Daniel Abraham, one of the two authors that write The Expanse series under the name James S. A. Corey, offers up an epic fantasy series featuring a rich, complex world worthy of your attention. Unfortunately, it might not seem that way at first. The opening chapters jump around from character to character and right when you start to get your bearings then a new chapter starts and you find yourself completely lost all over again. This feeling of confusion is compounded by the fact that there are a myriad of different humanoid races and you are exposed to the history of the world along with the present day. This is a lot to absorb all at the same time which makes it easy to lose track of things, especially when you don't know what is important and what is not. Luckily it is all worth the effort in the end because The Dagger and the Coin is an excellent series once you get settled into it.

Things do eventually settle down after a while and the characters start to come together in the storyline, but even then the initial story comes off as a little dry. Laden with banking contracts and political maneuvering the story builds quite slowly, but this book is all about world building and character development. The very ending of the book ties back to the very beginning in quite an interesting way and it is a portent of things to come. The most interesting parts involve the spider goddess and the powers of her priests, who are able to always tell when someone is lying to them. This power is quite intriguing and is central to the entire series.

Book 2 is when this series really takes off and you should read both books before you settle on an opinion. My initial ambivalence towards many of the characters was set aside and it was in book 2 when I really started to care about what was happening to them. If you aren't willing to give this series at least 2 books to form an opinion then I would recommend that you save yourself the trouble and go for a different fantasy series.

For audiobook fans, Pete Bradbury does an excellent job on the narration and he is the narrator for all 5 books in the series.