Daniel Abraham’s first book in his newest epic fantasy series starts with a mysterious and intriguing prologue that sets up the reader’s expectations that this will not be your typical fantasy novel before moving on to lay a familiar foundation upon which to build. In so doing he creates a sense of heightened expectation that leaves you waiting with bated breath for everything to come tumbling down during the chapters in which he introduces the main characters.

The Dragon’s Path follows similar Abraham novels (including those written with Ty Franck under the name James S.A. Corey) in that each chapter is focused on a particular character’s point of view and throughout the novel various POV characters will cross paths while others give a sense of the scope of the world and bigger events which are taking place. This novel has a very heavy focus on the characters with much of the world building accomplished through their internal and external dialogue and interactions with the world. Daniel Abraham has a passion for economics and this shows through in one of the story threads which involves banking and sets up the world’s economy, something you don’t often see done in genre fiction.

The Dragon’s Path begins by presenting characters in a nonjudgmental light, leaving the reader to wonder who the heroes and villains of the piece will be and soon muddies the waters by revealing layers and complexities to characters, and their motivations, which ensure that the reader will be drawn in to a roller coaster of emotions.

For an opening novel in a series (there are three books currently on the shelves), The Dragon’s Path is heavy on characterization and story, giving the reader a page-turning experience from start to finish.

My rating: 8/10 stars.

Having read and enjoyed some of his short stories and two of the James S.A. Corey novels, it was time to partake of Abraham’s epic fantasy. Given the fun had a few years back with a group read of Brandon Sanderson’s novel, The Way of Kings, it seemed foolish not to throw open the doors and do this again and a number of us participated in a 4 week read and discussion of The Dragon’s Path. You can access the conversations on the forum here. It was a fun novel to read with a group, in large part because of the characters.

There is Marcus, who is a war hero who no longer has a taste for battle and leads a small group of men to provide protection to traveling caravans. Cithrin is a young orphan who was taken in and trained by the local bank and due to an oncoming war suddenly finds herself in possession of the bank’s fortunes. She is very experienced with the rules and tenets of banking but is ill-equipped to deal with the world outside the bank’s walls. Geder is a seemingly inept soldier and son of an mostly inconsequential noble house who wants nothing more than to write essays and translate older manuscripts. Additionally there is a traveling troupe of actors, a precariously perched king, and various men of nobility scheming for control of the kingdom.

Also in Abraham’s world are thirteen races with their own history and appearance and culture. While this part of the book is fascinating and promises to lead to a much richer reading experience, my only complaint and the reason the book lost a few points in my estimation, is that it can be confusing to remember what these races look like, who they are, and how this is actually important to the story. This is where a lack of info dumping possibly hurts the book, but only in a minor fashion as the story is so engaging that it only matters to a slight degree.

Within a brief amount of time you the reader will find him/herself drawn to certain characters and put off by others, however Abraham has tricks up his sleeve to keep the reader off balance and unsure exactly who to root for and against at various times in the story. Makes for a compelling read.

I highly recommend giving this series a try. I also encourage you to check out the thoughts and opinions of my fellow readers through their review links below.