/lit/ - Literature

>>19962803
An Autumn War, Long Price Quartet #3 - Daniel Abraham (2008)

And so, once again 14 more years have passed, which means that 36 years have passed since the prologue of the first book. The viewpoint characters of the first two books are now in their 40s, nearing 50. Their relationships with each other continue to be of vital importance. A few story beats were used again, but I'll say it was because people often repeat the same behaviors throughout their life. As with the previous two books, this one doesn't follow the standard epic fantasy conventions either, which I continue to appreciate. I don't know that I agree with it, but the case is presented that magic fundamentally inhibits technological progress.

I greatly enjoyed the antagonist viewpoint character that was introduced. The closest that I can think to him would be Billy Butcher from The Boys comic, not the TV series. It's not the same, though he does have a similar ideology, and this was published a couple years after the comic began. He's very much the "the ends justifies the means" sort and is convinced that he's saving the world. Maybe he is. I haven't felt so conflicted in a long time. Most of what I saw from others was complete condemnation of him, which is also understandable.

As noted by the name of the book, this one involves war. It may not be the sort of war you'd expect though. There's no glory, honor, heroics, or anything I'd describe as epic. However, it also doesn't revel in being grim or dark. A portion of the soldiers who lose themselves are executed because they're a detriment to an orderly and well-disciplined military force. It was refreshing to read a book where the adversary's competence was only surpassed by their confidence. What resulted was from this was even better than I expected it to be.

The ending was amazing. It was all I could've wanted. I was impressed by both how thematically appropriate it was and how much of a natural progression it followed. It turned out that that the decision that I thought was important in the prologue of the first book wasn't the one that truly mattered. That rebuke gave me a lot to think about. Normally I would wait a while before reading the next book, especially since it had such an emotional impact, but I can't. I have to know how it all ends.

Rating: 5/5