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    A Betrayal in Winter
    A Betrayal in Winter
    A Betrayal in Winter
    Audiobook13 hours

    A Betrayal in Winter

    Written by Daniel Abraham

    Narrated by Neil Shah

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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. Yet he has never returned to Machi. Now his father-the Khai, or ruler, of Machi-is dying, and his eldest brother, Biitrah, has been assassinated, Otah realizes that he must return to Machi for reasons not even he understands.

    Tradition dictates that the sons of a dying Khai fall upon each other until only one remains to succeed his father. But something even worse is occurring in Machi. The Galts, an expansive empire, has allied with someone in Machi to bring down the ruling house. Otah, the long-missing brother with an all-too-obvious motive for murder, is accused.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 11, 2014
    ISBN9781494576011
    A Betrayal in Winter
    Author

    Daniel Abraham

    Daniel Abraham is best known as the co-author and executive producer of the Hugo Award–winning series The Expanse under the pseudonym James S. A. Corey. He has also written novels under his own name and as M. L. N. Hanover.  

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    Reviews for A Betrayal in Winter

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      A Betrayal in Winter is the second in the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham. There is definitely a step up in the writing with this second book, including a fairly complicated plot and another kingdom's future at stake. This book is all about court intrigue and political maneuvering.Fifteen years have passed. The Khai Matchi is ailing and the battle for succession has started. By tradition the sons of the Khai fight it out and the last man living is the new Khai. This time, though, it appears there's another party trying to sway the outcome of the succession. The Galts have allied with someone in Matchi in an effort to bring down the ruling house and gain power on the continent.I find that I'm having a hard time writing a review for this book. There are so many things I liked. The worldbuild is great. I continue love the concept of the andat and the unique flavor this world has. The plot is complicated, more so than it really needs to be given the Galt's goal, and takes a lot of fun twists and turns. Idaan makes a pretty great villain. The characters feel like real people, they have flaws, and are well written. And yet I just wasn't drawn to any of the characters the way I was with Amat and Seedless. Otah spent most of his time trying to avoid the inevitable, though I'm glad he finally came around in the end. I felt kind of bad for Maati. He really is clueless about, well, everything. He was going the wrong direction for his whole investigation until the grumpy librarian helped him out. Idaan trying to buck tradition I understood very well. I can even admire her ruthlessness to a point. I just wish I'd found her more likeable. Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft were the most intriguing. Abraham did an amazing job of making the andat seem very alien and also a part of us at the same time. Too bad the character itself was so bland! Just give me one character I liked and could root for and this would've been a 4 star book.Not that that's going to stop me from reading the series. This was a great set up for what I hope is going to happen next. Must find out how Otah handles his new role!
    • 3/5
      This is much better. The story in this book moves much more fluidly than in the previous one. I liked the plotting and backstabbing that goes on here, although I do feel like it was resolved a little too easily.

      The biggest complaint I do have about the series is the characters themselves. While they are written fine and with clear motivations, I still just don't care about any of them. I don't feel danger, sadness or joy for anything that happens to them. I'm hoping this changes with the time jumps that happen in the next books.
    • 4/5
      When I finish the first book in a series I don't usually go straight to the following volume, leaving myself some time to… digest the story and the characters. Not this time: after closing A Shadow in Summer I began immediately to read book two, and that might explain the undefined feeling of something missing that had me struggling to go on for the first few chapters. Luckily for me that sensation passed quickly and once the story started to unfold I was once more totally immersed in Daniel Abraham's world and completely absorbed by the unfolding tale.

      Such elements that were more lightly touched in the first book, as the cruel custom of sending away the "excess" sons of a ruling house so they don't create further contention with their warring brothers over succession, take a more defined and dramatic shape in the second book where the story develops with the characteristics and rhythms of a Greek tragedy, where the reader (or spectator) knows that it can only end in death and anguish - and that's one of the hooks that grab the reader and never let go until the end.

      The level of political intrigue and scheming is taken to new levels, at the same time giving a broader and deeper insight into the world's society and its customs, and at the same time it forces the characters - both old and new - toward choices that can be both cruel and unavoidable. I am amazed at Mr. Abraham's skill in world building and the way he makes the background of the cities and the world at large interact with those characters and create a solid, believable, three-dimensional story animated by people I care about - both in the positive and negative way.

      With a very few exceptions I tend not to re-read books, but I suspect these will end up in that short list, because I'm certain that revisiting them will prove even more entertaining, and that I will discover more facets that I might have overlooked now.
    • 4/5
      Years later in the far north Maati and Otah Machi encounter each other again due to the secession conflict at Machi which requires Otah's death if anyone in his family knows he is alive. The new characters are interesting, but knowing who has 'framed' Otah for the brother's death that sets the plot going seems to take something from the story, which dragged a bit for me.
    • 4/5
      (Long Price Quartet #2)

      A sequel to ‘A Shadow in Summer,’ set in the same location and a few years after the events of the previous book, but it also works as a contained story.

      The Khai of Sarakheyt is ailing. Tradition demands that the next ruler of the city will be the last son of the current Khai left alive – it is the duty of brothers to kill each other to ensure an uncomplicated succession. However, one of the Khai’s sons has never had any interest in ruling. He’s left the city and has been living under an assumed name, pursuing a quiet life with an innkeeper, whom he loves, and making a living as a combination bike courier and spy. It’s the gathering-information part of the job that’s becomes a problem, because when one of his brothers is reported poisoned, he’s assigned to go find out what’s happening. Otah Machi would rather be as far as possible from these events – but he’d also rather not blow his cover by refusing the job for no logical reason.

      Unfortunately for him, his cover is blown when he runs into an old friend (or maybe an enemy), Maati, one of the “poets” who sustain the economy (and the land’s defense) through the elemental golems called ‘andat’ that they summon into being through words. Maati is also interested in keeping informed on what’s going on, as politics is essential to the poets.

      To his further dismay, Otah’s carefully maintained low profile is working against him, as public opinion has focused on his mysterious disappearance. No one will believe that Otah is not secretly plotting.

      The reader, however, knows the identity of the real plotter from the outset: Otah’s sister Idaan. No one in this patriarchal world expects a woman would be involved in politics, but Idaan is brilliant, ambitious, and believes that she has her lover (whose name she expects to rule in), and the situation, under her thumb.

      The story proceeds as a combination of court intrigue and murder mystery; with a rich setting and complex characters controlled by and fighting against their pasts, their ‘proper’ place in society, tradition, and their own emotions. Very well done.
    • 4/5
      I read Book 1 a while ago, but eventually remembered the key points; this is a land in which poets bind creatures of immense power with their thoughts, and the city’s rulers are hereditary with a tradition that the heir is the one who kills all the other sons, at least the ones who haven’t renounced the throne and been branded. In the previous book, a youngest son escapes that fate and runs away; now it’s years later, his father is dying, and someone has killed one of the three sons still in contention. Palace intrigue ensues. I like Abraham’s later work a lot better. This one really reminded me of the vagaries of interpretation: either this is a book about how misogyny devastates women (and blinds men) or it’s a book about an incredibly treacherous and selfish woman. I’m pretty sure Abraham intended the former, not least because of the hilarious moment when key protagonists list the possible culprits and insist they’ve identified everyone and she’s practically standing in front of them performing an interpretive dance on the theme of “it’s me!” But it wasn’t as fun to read as a banker heroine.
    • 3/5
      In A Betrayal in Winter, Abraham again gives us the compelling settings and interesting characters that were hallmarks of A Shadow in Summer, yet this book has nowhere near the moral ambiguity that made his previous work so thought-provoking. Here, the protagonists aren't really working against one another, and pretty much everyone agrees that the eponymous betrayal (once discovered) is not in the best interests of anyone the reader cares about. Additionally, I found the ending to be somewhat lacking, as everything pretty much goes according to Otah's plan, and there wasn't really any element of sacrifice. That said, the characters and settings maintained my interest in the book throughout, making it an easy read.
    • 3/5
      I did not feel this entry was a strong as the first in the quartet. Abraham shows some limits to his range - either deliberately or accidentally - in writing another novel with a love triangle at its center, and a limited cast of characters. I enjoyed it, but couldn't help feel it was really set up for the next book. Otah has disappeared into his identity as Itani for fifteen years after the events that destroyed Sarakeyht's cotton processing monopoly. But when his brother - Prince of a mountain kingdom - is assassinated, he must return to face his heritage, and the suspicions that he has come back to usurp the throne. If you liked the first book in the series, I think you will enjoy this one too - though I felt it's somewhat lesser on almost every score. Abraham's investment in character is carried perhaps a little too far here, with Otah and Maati's tortured consciences taking up too many pages with too little change. The addition of another love triangle, just like the first book, made this one feel a little smaller to me. I felt that Abraham was working from a more limited palette, and couldn't help chafing at the restraints over the lengthy of this fairly long story. In some respects, the narrative is more brisk. More certainly happens, and yet by the end of the novel it was clear much of it was incidental to the plot, and I couldn't help feeling it was all a set-up for the inevitable conclusion, with some filler thrown in. This sounds like a litany of complaints, and I don't intend it to be. The strengths of Abraham's work remains - clean, crisp prose; solid characterisation; well-drawn female characters; a commitment to world-building remarkable in its consistency - but I got all that in the first book without any negatives.. It doesn't help the the andat in this novel, Stone-Made-Soft, lacks the internal conflict and magnetism of Seedless, from the first novel. That all said, I eagerly look forward to the third book, as I couldn't help feeling this novel was mostly a prologue for it.
    • 2/5
      I really liked the first one but this one was kind of a slog. I like the world they're set in, but this was like a mystery novel except you already know who the murderer is so the whole time you're just going "Really? You haven't even considered her?"
    • 4/5
      This second book in Abraham’s Long Price Quartet takes us to the Winter Cities, about as far from the setting of the first book as possible. Machi spends half the year frozen, and tunnels under the city offer an opportunity for social life even when it’s too bitter to go outside. (I love the attention to setting in these books; I live in a climate with very volatile weather, so I miss it when the seasons never get a mention.)

      The Khai Machi is dying, and his sons must start killing each other – only the sole survivor can be his heir. The Khai has three official sons, but there is also the fourth – Otah Machi, who was sent to the poets’ school as a child, but who, uniquely, neither became a poet nor rejected his claim to his father’s throne. As soon as people become aware that he is still alive, he becomes known as The Upstart, a frightening, half-legitimate figure in the shadows.

      And so, to be sure that chaos does not ensue, the Dai-Kvo, head of the poets’ organization, sends the disgraced poet Maati to the city to find Otah, determine if he has been illegitimately murdering his brothers, and stop him if he can. The problem is, Maati still loves and respects Otah, and is sure he is not the one behind it.

      He’s right. This is no spoiler; rather than being structured as a mystery, the book lets you follow both the criminals and the investigators at the same time. The murderer is Idaan, the Khai’s daughter. Frustrated at her position in life – destined to be married off for political power – she has developed a plan to make her fiancé the new Khai, by killing all of her brothers and pushing his family to the top of the political structure. It would be the honorable thing to do if she were a man; since she is a woman, it is a terrible crime.

      I found this one a little harder going than A Shadow in Summer. Possibly this was because I didn’t connect with as many of the characters. I still liked Otah’s reluctance to get involved and his eventual realization that not getting involved was going to be disastrous, but Maati seemed to exhibit a lot of learned helplessness in this book, and the Machi poet Cehmai just didn’t do much. I wanted to like Idaan, but about halfway through I thought to myself, I wish this wasn’t yet another story about a woman being slapped down hard for stepping out of her place. If Abraham wanted to explore the awful ways the tradition of succession damages people (a genuinely interesting subject), he could have at least done it with a male character.

      All of which makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy the book. I did, and I continue to love the worldbuilding and the andat and the way he explores the long-term consequences of peoples’ decisions. I will absolutely be reading An Autumn War as soon as I can get my hands on it (unfortunately there isn’t a bookstore in town that has a copy for sale). But this is a dark book, slow-paced and melancholy, and with the blush of new love fading from the series, I found it a little more work to get through.
    • 4/5
      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 as our sleuths uncover the truth and take action, some things are not dealt with as perhaps they could best be dealt with. We have too much dead space at the end of the book, or our heroes learn of their nemesis too early on, and take too long to wrap it up. Something that could have been pushed around a bit and made tighter. Some more emotion or inner thoughts that could have been conveyed to make the development of the characters more rounded. It is a good book. One I think is in the reread pile when I have acquired the entire series. But still, the actions and reactions of those involved I wish could have held truer.
    • 4/5
      This sequel to A Shadow in Summer weaves together another plot by the Galts against the lands of the Khaiem with a continuation of Otah's story as he gets caught up in the dynastic struggle for his father's throne.I enjoyed this book even more than the first. Abraham has managed to give us a complete story in this volume while still keeping the larger story of the Quartet moving forward. The characters are sharper and more complex than in the first book. The plot, though a bit slow in starting, has a better pace once it gets going the book becomes a page turner right to the end.I'm looking forward to An Autumn War.
    • 5/5
      The second book in a series can often suffer a letdown. The plot needs to move forward. The characters move like chess pieces and not human beings. The center cannot hold. Which is why this book is so remarkable. Rather than being less than his very good first book, this book is even better.Here we discover the sixth son, once training to be a poet (and controller of powerful immortal essences) now merely a courier, returning to his ancestral lands. And these lands are in turmoil. The remaining sons must kill one another in order to inherit their declining father's kingdom. The remaining daughter is caught in a powerless position that pushes her to unthinkable deeds. And the courier's once best friend is sent by the head of poets to investigate whether one brother was killed by the missing sixth son. There is mystery, poetry, love, and death; all bound together in exquisite descriptions of this kingdom of high summer and seemingly endless winter.