Apparently there are 13 races of human in this story and a spider goddess and a guy can massacre an entire city and shrug it off. Most of the story is told from a few viewpoints, Marcus - who wants out of a city that's about to fall; Citrin - smuggling a fortune out of said city by pretending to be a boy and Geder who would much rather be a scholar, Dawson is an aristocratic politician with anger issues who regards a lot of people as nuisances to be eliminated and Clara is his politically astute wife. And by the end I didn't really care and I was wondering why I was continuing to read when honestly I had no intention of continuing the series.
It's probably a "if you liked GRRM you'll like this one" read and while it's not bad I just didn't care enough to continue the series. ( )

EDIT 7/10/14 - Just as good the 2nd time around.

I am currently on Book 3 in this series and want it to end simply so I know the ending to the story. There are a few things that bother me about various characters (Cithrin and the drinking), but overall, this is a great installment in my Epic Fantasy library.

I had thought that there was no magic (or very little) to the story as a whole, but as of Book 2, I anticipate some very nasty things in Book 3/4.

I do anticipate that I'll be rereading the series again sometime after it's conclusion--whether in the next book or beyond. That in itself is my stamp of approval and recommendation to other readers.

I purchased the entire series as a Kindle book with the $4 Whispersync audiobook addons, but the narrator is so good that I've almost exclusively stuck to the audiobooks.

Well done [a:Daniel Abraham|134|Daniel Abraham|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1207149629p2/134.jpg]! I like these so much that I'm going to give your Long Price Quartet [bc:The Price of Spring|6065889|The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet, #4)|Daniel Abraham|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388902656s/6065889.jpg|6242207][bc:A Shadow in Summer|208|A Shadow in Summer (Long Price Quartet, #1)|Daniel Abraham|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403188205s/208.jpg|1711253][bc:An Autumn War|2443516|An Autumn War (Long Price Quartet, #3)|Daniel Abraham|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1401332768s/2443516.jpg|2450710][bc:A Betrayal in Winter|811161|A Betrayal in Winter (Long Price Quartet, #2)|Daniel Abraham|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1393279525s/811161.jpg|797100] another read while I'm waiting for book 4. ( )

Started off a little slow, but I grew to like the characters. I liked how the main characters, even though they cross paths only for a few moments, have a major effect on each other's stories. I liked how the author was able to make the economics of banking in his fantasy world actually fascinating. I felt the ending was a little anticlimactic, but it sort of worked. ( )

This was much more generic than the Long Price Quartet, but it's a formula that works. It was like reading all the major works of epic fantasy distilled into a quick and effortless read. ( )

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. There were a few things that had me raising my eyebrows but I am assuming they will come clear later. I loved the banking aspect of the book. Wars are won with gold. ( )