Tag: The first law

Categories
Fantasy

The Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie (Book Thoughts)

I committed to finishing series this year and just devoured The First Law #1-3. I will read the subsequent books at some point but I admit to being less interested in side stories within the greater world.

So, yeah, I’m glad to have finally read The First Law.  Big magic, big action, big destruction,  heroes and villains as one, the series has everything I want in a fantasy. The immersive descriptive writing style kept me sucked in, and I can add this to my top adult fantasy reading.

It’s hard to talk about book three in a series without spoilers so I’ll do my best, but am not 100% committed to anything beyond this point being entirely spoiler free.

Bookish Quick facts:
  • Title: The Last Argument of Kings
  • Series: The First Law #3
  • Author: Joe Abercrombie
  • Publisher & Release: Gollancz, 2008 (Orbit Reprint, 2015)
  • Length: 536 pages
  • Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for fans of dark fantasy
Here’s the synopsis from GoodReads:

The end is coming. Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him but it’s going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the King of the Northmen still stands firm, and there’s only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy. It’s past time for the Bloody-Nine to come home.

With too many masters and too little time, Superior Glokta is fighting a different kind of war. A secret struggle in which no one is safe, and no one can be trusted. His days with a sword are far behind him. It’s a good thing blackmail, threats and torture still work well enough.

Jezal dan Luthar has decided that winning glory is far too painful, and turned his back on soldiering for a simple life with the woman he loves. But love can be painful too, and glory has a nasty habit of creeping up on a man when he least expects it.

While the King of the Union lies on his deathbead, the peasants revolt and the nobles scramble to steal his crown. No one believes that the shadow of war is falling across the very heart of the Union. The First of the Magi has a plan to save the world, as he always does. But there are risks. There is no risk more terrible, after all, than to break the First Law…

My thoughts:

There’s a lot that I want to say about these books, but I’ve said most of it in my first two reviews of the series. And I’m sick, and have sick brain, so this may be short.

Overall this is one of my favorite adult fantasy trilogies I’ve ever read.  The Last Argument of Kings really nailed home a constantly bleak outlook, heroes aka villains sinking ever lower, complicated friendships unravelling, so much betrayal ..

.. Essentially everything Grimdark is supposed to be.  You think the characters hit rock bottom and then they just keeps sinking.  Sinking and grinning and swinging their bloody weapons the whole time, I love it.

The war scenes were the highlight. Not just the duel, the scene up in the highlands at Crummock’s fortress, with everyone crawling around stabbing at whatever, blood raining down, the actions of the bloody-nine… Umm 😳 terrible stuff.  There were lots of times where the reading experience was immersive like that though, where one could feel like they were there among the bodies.

The world build throughout the series is amazing too, without ever being overwhelming.   Someone in an interview once said that the best worldbuilding feeds into immersion without becoming a distraction, and I have never agreed with anything more.

Character wise, Glokta had some real hero/villain moments. He’s probably my favorite character. It’s hard to make readers cheer for a crippled torturer and Abercrombie managed to do it.  Dogman and Logen both had weak story endings but I didn’t hate the way the ending made the whole series come full circle.  I think that’s the point, that it never ends for fighting men.  He left it open to go all sorts of different ways.

Many people with fewer fried brains and more eloquence have sung endless praises about this series so, yeah go read it. I’m not sure how I waited until 2022-23: totally worth it.

Categories
Fantasy

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie (Book Thoughts)

Before They Are Hanged Book Cover

Well well, look at me committing to a series for once.  It certainly helps that about four of us are buddy reading on discord right now and having a good chat about the series, plus the books are just that good so far!

Bookish Quick Facts:

  • Title: Before They Are Hanged
  • Series: The First Law #2
  • Author: Joe Abercrombie
  • Publisher & Release: Gollancz/Pyr 2007
  • Length: 560 pages (Orbit PB 2015)
  • Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ yes keep going if you liked book one!

Here’s the synopsis:

The second novel in the wildly popular First Law Trilogy from New York Times bestseller Joe Abercrombie.

Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It’s enough to make a torturer want to run — if he could even walk without a stick.

Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem — he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world.

And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters — if they didn’t hate each other quite so much.

Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven — but not before they are hanged.

My thoughts:

Disclaimer: I’m not going to give any overt spoilers but it can get tricky when talking about sequels and subsequent books in a series. I do my best!

First up, here’s my favorite quote:

Is it coming for me? Several tons of rock, about to splatter my remains across the city? What a ludicrously random way to die. He felt his mouth twitch up in a faint smile.

-Glokta’s pov

I think the utter randomness of events in these books, and in other military SFF, is what makes them particularly endearing to me.  When books follow a set formula they get boring.  I think, overall my favorite part about this series is that you never really know what’s coming next.

There’s also many healthy doses of character development, random death, bonding, falling outs, murder, politicking, savagery, and, being realistic, among other things.

Glokta carried my favorite storyline just because I love how utterly savage he is, even when he’s being a good guy.  I love politics and plotting and he navigates it all rather cunningly, while at the same time he couldn’t care less if he died.

The other storylines all have their moments (and their oh-shit moments) too.  The other characters all serve to expand the world, the military, and backstory of the magic.

Some characters surprised me too like West, Dogman, Pike, you never know who’s going to become a main character going forward.  I think he stepped it up with the dialogue and banter in this one overall too and it’s just a more mature story in every aspect.

I have to mention the final chapters!  It’s grim, it’s realistic, it’s sad, and I’m more than surprised by who had the final scene in the book.  Will Dogman be a major character going forward?  It seems like he will have to be! We still don’t know what’s up with the bloody-nine either, I’m excited to learn that mystery which was originally shown in book one.  I love the whole ending. Not every quest and mission is going to end in some kind of prophetic victory and now going forward the characters just have to keep doing the best they can with what they’re given. It’s refreshing to see a quest fail miserably for once.

Anyway, in every aspect imaginable I am excited to read on and see how this thing ends!

Thanks for checking out my book thoughts and review of Before They Are Hanged!  Have you read it? Want to chat about it? Leave a comment! I grabbed my copy via Libby and as always, all thoughts are my own.

Categories
Fantasy

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (Book Thoughts)

This is one of those books that’s hard to talk about because I’m 15 years late to the party and it’s been beaten to death by every BookTuber on the internet.  That said though, better late than never because The Blade Itself is an absolute delight to read and I feel like I’m filling in my fantasy knowledge gaps.

I didn’t read at all between 2007 and 2016 because of college then life circumstances, so I have had to do a lot of catching up on books that were published in those years and this has unfortunately been one of the ones that got lost to time.

Let’s show the book facts then I’ll share a few thoughts, mostly about my reading experience

Bookish Quick Facts:

  • Title: The Blade Itself
  • Series: The First Law, #1
  • Author: Joe Abercrombie
  • Publisher & Release: Gollancz/ Pyr, 2006
  • Length: 560 pages (Orbit PB reprint)
  • Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨ for fantasy fans who like big casts and dark humor

Here’s the synopsis:

Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian — leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.

Nobleman, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, Captain Jezal dan Luthar has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.

Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.

Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he’s about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glokta a whole lot more difficult.

Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood.

Unpredictable, compelling, wickedly funny, and packed with unforgettable characters, The Blade Itself is noir fantasy with a real cutting edge.

My thoughts:

The first thing is that I was not expecting the book to be funny, but I laughed out loud at least three times and had frequent chuckles. Great bloody fun.  I noticed Lev Grossman and Lee Child both wrote cover blurbs for various versions of the book, so it struck me that they’re marketing this to a vast, vast range of readers.  Grossman’s full comments in the back definitely influenced me to pick it up, I mean even Jeff VanderMeer plugged it.

So let’s see. The book was pretty slow in the first half, and essentially overall it was more focused on building the characters, the world, the political machinations and conspiracies, the basis for wartime conflicts, and setting up alliances.  That said, it wasn’t boring at all. Not one second. Abercrombie has this digestible and engaging writing style that sucked me into whatever was going on.

Some things have to be done. It’s better to do them, than to live with the fear of them

He used asides from the characters minds to invite the reader into whatever insight is happening, and often times it’s sarcastic and hilarious.  I liked the crippled torturer (by God he’s my age 😭) as much as any other character, and found the dashing hero prototype character to be totally insufferable.  I heard this series tends to flip tropes on their heads and make you root for people you usually wouldn’t – totally, 100% accurate.

And of course at the pinnacle of tension, it’s paired with a flapping set of cranky old wizard balls as he has to interrupt his bath to rescue everyone… Just .. it’s perfect.  Lots of “grimdark” published recently seems to rely on shock and authors trying to be terrible, where Abercrombie just lets story roll. It needs no gimmicks. The dark humor comes as the flip side.

He tossed the helmet back onto its stand, then stood there staring at the armour, lost in thought. “Once you’ve got it on, how do you piss?”

I got used to magic being over explained in a lot of modern fantasy books. I kind of prefer it like it is here, mysterious and potentially big and hugely disastrous.  Just knowing the magic is there is enough and it keeps it more interesting not to know. Actually, the things that are hinted at but not explained are the things making me want to start the second book ASAP! 

What Abercrombie does explain well is custom, history, politics, and action.  It’s exceptionally easy to picture fights, chases, marches, the weather, and how everything happening plays into everything else.

There are a LOT of characters at first and it’s hard to keep the names apart, but give it time.  It’s cool in these types of books to see how the storylines converge.

You carry on. That’s what he’d always done. That’s the task that comes with surviving, whether you deserve to live or not. You remember the dead as best you can. You say some words for them. Then you carry on, and you hope for better.

My only real gripe came with rare consistency errors, like the number of opponents would change from one paragraph to the next or one character who had just stated a culture didn’t have gods started screaming “fuck your gods!” at their soldiers.  Minor but off-putting things that didn’t quite read well, but really didn’t affect anything and were quickly forgotten.

This is getting long, so let me wrap it up.  If you like grimdark, action, world building, dark humor, cranky wizards, amazing casts of characters that shatter tropes, and the ‘shit happens’ atmosphere that runs rampant in the best military fiction, this might be a book for you.  Big scope, big magic, big mystery.  Don’t be shy if you haven’t read it yet, I’m right there with you 😅