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FordPRefectLL posted:My favorite was Best Served Cold. I liked the Heroes and didn't enjoy Red Country because my favorite character acted like a shithead the entire book. He was just doing what he does best. The Bloody Nine plays no favorites, and makes no exceptions. 
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Jan 16, 2014 01:57
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I'm pretty sure he meant Cosca.
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Jan 16, 2014 08:10
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I did mean Cosca. It is the first time the heroes are on the other side of Cosca's bs and it is pretty terrible.
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Jan 16, 2014 08:12
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It's completely in keeping with Abercrombie. Mercenaries waging a war of terror will do terrible things, and need to be terrible people to do them. No amount of 'oh but he's charismatic and usually on our side!' gets them out of it.
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Jan 16, 2014 14:08
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I really liked that he did that with both Logan and Cosca. Pitting both their worst aspects against our two primary protagonists.
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Jan 16, 2014 17:14
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I think The Heroes is the better book, but I enjoyed Red Country more. Just to muddy things up a bit.
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Jan 16, 2014 17:17
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Being drunk all the time makes you do poo poo things. I've had my brushes with alcoholism so I know. When you're as hardcore a drunk as Cosca, weeeelll... You'll end up lurching from terrible mental state to terrible mental state, and will probably do some bad things. I really liked seeing Logen do his thing in Red Country, even if he was a monster.. The part where he was throwing severed body parts of a building of the dozen people he'd murdered was loving cool, even though I know it was meant to be horrifying. And we will never know which parts were the Bloody Nine and which were him (I still subscribe to the theory the Nine is a spirit of some kind).
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Jan 17, 2014 12:36
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I'm firmly in the Red Country camp. Honestly I've liked each subsequent book better than the last with the exception of Best Served Cold.
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Jan 17, 2014 23:48
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I would say that my favorite work by Abercrombie would be the original trilogy as a whole, followed closely by Best Served Cold with Red Country and The Heroes being tied for a very close third. I actually really loved the first half of Red Country and would rank it first if the rest of the book had followed the same style, but the bizarre turn the story took after the discovery of who took the children seemed like a really bad creative decision.
Mr.48 fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 02:49
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Mr.48 posted:I would say that my favorite work by Abercrombie would be the original trilogy as a whole, followed closely by Best Served Cold with Red Country and The Heroes being tied for a very close third. I actually really loved the first half of Red Country and would rank it first if the rest of the book had followed the same style, but the bizarre turn the story took after the discovery of who took the children seemed like a really bad creative decision. Read more Louis L'amour. Red Country follows the Western tropes to a goddamn T.
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Jan 18, 2014 03:34
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Favorite book is definitely Best Served Cold.
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Jan 18, 2014 16:43
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I liked the trilogy the most followed very closely by Heroes then Red Country and Best Served Cold lagging quite a bit at last. I just didn't like the characters in BSC that much and had to kind of force myself through it. Not terrible, Abercrombie's better than that, but it didn't grab me in the same way. Someone earlier in this thread said that if you like the style of the novel you'll prefer that novel, i.e. BSC is a revenge story, Red Country a Western and The Heroes a war story. I'm not certain to what extent I agree with that, but then again I don't read that many novels in those genres.
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Jan 18, 2014 16:56
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The heroes all the way!
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Jan 18, 2014 17:56
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I'm in the camp for The Heroes. It was awesome, pure distilled Abercrombie writing about utter bastards getting their faces cleaved in by blades. Bastard wizards playing their own game and using kings as pawns. Red Country was pretty good but hey, I just like Heroes better.
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Jan 18, 2014 20:00
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I'd definitely rank Heroes as his best yet, with before they are hanged as a close runner up. I could read an entire book just about Whirrun of Bligh
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Jan 18, 2014 21:25
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AStrangeDuelist posted:Favorite book is definitely Best Served Cold.
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Jan 19, 2014 04:59
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BSC really made me hate the main character but not in a way that made me quit reading and I love it.
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Jan 19, 2014 05:24
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Why did Monza have to goon out about mending fences with Shivers like that?  I was really frustrated by that and still really liked that book, I definitely agree with you. It is tough to say if it is better than The Heroes in my eyes, I didn't like Gorst but ended up liking Calder of all characters? I never thought I'd see him redeemed. (Frankly him killing the weakest dude in the trilogy didn't really fit with his character in Heroes.)
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Jan 19, 2014 06:33
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Yes, outside of the trilogy, I enjoyed Best Served Cold the most. Castor Morveer was probably my favorite character. I loved the contrast between his own narrative, and other's views of him.
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Jan 19, 2014 06:33
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The Heroes is my favorite. I like war stories and Gorst.
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Jan 19, 2014 07:50
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I thought I would like Gorst from the earlier books but by the end of the Heroes I actually hated everytime one of his view point sections came around. I don't know why, I guess the constant goony goon-ness of his inner monologue just grated on my nerves.
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Jan 19, 2014 17:12
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I liked Gorst because he's such a goon. Different strokes I guess.
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Jan 19, 2014 20:53
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Jeffrey posted:Why did Monza have to goon out about mending fences with Shivers like that? I was really disappointed in her too. But I get it. It made perfect sense to me why she would respond that way. I still like her, but I was definitely disgusted with her behavior there as well. It's one area where she acts like a total and complete coward and it's pretty ugly for her. But she herself wouldn't deny that either.
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Jan 20, 2014 00:30
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UncleMonkey posted:For me, that was all about her guilt. Increasingly throughout the book, Monza's desire for revenge has bigger and bigger affects on innocent people to the point where she starts to regret going down that path in the first place. She turns her back on Shivers because she can't stand to face him. Every time she looks at him, his face is a mirror reflecting her failures and how everything that happened to him is her fault. Shivers starts the book wanting to turn away from violence and be a good person and ends up a disfigured sociopath. Monza can't live with that, knowing it's all on her. So she blocks him out. It's cruel and it's unfair-- and she even knows that herself. That's really spot on, and I would add that there's some weirdness tied up there with Shivers and Benna, her guilt over her brother's death, her attempt to turn Shivers into Benna, and her finally facing what a piece of poo poo Benna was.
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Jan 20, 2014 01:37
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I was kind of rooting for Gorst to stay in the North, personally. Sure, he might get stuck with the name of Squeaker, but nobody's going to loving laugh at it.
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Jan 20, 2014 02:51
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Even without his creepy obsession, Gorst was basically a wealthy, high ranked officer among a bunch of cannon fodder conscripts and abused peasants. So naturally he spent his time whining about how how awful it was for him, and how terrible it is to be punished for something that wasn't his fault. What's that, Gorst, it was your fault after all?  . I spent the whole book hoping he'd bite it.
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Jan 20, 2014 23:45
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Strategic Tea posted:Even without his creepy obsession, Gorst was basically a wealthy, high ranked officer among a bunch of cannon fodder conscripts and abused peasants. So naturally he spent his time whining about how how awful it was for him, and how terrible it is to be punished for something that wasn't his fault. What's that, Gorst, it was your fault after all? Instead the inventor of the sandwich bought it
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Jan 21, 2014 14:05
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One thing I liked about Best Served Cold was that it ended on a good note, or at least as good a note as one gets in Joe Abercrombies world. Monza is shaping up to be a just and competent leader, neither Bayaz or Khalul won control over yet another pawn in their pointless feud. Shivers was hosed up but you can't win everything.
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Jan 21, 2014 19:11
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Giodo! posted:Instead the inventor of the sandwich bought it Cheese trap. 
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Jan 21, 2014 19:50
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Strategic Tea posted:Even without his creepy obsession, Gorst was basically a wealthy, high ranked officer among a bunch of cannon fodder conscripts and abused peasants. So naturally he spent his time whining about how how awful it was for him, and how terrible it is to be punished for something that wasn't his fault. What's that, Gorst, it was your fault after all? I liked reading about a guy who enjoyed fighting. It gave a manic glee to the battle scenes.
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Jan 21, 2014 22:43
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AStrangeDuelist posted:One thing I liked about Best Served Cold was that it ended on a good note, or at least as good a note as one gets in Joe Abercrombies world. Monza is shaping up to be a just and competent leader, neither Bayaz or Khalul won control over yet another pawn in their pointless feud. Shivers was hosed up but you can't win everything. From another perspective, she is starting anew the chain of petty wars that tore Styria apart in the first place.
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Jan 21, 2014 23:21
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Smiling Knight posted:From another perspective, she is starting anew the chain of petty wars that tore Styria apart in the first place.
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Jan 21, 2014 23:39
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I really want a short story or something about the earlier adventures of Wirrun of Bligh ‘They call you Cracknut for the same reason they gave Cracknut Leef the name,’ and Wonderful tapped at the side of her shaved head. ‘Because it’s widely assumed your nut’s cracked.’ ‘They do?’ Whirrun frowned. ‘Oh, that’s less complimentary, the fuckers. I’ll have to have words next time I hear that. You’ve completely bloody spoiled it for me!”
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Jan 22, 2014 00:19
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Megadyptes posted:I really want a short story or something about the earlier adventures of Wirrun of Bligh I would read the poo poo out of that story. He was definitely my favourite character in The Heroes. He does appear in The Fool Jobs short story, I guess.
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Jan 22, 2014 01:55
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The trilogy had the most interesting setting. The Heroes had the best plot. Red Country had the most nuanced characters. Well, peace.
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Jan 22, 2014 02:19
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Neurosis posted:I really liked seeing Logen do his thing in Red Country, even if he was a monster.. The part where he was throwing severed body parts of a building of the dozen people he'd murdered was loving cool, even though I know it was meant to be horrifying. And we will never know which parts were the Bloody Nine and which were him (I still subscribe to the theory the Nine is a spirit of some kind). And I still subscribe to the theory that Logen is an enormous badass, no spirit demons required. The Bloody Nine never performs anything overtly superhuman, he's just an utter oval office who lets out his inner rear end in a top hat sometimes. Otherwise none of the Named Men he dueled in the circle would've been shown any mercy.
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Jan 22, 2014 10:34
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What I really liked is how Abercrombie was able to actually write some interesting female characters. Monza and Shy are extremely well written and memorable, and this was an improvement over the women portrayed in the First Law Trilogy. Not that the women in the first trilogy were at Rothfuss levels or anything, but they weren't as complex. Something else I loved in Red Country is (ending spoilers) How Shivers is tracking Logen the entire book to take his revenge. Then at the end he is just like...gently caress it. And walks off into the sunset. I guess you can easily argue both ways about Logen. Clearly he has some supernatural ability in that he can talk to spirits. So it isn't hard to imagine that ability comes with the burden / benefit of being possessed occasionally or something. His strength and endurance could be supernatural, or maybe not. Abercrombie doesn't spell it out for the reader, which is one of the reasons the books are so good in my opinion.
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Jan 22, 2014 14:01
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Did Shivers say he still was looking for revenge? He seemed pretty over his beef with Logen, like he was just there because Calder sent him and it wasn't personal any more. Maybe I'm not remembering things though.
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Jan 22, 2014 16:09
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One of my favorite things is that magic is never spelled out. It isn't so codified that it has become a science in its own right, and by Red Country it seems that Bayaz has spent less time using magic and more time mining through his knowledge of Kanedias's techniques to force the Union into an industrial revolution. I think Khalul was doing the same thing in the Gurkish Empire, just not as well as Bayaz at this point. On the subject of female characters, you can't forget Finree. Hoping she's in the next trilogy.
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Jan 22, 2014 16:09
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Jeffrey posted:Did Shivers say he still was looking for revenge? He seemed pretty over his beef with Logen, like he was just there because Calder sent him and it wasn't personal any more. Maybe I'm not remembering things though. It was kind of the done thing to pursue it even though he hated his brother because that's how things work in the North. Some of the things Logen does seem pretty close to superhuman. He's nowhere near an Eater in physical prowess but the amount of punishment he can take and dish out is impressive. Regarding usage of magic and technology... Magic has been waning and technology appears to be ascendant but I cannot imagine the next trilogy won't deal to some degree with the demon entities. If it got to the point where the magic Bayaz uses had atrophied so much he couldn't maintain his immortality I imagine he'd start loving around with the other side some more. Or he'd become an Eater...
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Jan 22, 2014 16:35
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