Just Finished Reading The Spider's War by Daniel Abraham

I have been reading Daniel Abraham's fantasy series titled The Dagger and the Coin during the previous few months, but had managed to catch up with the author's progress in writing this quality work and had to wait a while until he released the fifth and final volume, titled  The Spider's War...

In the fantasy world setting of The Dagger and the Coin, humanity owes its existence and its several vastly different forms to ancient, highly intelligent dragons, who ruled this world and regarded humans as their slaves.  After a war that all but destroyed these dragons, humanity was left to its own devices and, for thousands of years, formed nations, royalty and class distinctions, engaged in wars...you know, much like our own "real" world.  The series concerns itself in a sly manner about the question of which is ultimately more powerful: brute force (the "dagger") or the system of finance (the "coin").  Two of the main protagonists are a young woman named Cithrin, brought up in the world of banking, and her friend and partner Marcus, who only knew war and fighting as a means to victory and survival.  Together, along with other characters such as Clara, a widowed noblewoman and Kit, an apostate priest of a sinister order bent on dominating the world, the "heroes" struggle to regain the world from a perpetual war fomented by that order, which uses an unstable character named Geder as their political puppet...

As does Daniel Abraham's friend and colleague George R.R. Martin (who has lavished heavy praise on this series) in his "Game of Thrones" The Song of Ice and Fire series, each chapter in the books presents a part of the developing story from the viewpoint of various characters...I find this to be a very effective way of writing fiction.  As is the case with almost any fiction I read, I tend to judge works based on how deeply and compelling (and believable) the characters are.  And the author has done a masterful job here...

I liked how Daniel Abraham concluded The Spider's War, and consequently, the Dagger and the Coin series.  Also, he seems to have left an opening at the end that just might indicate that he is thinking about a follow-up series.  There are no television or movie adaptations that I know of in the works for The Dagger and the Coin...but after seeing how they are mangling Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy on the Sy Fy Channel, I'm not sure I'd want to see this series portrayed on the screen...