eBook Leviathan Wept and Other Stories download

Leviathan Wept is a collection of short fiction by Daniel Abraham, author of The Long Price Quarter fantasy series, one of my favorite reads of the past several years. I'll admit up front I'm not usually gung ho about story anthologies. I find they tend to be uneven just as part of their nature (it's hard to get a collection of all excellent stories) and I just have a personal preference for the depth and richness of the novelistic form versus the short form. That confession said, how does Leviathan do stacked up against my admitted biased? Actually, surprisingly well.

There are only nine stories in the book (though they tend to be long so it's still nearly 300 pages) and while I don't know if Abraham has only written nine or if he has a whole pile of them, the effect of such a small number is that he seemed to be pretty selective, meaning that while some are better than others, none are particularly weak. And there are none I'd categorize as "bad," a rarity in my experience with anthologies.

The title story is a fascinating look at one of a number of anti-terrorist groups a (I love they refer to themselves as "cells") who are visually all linked in to one another. The story asks some big questions about large-scale consciousness, but to be honest, I found the "big" question less interesting than the smaller details of the interactions among the cell, their methods, and the effect the job is having on them.

The first story, "The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" is exactly what it says, as a currency exchange agent finds himself in the toying spotlight of the frightfully notorious Lord Iron. Abraham hits most of the fairy tale tropes here: the number three, deadlines, a judging, but the economic points being made add a thoughtful slant of depth while the story and characters take some nice twists and turns while the language, style, and tone (along with the ending) remain faithfully fairy-tale.

"Flat Diane" is a complete change in tone, turning much more grim. A recently divorced dad traces an outline of his young daughter and then sends it out into the world (to family members) to "travel." The fantastical enters when a connection begins to appear between the flat and real Dianes and the fantastic turns to horror when a strange man begins sending lewd photos of himself and Flat Diane and the acts depicted in them start to affect real Diane as if she were actually there. The metaphor here--the fears of a parent "sending" their child "out into the world" is no less effective for its simplicity and obviousness, though the story seemed to suffer from being too short.

"Exclusion" is another story whose emotional impact is perhaps slighted somewhat by the story being too short, but the concept: a technology which now allows people to "exclude" anyone from their perception (cutting off your brother means you literally can't see him if he's in the room with you) is a great set-up and if the point is a bit obvious, it still makes for thoughtful consideration. Having one of his characters go on a "de-excluding" tour, where he basically has to find those he's excluded and apologize, was a great touch that added some needed humor while fleshing out the concept.

"The Curandero and the Swede" is a nested story, with a young man taking his fiancée home to his conservative family. There, Dab (his uncle) takes issue with the boy's response to how the two met ("one thing led to another") and launches into a series of surreal stories layered one into another, all of them dealing with the "other" American (a black, a Native-American, a "queer" and so on) as well as with underlying themes of vengeance, loss, and America. The tale also has a lot to do with the power of story and storytelling, something it handles perhaps a bit more subtly.

"A Hunter in Arin-Qin" starts off as a seemingly straightforward tale of a mother hunting the beast who took her daughter, but spins off in somewhat unexpected directions. Its biggest strength is perhaps the voice of its main character, a haunting consistent voice that carries a lot of quiet emotion.

The other three stories, "Best Monkey", "The Support-Technician Tango", and "As Sweet" were mostly solid enjoyable, but I can't say they stuck in my mind for any amount of time, either due to their characters, underlying concepts, or themes. And while several of the stories gone into above felt too short, a compliment to how compelling they were for those reasons, these three if anything felt a bit too long, even if they took up fewer pages.

As mentioned, Abraham's Long Price Quartet is one of the best reads of the past several years for me. Its stylistic strengths of tight composition; strong, precise prose; good pace, consistent and easy to get into voicing are all evident in these stories, even the weaker ones. The major strength of his novels--the deeply rich characterization--isn't quite so present, partly as a result of the short form and partly because it seems some of the stories are carried more by their concepts than their characters (I'd say with the exception of "The Cambist", "A Hunter", and the title story, where the characters do come more fully alive and are more compelling).

Varying in style, tone, voice, and genre, almost every story is consistently entertaining (only "As Sweet" failed to reach that bar for me) while the better ones are thought provoking or elicit a strong-emotional impact. The best do both. I can't say Leviathan Wept bowled me over like his novels, but that's probably more due to my personal preference for the long form rather than to any fault of Abraham. Recommended.

Leviathan Wept is an incredibly well-written, insightful, thought-provoking and sometimes truly bizarre collection of short fiction by one of my favorite authors, Daniel Abraham (author of The Long Price Quartet and The Dagger and the Coin Series). Each story in this anthology showcases Abraham's diverse writing styles and ability to create strong, memorable characters. Among my favorites are The Cambist and Lord Iron, A Hunter in Arin-Qin, and The Curandero and the Swede. Although I'm not entirely sure I understood the true meaning of every story in this book, this is one of those collections that it will be a pleasure to revisit and think on from time to time. Is Leviathan Wept everything I expected? Yes and no. Yes, because Abraham's writing is stellar, which is what he consistently delivers in all of his books and what clearly makes him one of my favorite writers. The "no" part of my answer is strictly based on my preferences, being that I'm less into science-fiction and technology and more into medieval fantasy, so not every story appealed to me right away, although I did find myself enjoying each one as I delved into them. I think adult readers of any genre will enjoy this short story collection and I would highly recommend it.

Daniel Abraham first made a name for himself in Epic Fantasy circles with the Long Price Quartet and his partnership with Martin and Dozois, Hunter's Run. Evidently not one to lie back and reminisce about what he's already accomplished, Abraham's got plans to follow the Long Price up with a more traditional Epic Fantasy series (The Dagger and Coin) and a collaborative science fiction novel (James S. A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes), not to mention his burgeoning Urban Fantasy series (MLN Hannover's Black Sun's Daughter). Amidst the barrage of quality novels, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Abraham's got his plate full. Nope. In addition to all of those, Daniel Abraham's an award winning author of short stories and one of the members of the mosaic Wild Cards series. Leviathan Wept is a limited edition short story collection from Subterranean Press and my first experience with Abraham's short work.

The Long Price shed light on its characters by evolving them over a vast stretch of years. Short stories, however, don't allow for that kind of timeline, but Abraham proves just as adept at developing personality through other means. Every story here has the emotional impact of a powerful novel; Abraham drives through so much personality and emotion with each line that, by the end of each twenty or thirty page story, you feel like you've known the characters half your life.

Support Technician Tango is the best example of this. The story begins with a viewpoint or two in a legal office and then branches out with insane rapidity, soon encompassing just about everyone present in its web. The tale is, above everything else, organic; events and twists come about in unexpected and often absurd ways, but they're never nonsensical or damaging to the structure that Abraham builds up. The really surprising thing, however, is that the story never spirals out of control. Strands that seem to be speeding towards various dead ends about face, graceful just before the crash, and the whole mess turns out to have just been illusion, a structure so precise that it could afford to appear unwieldy without sacrificing any of its cohesion. When everything falls into place, the office is in a totally different configuration, one impossible to foresee from the opening and yet as logical as can be.

In fact, the discipline with which Abraham constructed these stories is one of the dominant aspects of the collection. Each of these stories has something to say, but they, generally stay well away from the didactic. The way that Abraham weaves plot, character, and theme together is dazzling. Many stories are constructed almost like puzzles, with the events and their meaning feeling occluded and impossible to conclude until the last piece is dropped in and everything is clear as day.

Mind you, there is the occasional exception. Every once in a while Abraham's ideas shove past story and character and leave you with an experience more interesting than it is visceral. Exclusion is the poster child for this. The idea is great - imagine the ability to simply ignore someone you dislike, going so far as to be unaware if they were in the same room as you and vice versa, at whim - but the story never progresses beyond the simple moral that it's better to solve problems than it is to run from them.

Still, Abraham's allowed a few that fall a tad short considering the power and variety of the rest of what's here. The Long Price was, though very original, still Epic Fantasy through and through, so I was expecting something similar in Leviathan Wept. That couldn't have been further from the truth. The stories here range from the whimsical fairy tale of The Cambist and Lord Iron, to the emotional horror of Flat Diane, the Epic Fantasy-esque quest of The Hunter in Arin-Quin, the near future science fiction of Exclusion, the Shakespearean As Sweet, etc. Every story is different from every other, and each of them is unique.

Of course, it's easy to write in nine styles if all of them are rubbish, but that's most certainly not the case here. The basics of Abraham's style stay the same throughout the collection - his precise yet evocative prose, his rapid donning of different characters - but the rest of each story could be the product of a master in its respective field. Abraham breathes life into whatever idea he chooses to explore. Some of the ideas in this collection are impishly silly, some dangerously serious, but all are rendered with the same level of care. Though you may be in a different world and genre when you turn the page, it's safe to assume that the quality of the storytelling will remain consistent. Abraham's prose is clear throughout, always providing just the right amount of detail to immerse the reader without ever drowning or boring them with minutia.

Within horror fiction, it's become standard practice to provide a few rays of sunshine so that the darkness around them appears darker. Abraham's fiction is odd, because the moments of light actually have the opposite effect:

"Lord Iron stood in the hall. He looked powerfully out of place. His fine jacket and cravat, the polished boots, the well groomed beard and moustache all belonged in a palace or club. And yet rather than making the boarding house hall seem shabby and below him, the hallway made Lord Iron, monster of the city, seem false as a boy playing dress-up." (p. 30, The Cambist and Lord Iron))

In the same manner, moments of optimism in Abraham's fiction have a habit of appearing gaudy and naïve, ridiculous compared to the weight of what's around them, like the banner happily proclaiming "We Aim For Excellence! We Expect The Best Of You!" (p. 48, Flat Diane) hanging in the principal's office that looks down at them while Flat Diane is going astray.

Unfortunately, while the content and style of the stories varies wildly, their structures can repeat themselves. Well, no, that's not wholly fair. Only two stories in the collection - Leviathan Wept and The Hunter in Arin-Quin - utilize a frame story that's gradually built up in flashbacks, but the two are, for some reason, back to back. A minor complaint in the grand scheme of things, yes, but still one that grates and makes going straight from one to the other feel far more repetitive than it should.

Leviathan Wept is a diverse and powerful collection that shows Abraham to be every bit the professional that he seemed in the Long Price Quartet. Coming from Subterranean, this can be a bit pricey, but the quality displayed in this relatively slim volume makes it well worth the price.