – only his two living brothers did not kill him, and they don’t know who did.

What follows is a tale of intrigue, mystery, suspense, revenge, betrayal, forgiveness and redemption told through a window of prose so well crafted that the words seem to sing on the page, as if they belong in the air instead of on paper.

Not once does Abraham keep anything from the reader, in fact the reader always knows more about what is going on than any of the characters do.

There is a lot of debate in the literary world about ‘plot-driven’ versus ‘character-driven’ stories. Usually what this means is that the ‘good’ stories, those that are ‘character-driven’ have no plot and nobody but a bunch of stuffy elitist English professors care about them anyway. (Plot has somehow become a bad word in most literary circles and indeed in many creative writing classes.)

What Daniel Abraham writes is character-driven stories with a plot. The plot in the previous book was much larger than the characters and so the story revolved around them living their lives and reacting to the plot taking place around them. In this book the plot more directly affects them and some of them are key instigators. The story remains driven by the characters and their actions and reactions to the events around them. These are real people who deal with trauma and stress in the ways that real people do and it is their deeply felt emotions that drives this story. Every scene brings emotion with it, usually more than one. The story is at times joyful, heartbreaking, tranquil, sad and uplifting.

This book, while a sequel to A Shadow in Summer, takes place nearly fifteen years later and could be read by itself. It is also short (about three hundred pages) for a fantasy and is part of a series that is completely finished.(less)

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Mar 10, 2012 Logan Grey rated it 4 of 5 stars

I almost didn't read this because I didn't particularly like the first book in the series but this one is so much better! I just didn't get into the first book as it seemed that no one but the main protagonist, Otah, had any redeemable qualities. That being said this book did catch my interest and held it firmly in place.

I don't know if the writing is better or if it's just because I spent more time with Otah and Maati so that I became invested in what happened to them. The book starts off with...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Brent Bullock rated it 3 of 5 stars

I felt the story was slow and not a lot of substance to it (doesn't feel like a lot happens until the very end at least). For the first third of the book it felt like it was similar characters to the first book, but with different names and in different places. After a while the characterization differences did sink in. I thought Idaan was well done. The ending was a little surprising and I think will lend itself well to the next book. I find while having read the first 2 books now in the 4 book...more

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Sep 23, 2009 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars

A Betrayal In Winter is the second book in Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet and is set fifteen years after the events of A Shadow In Summer. A Betrayal In Winter is, if anything, a text book example of how to write a politic heavy novel in a fantasy culture. While A Betrayal In Winter doesn’t chance the “slow burn” pacing Abraham employed in A Shadow In Summer the familiar characters made it much easier for me to settle into the book and the new characters were complex, brilliantly drawn, and...more

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May 21, 2012 Kevin rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the second volume in the Long Price Quartet. While I still lacked a connection to the characters, the plot was perhaps more intricate and enthralling than the first book. This is set fifteen years after the conclusion of A Shadow in Summer, and the carryover characters from that novel have changed. Time has been good to some and hurtful to others. Abraham does a great job of showing the long term consequences of the choices made by those characters in this second snapshot of their lives....more

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Jan 01, 2013 Rick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 00-2000-to-present, 2013, fiction-fantasy

I have mixed feelings on this one. The first 1/2 was amazing and better than the first...then it sort of just seemed to drag on. I feel that Abraham is still working out the pacing in his books, the first part I feel would have benefited from being drawn out and the second part could have shrunk. Luckily the last quarter picks back up again and it ends on a very strong note.

Besides pacing the novel is very strong. Abraham's writing is very strong and reminds me of Guy Gavriel Kay which if you've...more

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May 14, 2012 Jjlupa rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a much better book than the first one. I had teetered on the brink of not reading it, but I'm glad that I did. You get to enjoy a story with a clear storyline, protagonists who aren't muddled failures (this time the antagonists bearing the brunt of self loathing and the ill consequences of the ill seed sewn. It's still not a happy story, but that was never required.

All the reviews say that book 3 is where things are going to really pick up, and I'm a bit afraid to read it, but this is d...more

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Aug 05, 2010 Scott rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed

So in book 1, Abraham took 160-170 pages to get to the plot of where the characters that we identify and connect with start actually acting, versus merely reacting to the environment.

In book 2, one would expect this to get better. And the author does do a better job, by giving us more people doing stuff, but not the protagonists. Ultimately, it is 150 pages in when the story finally has some rising actions for characters we give a damn about.

I'm going to finish the series, I'm curious to see wha...more

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Jul 17, 2010 Steve rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I'm torn by this series. It seems as if Abraham is vaguely aware of the power of some of the ideas in his books. The concept(s) of the Andat have tremendous potential. Unfortunately Abraham doesn't seem able to draw out that potential. Instead the books are filled with largely mundane and uninteresting minutia of the world...

Frankly, I'm interested in the concept of an idea made into a flawed and oblivion-seeking semi-mortals who seek to undermine their keepers. I'm not as interested in the minu...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Shaka Jamal rated it 3 of 5 stars

Although I still like the series, I'm feeling somewhat frustrated by the abilities of the characters. What do I mean? Well, as in the Harry Potter series, Harry seems to be a hero, yet, his friends are the ones who perform heroic acts. In this series, the characters seem to come to a resolution through a series of circumstances or actions brought upon by strong emotions. I must enjoy this on an empathic level at least, as I've finished the first two books of the series in three and half days. Ye...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Derrick rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, fantasy

(view spoiler)

So much...more

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Apr 22, 2013 Michael Smith rated it 3 of 5 stars

While certainly more interesting than the first book, I still would have to say as a whole this series is still under performing compared to my expectations after reading so many good reviews on it. Not that it's bad, and indeed I'm rounding up to give it a solid three stars but I was hoping for "exceptional" and while I can admire the writing, and like how the author is putting a somewhat new spin on the classic fantasy epic it still falls short for me. Still, it does seem to be building, and I...more

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Apr 02, 2013 Barac Wiley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Daniel Abraham is a frankly stunningly talented writer, and so far his debut Long Price Quartet is some of the finest long form fantasy I've read. A Betrayal in Winter is a blood-soaked tragedy with compelling characters twisted by the strictures of society and their own nature into outcomes none of them truly desire, set in an original and rich Eastern-tinged setting, with a gestural sublanguage, rigid societal rules, and most intriguing of all, the andat - demigodlike concepts-made-form, bound...more

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Jun 01, 2009 Russ rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think this book was just as good as the first in the series. The book combines fantasy with a touch of political thriller, romance, mystery, etc. I think Abraham was brilliant in putting over a decade between the end of the first book and the beginning of this one. That allowed for him to hint at interesting and important events that happened in-between, piquing a reader's interest and really contributing to the sense of wanting more. Many of the same characters returned, with several new ones...more

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About Daniel Abraham

Daniel Abraham is an American science fiction / fantasy author who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is a graduate of Clarion West, and sometimes collaborates with George R. R. Martin, another New Mexico resident.

His short stories have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. His novelette Flat Diane was nominated for the Nebula Award. His novelette The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairyt...more

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Books by Daniel Abraham

A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, Vol.1

The Dragon's Path (The Dagger and the Coin, #1)

A Shadow in Summer (Long Price Quartet, #1)

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A Betrayal in Winter (Long Price Quartet #2)

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