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did anyone else find Leo really frustrating to read about Like, he seemed like a pretty standard "eager young soldier" in all of his thoughts and actions, but everyone he interacted with just had so much contempt for him including his mom and his girlfriend and the omniscient narrator ("'But I want to do stuff,' Leo whined, petulantly, like a dumb little baby, god I hate this fucker"). Like, the parts with Rikke especially. Savine occasionally said things she liked about Orso; their relationship was pretty believable. But all Rikke did whenever she was in the same room as Leo, even when they were each other's fresh exciting new love interests, was think about how dumb and obnoxious he was. I really liked all the Orso, Savine, Vick, Broad, and Clover POV chapters, and the Rikke ones where she wasn't interacting with Leo, but I found the book really arduous to get through whenever Leo was involved, and it's not even because I particularly disliked his character -- I didn't like Clover or Orso or Savine per se, but you aren't really supposed to. It just got tiring hearing everybody talk about how dumb and immature they thought this one fantasy war guy in a world full of fantasy war guys was. loquacius fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Nov 2, 2019 |
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Nov 2, 2019 16:08
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I kinda wanna reread at least the beginning of The Blade Itself now that I have the context of who Logen and Bethod and Bayaz and Calder and Scale are in the world Maybe I could just reread all the parts of the original trilogy that take place in the North, that's pretty blatantly the best part of every book and a big part of why The Heroes was so great
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Nov 2, 2019 16:20
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Just finished the book today and generally enjoyed it. I'm kind of disappointed the next one won't be out for another year. Some thoughts I didn't see touched on in the discussion so far: In Rikke's third fit, she sees an old chief, dead, and assumes it's the Dogman. Isern even asks her if it is the Dogman and she asks who else it could be. I can only think that their discussion was misdirection because a couple chapters later Jezal is dead instead. Did anyone else think the man in front of Broad in the line for jobs in Valbeck may have been Logen? He's described as a big bastard with a star-shaped scar on his cheek and a notch out of his ear. I went back and looked and Logen's described as having a star-shaped scar on his cheek in Red Country (and a mass of stitches in his cheek after a spike from Fenris's armor pierces his cheek in the duel in LAoK) and has a notch missing from his ear as well. He even seems tempted to fight Broad after seeing the tattoos on his hands, but otherwise doesn't act much like Logen There was a lot of discussion earlier about who Clover is or was but nothing about him telling Wonderful his lazy attitude is him biding his time. Shivers seems to think Clover's a mean bastard who can fight well. I figured he was going to kill Stour Nightfall or maybe Calder, but after the end of the book, I'm not so sure.
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Nov 3, 2019 06:23
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Xenix posted:Just finished the book today and generally enjoyed it. I'm kind of disappointed the next one won't be out for another year. Some thoughts I didn't see touched on in the discussion so far: I assumed that was about Scale but yeah, I suppose either would count
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Nov 3, 2019 07:32
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Logen being back in the North is pretty unfeasible would make me sad. Let the man ride off into the sunset.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:23
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That was the Union.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:34
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loquacius posted:I kinda wanna reread at least the beginning of The Blade Itself now that I have the context of who Logen and Bethod and Bayaz and Calder and Scale are in the world Just did this myself. It's pretty shocking how epic the scope of the First Law Trilogy is, especially when you consider how self contained everything is in all of the novels since Last Argument of Kings. The mystical/magical stuff is also jarring given how more or less grounded everything has been since. Pretty fun to read about Ninefingers, Dow, Threetrees and the rest when their reputations play such a major part in everything having to do with the North in the later books.
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Nov 6, 2019 01:02
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I finished the new one today. It's good, but it isnt quite as engrossing as some of the earlier books. Having six viewpoint characters with mostly equal screen time means getting to know each of them less well. I liked reading about Rikke and Orso the most. The climax felt weak--just a change of status for most characters.
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Nov 8, 2019 02:09
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I finished the new book on the plane, and I enjoyed it, but it definitely didn't feel as good as the last couple of books because everything was spread so thin, and thus there was a lot of desperately pounding in the same character personality traits / quite repetitive internal monologues to make up for the fact that you spend so little time with each of them. I felt Vick was the worst out of that, all her scenes feel SUPER repetitive? "I was in the camps, so I know when to fold them and abandon people" was every time she had a POV moment. However, Clover killing Wonderful DEFINITELY landed with the shock without being just for shock value - it fits in with absolutely every single part of his internal monologue and the set up while still being a surprise, and there's enough female characters POV in play that it feels bad without being.. well, a lot of fantasy books. Honestly, everything in the book was so many high drama events back-to-back that I would have loved more breather moments with Orso and his weird entourage, or in general, to get to know the characters better and make me more attached. Only Wonderful's death and Orso's depression really landed with me, I didn't develop much of an attachment to the others.
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Nov 9, 2019 13:47
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i love Abercrombie but tbh after thinking about this book for a bit it basically treads no new ground besides the background of the industrial revolution happening and the transition to true capitalism. maybe the sequel will be better but im kind of getting deja vu here.
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Nov 9, 2019 14:04
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coolusername posted:
Yeah, that caught me off guard too, it was a real moment. As I read it I got like, genuinely mad at him. But as you say, in retrospect it makes perfect sense for what his character would do in an extreme situation like that, and the book was telling us what kind of person he was the whole time, it’s just easy to miss because he’s always in the presence of much scummier people, he seems folksy and harmless in comparison. Also, when we learned that clover changed his name after a near-death experience, I thought that he was going to turn out to be an old character from an earlier book; but he’s not, right? I don’t remember the old name that we learn. Ainsley McTree fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Nov 9, 2019 |
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Nov 9, 2019 17:21
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Jonas Steepfield, a named man new to the narrative.
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Nov 9, 2019 17:34
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Broad felt like the most well-trodden ground to me, since "violent person tries to get away from brutal past, but can't" describes at least three viewpoint characters already. Though there's still two books for his arc to go in a completely unexpected direction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw-3e_pzqU
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Nov 10, 2019 01:34
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To be fair, brutality is sort of a common job in the North. It's the equivalent of someone in our world putting retail behind them.
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Nov 10, 2019 02:28
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I hope we will get some more positive development from Savine in the next book and that Broad will be part of it.
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Nov 10, 2019 09:54
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:To be fair, brutality is sort of a common job in the North. It's the equivalent of someone in our world putting retail behind them. Broad has never been to the North, as far as we know. Brodd Tenways was a named man in the Heroes I think.
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Nov 10, 2019 14:48
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The world building in this one felt lacking, I think. The Union is basically just industrial revolution London, without any interesting secondary world modifications. The scene where the chimney sweeper boy gets cooked was the only really evocative image. I didnt feel like Abercrombie ever got to the core of how screwed the peasants were, despite multiple scenes where bad things happened. Everyone in the story is far too disconnected or emotionally muted to take part in the class struggle--even Broad who witnesses the worst parts--his violence and moments of rage arent, for some reason, tied into the class struggle. He isnt a violent man because of his happenstance, he's just a violent man. Vick is too cold. I felt a little of Judge's hate, but I dont think we got the backstory to whatever horrible tragedy turned her into this Joker-esque character. I was scratching my head as to why the book was called A Little Hatred. MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Nov 10, 2019 |
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Nov 10, 2019 20:55
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Agreed with everyone that Clover's climactic scene was really well-done; it shocked and surprised me while also leaving me feeling like I should have seen it coming. Kind of retroactively affected my opinion of the character too.Paddyo posted:Just did this myself. It's pretty shocking how epic the scope of the First Law Trilogy is, especially when you consider how self contained everything is in all of the novels since Last Argument of Kings. The mystical/magical stuff is also jarring given how more or less grounded everything has been since. Pretty fun to read about Ninefingers, Dow, Threetrees and the rest when their reputations play such a major part in everything having to do with the North in the later books. Going forward with my reread and there are definitely some supernatural elements to Logen and the North that just kinda got dropped -- the shanka I don't think have come up in a very long time, for example, and more importantly I straight up forgot that Logen had psychic powers. Like, besides him knowing how to call spirits, there were the parts where he caught a deer with his bare hands by meditating, and where he held a campfire in his mouth and used it to explode a guy. That was all in the first 10% or so of book 1. It was never really explained and he just kinda stopped doing that stuff eventually IIRC. I kinda feel like Logen's character started off as a Norse mythology epic-hero pastiche, with all of these vaguely-defined nature-oriented special talents, and ended up just being a particularly bloodlust-y career soldier with a violence addiction.
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Nov 12, 2019 04:37
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Another fun part of my reread is seeing young Jezal's scenes playing cards with his young dumb drinking buddies and remembering in full detail how each of them eventually dies and what rank they get overpromoted to first e: ok come to think of it I don't think Brint dies onscreen, does he? Still though
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Nov 12, 2019 04:41
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loquacius posted:Agreed with everyone that Clover's climactic scene was really well-done; it shocked and surprised me while also leaving me feeling like I should have seen it coming. Kind of retroactively affected my opinion of the character too. Been a while since I re read but I kinda remember the fire spitting as him spitting a spirit of fire or something which goes with his talking to spirits. Abercrombie maybe chose to drop those elements since magic is leaking out of the world etc..., but it was also his first book ever and probably nothing was very concrete back then. Probably he just decided that being the Bloody Nine was enough supernatural elements for Logen to have.
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Nov 12, 2019 08:08
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loquacius posted:Another fun part of my reread is seeing young Jezal's scenes playing cards with his young dumb drinking buddies and remembering in full detail how each of them eventually dies and what rank they get overpromoted to first Isn’t Brint the only one who doesn’t get overpromoted?
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Nov 12, 2019 08:41
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loquacius posted:Another fun part of my reread is seeing young Jezal's scenes playing cards with his young dumb drinking buddies and remembering in full detail how each of them eventually dies and what rank they get overpromoted to first Brint loses an arm in the heroes leading some dudes against Stranger-Come-Knocking and his crew. I just finished the new book and feel mostly positive about it. I'm not sure I'd put ahead of any of the other first law books yet but I feel like it's hard to judge 1 piece of the puzzle and the next two books will probably enhance this first one. I liked the new characters by and large, and enjoyed the old ones getting as much screen time as they did. I was reminded of the new star wars films a bit with the generation gap in characters and felt like this book did a better job balancing the new vs the old but obviously that's much easier in a book than a movie. Some spoilerish musings: - Does anyone else get the sense that Bayaz/Sulfur are setting up Glokta/Orso, etc to take the fall for the social upheaval? I was thinking it would make things particularly tragic if Glokta is forced to keep cracking down on the peasants under orders from Bayaz while Bayaz himself is helping push things over the edge. The conversation between Orso and Glokta about funding Orso's army did a good job hinting at Glokta's exasperation at having to be Bayaz's mouthpiece in the government. There was a hint earlier, I think when Sulfur was talking to Calder, that the magi find it preferable to have conflict to keep the union sharp. If Bayaz can see the industrial revolution is bound to be a paradigm shift, why not tilt things the way you want and position yourself to pick up the pieces afterwards? It seemed like Sulfur was approving of Calder/Scale's war as it was good to have some controlled conflict here and there. - Wonderful getting killed like that was a fun shocker. I feel like she would have done the same to Clover if given the opportunity based on how quickly she abandoned Dow after Craw was out of the picture in The Heroes but that was still cold blooded none the less. - Orso seems like a fun twist on the Jezal character. Jezal was a worthless rear end in a top hat until he had a change of mind in extreme circumstances. Orso seems more like he's a spoiled brat who wishes he could be a decent human being if allowed to. - I'm 50/50 on the lamb being Orso or Logen... - I really hope Gorst gets to carve up some people before the series is over. My favorite Cosca scene was him smirking and telling Glokta he escaped Degoska by dressing up like a woman and loving and sucking his way out of the city while Glokta is rolling his eyes.
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Nov 12, 2019 18:16
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Speaking of gorst, it’s been too long since I read the heroes; what was the arc of his relationship with finree again? I feel like that plot line is important again but I don’t quite remember what happened.
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Nov 12, 2019 18:36
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^ got so friendzoned he broke
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Nov 12, 2019 18:44
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tokenbrownguy posted:^ got so friendzoned he broke Lol now it’s coming back. I couldn’t remember if they ever hooked up and there was a chance Leo was his son. One secret bastard is probably enough for the trilogy though
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Nov 12, 2019 18:46
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Most definitely not. Gorst is only rivaled by Furious for Most Shut Down Dude
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Nov 12, 2019 18:52
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here lies Gorst, he never scored As for adebisi lives's theories: am I remembering wrong or did we never actually learn what The Weaver's real identity was? Because it would be both horrible and awesome if it was Bayaz, who is now behind all sides of every conflict everywhere I would really like if in the next book we get to see a glimpse of Bayaz and Zacharus/Cawneil having proxy battles in Gurkhul to see who gets to hoover up more of Khalul's turf e: one of my favorite lowkey moments from the new book was Leo geeking out when he finally got to meet Gorst in person but immediately being disappointed by Gorst's weak handshake, because that proves that sadly this famous war hero is actually bitchmade loquacius fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Nov 12, 2019 |
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Nov 12, 2019 22:45
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adebisi lives posted:
Calling it now: in the climactic Final Battle in book 3, Gorst gets a long scene of stretching and putting on his armor and sharpening those magnificent swords of his. He then sprains an ankle, falls down a flight of stairs, is then bonked to death with a frying pan, screaming like a teakettle all the way there.
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Nov 12, 2019 22:49
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Does anyone use the Libby app for Ebooks/audiobooks? Is there a way to get an alert when a book is due back? This is the second book (A Little Hatred) where I didn’t realize my loan was up, so now I’m halfway through the book and it was automatically returned because I didn’t renew it, and now it’s going to take approx. 6 weeks before I can loan it again. 
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Nov 12, 2019 22:49
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Calling it now: in the climactic Final Battle in book 3, Gorst gets a long scene of stretching and putting on his armor and sharpening those magnificent swords of his. He then sprains an ankle, falls down a flight of stairs, is then bonked to death with a frying pan, screaming like a teakettle all the way there. Finree is present for some reason and actually has the opportunity to grab him so he doesn't fall down so many stairs, but instead simply rolls her eyes and leaves while talking loudly about what a loving loser Gorst is
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Nov 12, 2019 22:54
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loquacius posted:did anyone else find Leo really frustrating to read about I mean, Rikke thinks to herself a couple times how she likes his body, hair, and face, while disliking his personality, and whatever comes out of his mouth. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who have stuck around with someone they didn’t particularly like, because they were good looking enough to put up with it.
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Nov 12, 2019 22:55
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I guess to me Leo's actual shortcomings didn't really line up with the way everyone apparently thought about him. My reread is proving to me that Abercrombie does in fact know how to make a POV character obviously an rear end in a top hat (see: young Jezal) and it kind of feels to me like he missed that step for Leo while still making everyone think of him as one. It was, again, kind of frustrating to me. He did throw in some casual racism in Leo's very last POV chapter I guess but the entire goddamn book was over by then
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Nov 12, 2019 23:32
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loquacius posted:here lies Gorst, he never scored I don’t think we ever learned who the weaver was, no. I would be curious to see what bayaz’ role in this one is gonna be; the industrial revolution is pitched as some kind of “the age of magic is waning” thing, so I’m interested to learn how much of it happened without his permission, considering the union is his bumbling puppet state in most other regards.
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Nov 12, 2019 23:42
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loquacius posted:here lies Gorst, he never scored In the scene where Gorst and Savine were sparring Abercrombie was passing Gorst off as being weak too, until he got let off the chain. Dude lives only for fighting hopefully we get to see him go back to it.
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Nov 13, 2019 01:42
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loquacius posted:I guess to me Leo's actual shortcomings didn't really line up with the way everyone apparently thought about him. My reread is proving to me that Abercrombie does in fact know how to make a POV character obviously an rear end in a top hat (see: young Jezal) and it kind of feels to me like he missed that step for Leo while still making everyone think of him as one. It was, again, kind of frustrating to me. I never got the impression that Leo was ever supposed to be a complete rear end in a top hat - more that he was a super immature and naive teenager. He comes off to me as one of those "shades of grey" type of characters, and heck, those are always more interesting than the one-dimensional types. I think Abercrombie is setting up how easily he can be manipulated, which will probably play a big part in the direction that the rest of the series takes.
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Nov 13, 2019 02:46
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Destro posted:In the scene where Gorst and Savine were sparring Abercrombie was passing Gorst off as being weak too, until he got let off the chain. Dude lives only for fighting hopefully we get to see him go back to it. Partially let off the chain, even. "I should warn you that I was still holding back." Same old Gorst; I hope he survives the clearing out of the old generation into book 3 at least.
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Nov 13, 2019 03:17
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ZekeNY posted:Partially let off the chain, even. "I should warn you that I was still holding back." Same old Gorst; I hope he survives the clearing out of the old generation into book 3 at least. That was a cool as hell scene; I also selfishly hope that Gorst survives, but on the other hand I feel like he's been ready to die since book 1 of the first trilogy but death just won't have him
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Nov 13, 2019 03:29
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The only fitting death for Gorst would be at the hands of Javre, after she fucks him into submission.
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Nov 13, 2019 04:02
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Ainsley McTree posted:I don’t think we ever learned who the weaver was, no. I would be curious to see what bayaz’ role in this one is gonna be; the industrial revolution is pitched as some kind of “the age of magic is waning” thing, so I’m interested to learn how much of it happened without his permission, considering the union is his bumbling puppet state in most other regards. It's never said, but the thought that it may be Bayaz crossed my mind as well. In one of her fits, Rikke sees a bald weaver with a bottomless purse. Sure sounds like one First of the Magi everyone knows.
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Nov 13, 2019 05:52
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Paddyo posted:I never got the impression that Leo was ever supposed to be a complete rear end in a top hat - more that he was a super immature and naive teenager. He comes off to me as one of those "shades of grey" type of characters, and heck, those are always more interesting than the one-dimensional types. I think Abercrombie is setting up how easily he can be manipulated, which will probably play a big part in the direction that the rest of the series takes. Yea the biggest impression I had of Leo was that he was severely naive. In his mind he sees himself as the second coming of Gorst but when rubber meets the road he's not exactly depicted as a dominant fighter. Prophecy aside, this makes his acceptance of the dual a real bonehead move consider how easy Nightfall was working him over.
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Nov 13, 2019 05:56
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