A Shadow In Summer | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: EBooks
List Price: $7.99
Buy New: $5.99
You Save: $2.00 (25%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 11409
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B001AN4WSW
Publication Date: June 28, 1905
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Gesture and posture convey as much information as spoken words in Abraham's impressive first novel, a fantasy set in a world where poets create and bind powerful shape-shifting creatures called "andat." The Empire hangs on, literally, by a thread; the cloth industry depends on the ability of andat Seedless to magically remove seeds from cotton plants to keep commerce flowing and the barbarians in check. Seedless, who can also remove unborn children from their mother's womb, aims to drive his poet-creator, Heshai-kvo, mad with grief. A love triangle develops among a threesome-Heshai's apprentice, Maati; Itani, a laborer with a past; and the beautiful scribe Liat-as they unknowingly assist the andat in his plot to abort a wanted child. When Liat's master, Amat Kyaan, uncovers the plan, Amat must flee and live as a bookkeeper in a brothel. The complex characters all struggle to navigate a path between their duty to their Empire and to themselves.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 30 more reviews...
 Shadow in Summer July 24, 2008
Book was received as scheduled :). It took some time to establish the charachers, but I am now hooked for all four books. The storyline does not follow the same kind of 'witches and wizards' stroyline as many other fantasy books of the genre. Hannahal
Entertaining but quite flawed July 22, 2008
This was a quick, light, entertaining read. I even enjoyed it enough to want to read the next in the series. The plot was quite captivating, the setting was fleshed-out, deep, and original (a rare find in a fantasy novel!), and the characters were potentially interesting, though, as other reviewers have pointed out, rather poorly developed and, in the final analysis, unconvincing.
The book is severely marred by misspellings, misplaced punctuation (can someone please inform this Abraham fellow that ending questions with a question mark is *not* an option?), and a general inelegance of style. The latter there's no quick cure for, besides the author improving his writing (this is his first novel, after all, so we can cut him some slack); but I find myself distracted from the story, however gripping, of a book like this, whose prose is riddled with faux pas.
 I didn't like it July 14, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
If fantasy is your favorite, favorite genre to read, then you will probably enjoy this book. Upon GRRM's positive critique I began A Shadow In Summer. This book is of eastern, presumably Japanese, influence and this concept is portrayed by the asinine idea that if people drink tea and curtsy every time they speak then I, as the reader, will think, wow, what strange and magical world have I stumbled upon. Abe's ability to assimilate and expound upon a foreign culture through the medium of fantasy is not good -- it's actually ridiculous. I guess the magic is a unique take, but even that is anticlimactic.
There are so many books out there that are so indescribably better than this book . . . oh well.
To love our differences is to bring us together and make us one.
I love you
--jAMES
Mixed bag June 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
So I saw the reviews and I couldn't help but add a review.
_A Shadow In Summer_ is something of a mixed bag: it is definitely one of the better fantasy novels I have read recently, but at the same time there are some annoying flaws.
The good:
* It's a rather interesting premise. I don't think I've ever seen the idea of the summoned-monster-trying-to-destroy-itself-or-its-master done so well before.
* It avoids many tired old fantasy tropes and cliches.
* The ending doesn't shy away from the bad situation everyone finds themself forced into.
* The subplots wind up to be interesting and germane.
* In addition, I liked how the economics of the sorcery drove the plot - it's pretty rare to see that put into a fantasy setting.
* The writing itself is pretty well done, modulo some glitches I complain about later.
* And finally, the typography and book setting give me nothing to complain about: I found it easy to read despite my copy from Tor being an e-book.
Unfortunately, there is some bad as well.
* The whole gestures thing that some people consider so interesting and exotic? It is irritating. *Intensely* irritating. I wasn't bothered by it initially, during the schooling section, since it was novel enough and I could chalk it up to the arbitrary and unfair strictures of the teachers - but when I realized that for the rest of the dang 300-plus pages I would be constantly seeing "and he assumed the position of apology, but it was too dark for him to see" or "she went into a posture of acknowledgment with undertones of mockery she knew he would not see", I began to truly sympathize with the foreigner character who says "just talk". The business is repetitive, annoying, and redundant.
* Slightly less annoying but equally common are the use of honorifics and other suffixes. This bothers me because most translations from/imitations of the Japanese at least have the courtesy to not affix -san or -chan or -kun after every name or pronoun, unless there's a specific point. If I could tell Abraham, it'd be one thing: YES, WE ARE IN AN ORIENTAL SETTING. I GATHERED AS MUCH FROM HOW MUCH TEA YOUR CHARACTERS CONSUME, THE RED-LIGHT DISTRICT, AND YOUR CLASSICALLY ORIENTAL DESPOT, OK? CAN WE MOVE ON ASSUMING I KNOW THAT AND NOT TRY TO HAMMER IT IN EVERY PAGE?
* The plot is very slow-moving. Yes, certainly I can accept it takes several months in both sections of the plot (before and after the timejump). But how many times do we need to discuss the poet wandering back from a night of drunkeness? etc.
 Engrossing May 22, 2008
I could not put this novel down. Abraham breathes full life into his characters and story. Political intrigue, heartbreak, and betrayal mix seamlessly with magic and culture. It is a rare fantasy novel that brings believable characters to the reader. The author has a true grasp of human nature and its complexities. I cannot wait for the rest of the story to unfold in the other three books.
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