Age of Ash

By: Daniel Abraham

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani

Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

From a Hugo award-winning New York Times bestselling author comes a "fascinating" epic fantasy trilogy that unfolds within the walls of a single great city where every story matters (Joe Abercrombie)—and the fate of the city is woven from them all.

Kithamar is a center of trade and wealth, an ancient city with a long, bloody history where countless thousands live and their stories unfold.

This is Alys's.

When her brother is murdered, a petty thief from the slums of Longhill sets out to discover who killed him and why. But the more she discovers about him, the more she learns about herself, and the truths she finds are more dangerous than knives.

Swept up in an intrigue as deep as the roots of Kithamar, where the secrets of the lowest born can sometimes topple thrones, the story Alys chooses will have the power to change everything.

“An atmospheric and fascinating tapestry, woven with skill and patience.” –Joe Abercrombie, New York Times bestselling author of A Little Hatred

For more from Daniel Abraham, check out:

The Dagger and the Coin
The Dragon's Path
The King's Blood
The Tyrant's Law
The Widow's House
The Spider's War

©2022 Daniel Abraham (P)2022 Orbit

Critic reviews

“An atmospheric and fascinating tapestry, woven with skill and patience.” (Joe Abercrombie, New York Times best-selling author of A Little Hatred)

“[An] outstanding series debut, which instantly hooks readers with dual mysteries.... Readers will eagerly anticipate the sequel.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

“Age of Ash’s Kithamar is a spectacular creation, a city brought to life by dense, intricate worldbuilding and subtle magic. Fans of Scott Lynch or Robert Jackson Bennett will enjoy this one.” (Django Wexler, author of Ashes of the Sun)

I liked the book, but the format was frustrating.

I like to use chapter boundaries to end my daily audio sessions, and this book made that hard.

There are just 3 long sections and you have to listen for a break in the story to stop. You have no idea if the next break will be in 5 minutes or 25.

World building is a bit thin

The characters are a bit morose. The City — ostensibly the main character — fails to be brought fully alive.

It’s not not bad. It’s just not great, and fails in comparison with other fantasy novels about cities.

The narration is…well, it’s professional-grade, but the characters are, frankly, unnecessarily morose and whiny. In part because of how they are written, but more because of how the narrator portrays them.

Just ok. Not quite what I’d hoped for

Perhaps I had my sights set a bit too high after experiencing The Expanse series.
This was…ok. It wasn’t bad. But, neither was it amazing.

Others have said it was, perhaps, a bit boring and I’d have to echo that. I’m pretty patient when it comes to audiobooks, and even I found this to be pretty slow moving. I can’t point to any one thing that really stood out for me in the book. Which is not what you’d want. It simply wasn’t memorable. At all.

It is a very tight story and the character building is great!

Overall a very good story. The magic is subtle but strikes a good balance of plausible and believable not too over the top or ridiculously powerful. The protagonists are well developed characters - the perspective shifted many times but was easy to follow and helped the story flow.
Finally, this story will keep you guessing as to how it’s unfolding. Often I feel like some plots are fairly predictable but this one had enough twists to keep me wondering what would happen next.

Another Great Read From An Author Who Defies Genre

(Be warned that this review focuses on the author's writing as a whole more than on this specific book. Suffice to say I love every book by this author, and Age of Ash is no exception.)

I once read somewhere that Fantasy relies on magic to drive the story, while Magical Realism treats magic more as a backdrop, an accent to human stories. By this definition, I'd say Daniel Abraham rides the line between the two. His magic is quiet, yet insistent; not flashy explosions and comic-esque superpowers but something more creeping, fundamental, unfathomable. And his worlds push back against the base warlike culture of Us vs Them, Hero vs Villain. He doesn’t write morally absolute characters, but people. Real living breathing people whose feelings, habits, flaws, struggles, and growth are so believable they leap from the page. When I revisit Abraham's stories (and I routinely do) it’s for the humans within them.

If you like what I said above then you will love this book. I will say that if you’re after a more standard epic fantasy, start with Dagger & Coin, though it’s still far from standard in my opinion; if you want something more profoundly human and utterly unique, go for Age of Ash or for Long Price Quartet. For what it’s worth, Age of Ash is my favorite Daniel Abraham book to date, and it reads more like a full story unto itself rather than the beginning of a series. Kithamar 2 and 3 are meant to follow the same year from different perspectives, so I don't think reading the first book necessarily locks you into the whole series (though I definitely plan to read the books that follow.)

Regarding the narrator: I often listen at a 1.15-1.25 speed but I had to dial it back to standard for Nankani and pay closer attention at first, mainly because I was unaccustomed to her voice (which, when I reflect on how many male narrators dominate this genre, might just mean my ear has some programmed bias to root out.) That said, Nankani has a very clean and even voice, though it can sometimes feel a little too clean/even, without as many tonal ups and downs as some readers. And, while I needed time to warm up to her, I also got the sense that she herself needed time to warm up to the material. Somewhere after the first couple hours I felt like she finally had the thread, and l grew to really appreciate her by the end of the book.

Enjoyable — Looking Forward to the Rest

I enjoyed this book but I suspect my tempered response will need to be revised after books 2 and 3. As always, Abraham’s writing is beautiful in many places. However Kithamar itself is a fairly standard fantasy city that could fit just as easily in Mistborn, Gentleman Bastards, etc…and the antagonist similarly echoes many other series—I have to wonder if I’ll feel differently after seeing these events from other perspectives. I did feel Alys’ emotional arc in particular was a very rewarding story.

What I did NOT enjoy was the reader. At best she does enunciate clearly, but she varies her voice patterns more of her own preference than in response to the content of the book itself. It’s like she had a deck of cards labeled with moods, and she drew them randomly as she read. And at her worst she opted for this nasally, annoyed inflection that was fine for moments where, say, Alys was disgusted by something, but this same disgusted tone was often just slipped into in the middle of a descriptive passage. I was often confused by her choices.

So while I think I’ll grow to love this book more after books 2 & 3 help me better appreciate the foreshadowing that is surely all over the place, I also dread the idea that I’ll have to sit through this mediocre reader again.

Narration a bit awkward

The narration was a bit off with strange inflections. The story is good. if a bit small scale for a fantasy series.

Not the book I was expecting- but the one I needed.

If you’re looking for a book with dragons and lots of magic and witches- this isn’t the book you’re looking for. While it has all that in it, it’s in small doses. BUT if you’re looking for a book about a girl figuring out how to grieve and getting into trouble way above her pay grade- you’ve found the one.

I didn’t realize this was a trilogy, as this story could be a stand-alone, but I’m excited about the next one. Daniel Abraham is slowly becoming one of my favorite authors.

Deserves a better reader

The quality of the writing shines through, but it is already clear this one will be a slog.

Read This Book, but Better In Print

This story is about rough life and how people want to escape it. The world is real, smoky, grimy, and human. However, characters that I could see are nuanced, likeable come across as whiny and harsh with this particular narrator. I hate to say it, but the story is diminished by the performance of it.