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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Stupid question with spoilers for Last Argument of Kings: is "the cripple" that they keep referring to in Best Served Cold Glotka, or West? There's a few references to him wearing a mask over his face, but I don't remember Glotka having or needing that. He seemed to positively revel in his disfigurement, whereas West was dissolving into a pit of self-loathing last time we saw him in Adua. Given the context of those references, it's got to be Glotka. Also, I'm pretty sure that West is dead of magic radiation poisoning, though I would love to be wrong. Besides, don't the Inquisitors wear masks while they're working?
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Sep 3, 2013 21:32
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Add in the fact that Eider was working for him and it clinches it. It is undoubtedly Glokta.
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Sep 3, 2013 22:05
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Yeah,in the standalones he's usually referred to as "the Cripple" too.
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Sep 3, 2013 22:12
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Above Our Own posted:West is dead. 
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Sep 4, 2013 01:50
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So then what's with the mentions of him being "the real power behind the throne" and "always concealing his face behind a golden mask"? Neither of those really sound like his speed. If it's meant to be a joke about how legends spread, it's not handled with Abercrombie's usual flair.
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Sep 4, 2013 05:15
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:So then what's with the mentions of him being "the real power behind the throne" and "always concealing his face behind a golden mask"? Neither of those really sound like his speed. If it's meant to be a joke about how legends spread, it's not handled with Abercrombie's usual flair. Jezal is his golden mask. That was the deal Glotka made with Bayaz. Jezel is just a pretty figurehead, Glotka is the power behind Jezal and Bayaz is the power behind Glotka.
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Sep 4, 2013 07:39
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:So then what's with the mentions of him being "the real power behind the throne" and "always concealing his face behind a golden mask"? Neither of those really sound like his speed. If it's meant to be a joke about how legends spread, it's not handled with Abercrombie's usual flair.
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Sep 4, 2013 13:45
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:So then what's with the mentions of him being "the real power behind the throne" and "always concealing his face behind a golden mask"? Neither of those really sound like his speed. If it's meant to be a joke about how legends spread, it's not handled with Abercrombie's usual flair. Those aren't meant literally: Glokta doesn't wear a golden mask, but he rules from behind Jezal, whom most people in the Union regard as the true ruler. He's the king after all. However it's Bayaz who really runs stuff from the shadows and he's selected Glokta to rule for him. Glokta and Jezal both know it. Jezal's role is to be a pretty figurehead - a golden mask.
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Sep 4, 2013 15:37
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BSC, The Heroes, and Red Country are all standalones? Will I miss/gain anything reading them in any particular order?
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Sep 4, 2013 21:58
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You'll be much better off reading them in order, considering that Shivers is in all of them.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:04
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Ravenfood posted:BSC, The Heroes, and Red Country are all standalones? Will I miss/gain anything reading them in any particular order? Read them in order, or you'll miss out on the Ballad of Caul Shivers, who has an amazing character arc throughout. Also the first few pages of Red Country answers a pretty big question that would ruin parts of The Heroes.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:05
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Ravenfood posted:BSC, The Heroes, and Red Country are all standalones? Will I miss/gain anything reading them in any particular order?
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Sep 5, 2013 07:14
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It'd be cool to see a trip report from someone who read them in reverse order, though. I'll bet you could still make sense of the character arcs.
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Sep 5, 2013 13:10
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Fantastic, thanks. BSC's just about done. Holy poo poo, Shivers.
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Sep 5, 2013 21:59
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Grand Prize Winner posted:It'd be cool to see a trip report from someone who read them in reverse order, though. I'll bet you could still make sense of the character arcs. I started reading The Heroes and got about 100 pages in before stopping and starting BSC first. I was convinced for a long time there were two different men called Shivers.
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Sep 6, 2013 11:40
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Abercrombie tip: READ THE BOOKS IN ORDER
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Sep 6, 2013 14:50
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I don't know how anyone could start reading the Heroes and stop to start BSC. The Heroes is amazing and BSC is mediocre. I loved reading about Gorst  Yes he's a loving loser who needs to find a better way to evaluate his existence but it was great to read about a guy who just loved fighting and was so good at it.
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Sep 6, 2013 21:35
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Also: Cracknut Whirrun! I really like how the Heroes expanded B and C list characters from The First Law such as Dow he was going to be a potter..., Calder, Kroy and especially Gorst, which is probably why it's my favorite of the standalones. Wasn't a major POV that I disliked in that book.
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Sep 7, 2013 18:51
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Have there been any recent developments on his next book? I thought he was starting up another First Law trilogy but I can't really find any recent information.
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Sep 8, 2013 09:13
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Neurosis posted:I don't know how anyone could start reading the Heroes and stop to start BSC. Man, BSC's his best by far. Stands alone wonderfully, does everything that the First Law did but in a shorter space and the writing's a lot tidier. Heroes is also excellent but it suffers a bit in that you need to read three books of backstory to start it.
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Sep 8, 2013 09:21
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pentyne posted:Have there been any recent developments on his next book? I thought he was starting up another First Law trilogy but I can't really find any recent information. He's going to do YA next: http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2013/07/19/half-a-king/
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Sep 8, 2013 14:07
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No more First Law books until 2017 then. Pack it in it's gonna be a long thread.
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Sep 8, 2013 18:23
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:Man, BSC's his best by far. Stands alone wonderfully, does everything that the First Law did but in a shorter space and the writing's a lot tidier. Heroes is also excellent but it suffers a bit in that you need to read three books of backstory to start it. BSC's my favorite too. It has so many great characters with great arcs, and all the different missions and plots that they progress through during the story vary so much that I think it's his most re-readable novel too. I can see how someone could like Heroes more, but to call BSC mediocre is just wrong.
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Sep 8, 2013 23:22
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Jeffrey posted:No more First Law books until 2017 then. Pack it in it's gonna be a long thread. As thread creator I hereby decree that this doesn't become another Bad Thread. For the love of God please.
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Sep 9, 2013 03:09
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savinhill posted:BSC's my favorite too. It has so many great characters with great arcs, and all the different missions and plots that they progress through during the story vary so much that I think it's his most re-readable novel too. I can see how someone could like Heroes more, but to call BSC mediocre is just wrong. I did not care about the characters in it at all. Shivers and Monza just didn't have anything that made me interested in what happened to them. I would have to give it some thought as to precisely why that was the case, but that's the reason I found BSC comparatively mediocre and the Heroes amazing.
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Sep 9, 2013 03:39
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I can agree that Monza was a little one note and boring. But, Shivers really did have a good character arc. The relationship between Monza and Shivers was a little clumsy and it was kind of telegraphed what was going to happen. Once Shivers lost his eye the book took a turn for the awesome. I really liked the poisoner guy's story too.
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Sep 9, 2013 03:59
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Neurosis posted:I did not care about the characters in it at all. Shivers and Monza just didn't have anything that made me interested in what happened to them. I would have to give it some thought as to precisely why that was the case, but that's the reason I found BSC comparatively mediocre and the Heroes amazing. Yeah, I can see not being into them two, especially since they're the two most prominent characters, making it tough. Fire Safety Doug posted:He's going to do YA next: http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2013/07/19/half-a-king/ It's going to be weird reading Abercrobie without all the foul language and behavior from his characters. It'll be interesting though.
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Sep 9, 2013 04:02
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John Charity Spring posted:As thread creator I hereby decree that this doesn't become another Bad Thread. For the love of God please. I mean he has good reasons, if he's really gonna publish the trilogy all together then it is going to be awesome. We don't have enough catchphrases to make this a bad thread. Excuse my while I photoshop this picture of Abercrombie and write Monza-Terez erotica.
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Sep 9, 2013 05:27
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packsmack posted:I can agree that Monza was a little one note and boring. But, Shivers really did have a good character arc. The relationship between Monza and Shivers was a little clumsy and it was kind of telegraphed what was going to happen. Once Shivers lost his eye the book took a turn for the awesome. The whole point of Monza was the creeping slow reveal, how it was a sympathetic revenge story at the start but by the end you realized that she and her brother were the real villains, and I guess you couldn't paint too much there because she kind of had to be the generic-revenge-story-hero-good-guy. You know the generic fantasy character where the reader is supposed to imprint their own personality onto so that they feel empowered by reading it? You see it all the time in YA. To do that you can't give the reader too much information, or give them too strong a personality.
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Sep 9, 2013 10:28
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:The whole point of Monza was the creeping slow reveal, how it was a sympathetic revenge story at the start but by the end you realized that she and her brother were the real villains, and I guess you couldn't paint too much there because she kind of had to be the generic-revenge-story-hero-good-guy. You know the generic fantasy character where the reader is supposed to imprint their own personality onto so that they feel empowered by reading it? You see it all the time in YA. To do that you can't give the reader too much information, or give them too strong a personality. I dont know about Monza herself, she seemed like she was a somewhat alright person if not a shining beacon of morality. The gradual reveal of what a piece of poo poo her brother was (and the contrast to how she remembered him) was great though. Reminded me of the turn-around with Bayaz over the course of the first trilogy.
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Sep 9, 2013 13:56
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Yeah uh, Monza's whole thing is the slow, creeping realization that she isn't actually the awful person she and others believe her to be. Still not a beacon of morality, as stated, but she's certainly better than a lot of other characters we've seen. Benna was the worst influence in the world to her, yes, but no longer dealing with/covering for him and her coming to terms with what a huge piece of poo poo he actually was are also pretty important to that.
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Sep 9, 2013 15:27
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:The whole point of Monza was the creeping slow reveal, how it was a sympathetic revenge story at the start but by the end you realized that she and her brother were the real villains, and I guess you couldn't paint too much there because she kind of had to be the generic-revenge-story-hero-good-guy. You know the generic fantasy character where the reader is supposed to imprint their own personality onto so that they feel empowered by reading it? You see it all the time in YA. To do that you can't give the reader too much information, or give them too strong a personality. So far, if there's a "good" character that's also a significant power in the world, she's the closest outside of maybe the Dogman. edit: Which isn't saying much. Her story is about brutal revenge and features a shitton of bystanders getting killed. But compared to some of the other rulers/powers/leaders, she's not the utter butcher everyone thinks. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 15:56
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Outside of all the incest it really does seem like Monza was a 'good guy' insofar as Abercrombie will allow for one of those to exist (and live) in his narrative. I dunno, it seems like she was so blinded by the love she had for her brother that she was blind to the evils the man committed and how he manipulated her into being kind of worse. Heck, given the insight we get for how Monza lets herself be manipulated by her brother she probably would have ended up betraying Duke... Orso? It's be a while at the behest of her slimy brother. So maybe she's hardly good after all! Dammit, Abercrombie, I want my characters to be easily characterized. 
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Sep 9, 2013 17:23
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Monza seemed to go through a double reversal throughout the book. You started empathizing with her as a victim at the start, then look down on her when you hear about all the horrible poo poo that she's done (which she doesn't protest against), and then finally discover that her motives were mostly noble just corrupted by her brother's actions.
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Sep 9, 2013 18:09
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Duke Orso wasn't that nice a guy anyway. Seems like the best thing for everyone was her and Cosca fake fighting and keeping the locals out of it.
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Sep 9, 2013 18:22
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packsmack posted:I really liked the poisoner guy's story too.
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Sep 10, 2013 07:18
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cheese posted:You are all wrong and this person is right, the poisoner arc is the best arc and I hope he comes out of no where in the next book and does something accidentally awesome. Uh, wouldn't that be a little difficult, or am I massively misremembering BSC?
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Sep 10, 2013 08:41
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Neurosis posted:Uh, wouldn't that be a little difficult, or am I massively misremembering BSC? He's dead. I made this spoiler long so that people wouldn't go, ah, that spoiler is only four characters long so that means he's dead. Although, now that I think about it alive is only five characters and people might assume that instead. But he's dead. Very very dead. Maybe the next book is all about Morveer's mother.
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Sep 10, 2013 11:15
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Ravenfood posted:No, her brother was that reveal, Monza's was the opposite. Because you've read the first trilogy, you expect her to have the same arc that Logen or Bayaz does, where you find he's actually an utter bastard. Instead, Monza's basically the character Logen (and the readers) thought Logen was during books 1 and 2 of First Law, a person who is actually trying to do the right thing and is somewhat unjustly judged by those around her, and in some ways constrained by that reputation. You're right in that her brother was worse, but she's still a brotherfucking mass murderer. You're right though, I was misremembering.
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Sep 10, 2013 12:44
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:You're right in that her brother was worse, but she's still a brotherfucking mass murderer. You're right though, I was misremembering.
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Sep 10, 2013 13:35
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