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

by Daniel Abraham

They were protected by their poets

Ah, I suspect this was a challenge the author set himself.

“The andat aren’t criminals. Before they’re bound, they have no thought, no will, no form. They’re only ideas. How can an idea enter into a contract?” “How can one refuse?” Maati countered. “There are names, my boy, for men who take silence as consent.”

By standing still, she had come almost loose from the world, and she found the solitude suited her.

“Are you in love with her?” “Yes,” the boy said, “I want her to be happy.” Those are two different answers, Marchat thought, but didn’t say.

Oh, a little bitter, are we?

“You mean you think perhaps he wants an incompetent going before the Khai in his name?” Liat demanded. “And why do you imagine he’d wish for that?”

Uh oh …

“So you think I have an excuse for things going badly,” Liat said. “That’s thin comfort.”

… lotsa negative self-talk here. Girl needs some CBT!

This is complex. It’s . . . it’s just not the sort of thing a laborer would understand.”

Ouch!

“Gods. Itani, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sure there are lots of things I don’t know about . . . lifting things. Or how to pull a cart. But this is hard. What Wilsin-cha wants of me is hard.”

Yeah, I don't think those examples are well thought through. They've just dug you in deeper.

“What contract?” “House Wilsin is acting as agent for the sad trade.” “Sad trade?” “Using us to pluck a child out of a womb,” Seedless said. “It’s safer than teas, and it can be done nearer to the end of the woman’s term.

Another challenging aspect. Making abortion central to this plot arc is likely to make some readers gripe.

They sat at a black-stained wooden table drinking cool water and eating fresh dates, the stones removed for them by the andat.

Is "life" the-part-that-continues within a human? Can the andat remove life from a person as easily as a seed from a date?

The fine points of Galtic war strategies were of no consequence to the Khaiem. So long as the andat protected them, the wars of other nations were a curiosity, like the bones of ancient monsters.

Not quite how the Middle Kingdom reacted when the guizi first appeared, but it has the same flavor.

“Otah-kvo?” Maati breathed.

Well, that's a nice twist. Throws his girlfriend's disdain into high relief, too.

It smells wrong to me, Wilsin.”

Well, yes — improbable. A man with a highly unusual past happens to become the lover drawn to the center of a high stakes gamble.

“We’re born to odd lives, Otah-kvo,” Maati said, sounding suddenly older and more sorrowful. “If we waited for people we trusted, I think we might never love anyone.”

and Liat let her heart sing

Oh, silly girl. He's the disowned sixth son. Your fantasy is only plausible because you're in a *fantasy* novel.

“It lets others see the mistakes he made,” Maati said. “If it showed them the mistakes they were making, it would be useful,” Seedless said. “Some errors you can only see once you’ve committed them.”

You should ask him how the corrected binding would have changed things. Is it possible to be bound, and yet not feel like a slave? To welcome the binding?

“What?” Heshai-kvo said, his voice fearful and small. “What happened?”

Someone had to carry the message, and it couldn’t be Maati. It would be him. He would do it himself.

Nice plot twist!

Otah was ready to see the man again.

Well, no. *That* man died, so it's that other man. Why are all of them men? Other than Amat and Mitat, this book is failing the Bechdel test.

She smelled of musk and tears.

Huh? What do tears smell like?

strips of pork marinated in ginger and cumin.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/cumin-and-ginger-rubbed-pork-tenderloin-recipe-1923792

“There is a man named Ovi Niit. He runs a comfort house in the soft quarter. I mean to take it from him.”

Nice! But, yeah, that seemed pretty likely at the time.

That was what teachers were supposed to be.

Mentor. You're thinking mentor. That's a much more intimate relationship. Teacher is one-to-many, mentor is one-to-one.

They were even very nearly the same age, though she found she often forgot that.

Oh, i really hope you're not constructing a love triangle. Oh, so tragic. Oh, so clichéd.

He won’t have reached Yalakeht by now.

https://long-price-quartet.fandom.com/wiki/Maps

The kiss she gave him was brief and meant to be sisterly. If he caught his breath at it, she imagined he was only a little surprised and embarrassed. She smiled, and he did as well.

His gaze was considering and amused. “Yes?” “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you.” Amat smiled and affected boredom. “Yes,” she said. “But consider what happened to the last man who frightened me.” His expression soured.

This, and the next few lines: once, decades ago, scifi/fantasy was simplistic and superficial. Only "literature" delved deep into personality and psychology — but that hasn't been the case for a long time.

“In my experience, you can bed a woman and mistrust her or you can love a woman and mistrust her, but not all three at once.”

Let's assume this applies to men as well, shall we? (Hearing it between two women, about a man, would be a more interesting story, I think. And I'm liking this one.)

If his feelings for her were complex, it was only because she was beautiful and his friend and Otah-kvo’s lover. There was no harm in it, because nothing could come from it.

“This may be the best he can do,” Liat said. “Give him time.”

Everyone is good at giving advice; not so good at listening.

“No, he won’t. He can’t.” “I think he can,” the andat replied. “It’s a full three weeks just to Yalakeht. Even if he took a fast boat up the river, he’d only just be arriving now.” “You’re sure of that?” “Of course I am.” “Then I suppose I must be mistaken,”

He was bluffing to draw out more information, youngster.

OTAH MACHI,

Prediction: in a later book, Otah is able to bind an Andat, despite not finishing his schooling. Which, of course, undermines that education system.