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Ccs posted:Well, the book comes out in a week. I'm trying to avoid spoilers, both so I enjoy it more and because my whole view of The First Law books hinges on Joe doing something a bit different with this latest trilogy. I swear if this book ends with Bayaz once again triumphant, no concessions made, the little people broken underneath his ageless heel then I will... still read any future books, but think less of their thematic ambition. honestly Bayaz isn't really triumphant right now, sure as far as we know his old enemy is dead but everything else is spinning rapidly out of his control and he can't keep magically radiation poisoning his way out of problems forever
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Sep 8, 2021 05:22
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Whatever, need to speed through this so we can get to book 7 and the Immortal Science of Brockism-Glotkism already.
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Sep 8, 2021 14:45
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Relevant Tangent posted:honestly Bayaz isn't really triumphant right now, sure as far as we know his old enemy is dead but everything else is spinning rapidly out of his control and he can't keep magically radiation poisoning his way out of problems forever Can't he, though? I'm not even sure if he needs the Union much these days, although it might hurt his pride and make him retaliate if there's a revolution. I thought it was mostly needed as a counterweight to the Gurkish, but they've imploded and the Prophet is dead, so Bayaz is free to potter about doing magical research or whatever he does.
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Sep 8, 2021 15:28
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He's got too much ego for that. He sees the Union as his home base that won't be in any danger because the bank is too entwined with everything there. Meanwhile he's spending his time dealing with issues on the frontier with border skirmishes concerning Zacharius and his new imperials. I think it's implied that his issues on the frontier are what caused all the other issues that were bubbling over at home to escape his notice. Yoru Sulfur is supposed to keep stuff under control in his absence but wasn't able to do much aside from be Orso's bodyguard and tutt disapprovingly when the battle was going on in The Trouble with Peace.
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Sep 8, 2021 20:27
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Eminent Domain posted:I feel like it is going to be a little different at least. Nice! If he buys it in any other way it'll be a let down.
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Sep 11, 2021 00:29
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Ccs posted:He's got too much ego for that. He sees the Union as his home base that won't be in any danger because the bank is too entwined with everything there. Meanwhile he's spending his time dealing with issues on the frontier with border skirmishes concerning Zacharius and his new imperials. Another thing to keep in mind is that Bayez likes a little chaos and things getting shaken up from a social Darwinism angle. Basically as long as things don't spin too out of control, he's fine if Calder invades the union's protectorate, or if the nobles engage in various plots against each other. I have a feeling the line is drawn when there's a full on civil war or revolt among the plebiscite. Even then, it doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to subvert whoever takes power once the dust settles.
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Sep 11, 2021 04:05
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The hopeful part of me believes that the "gently caress you, gently caress off" magic that Bayez can and has leveraged to end threats and bully the nobility would just piss off a sufficiently riled up mob.
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Sep 11, 2021 05:40
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The Wisdom of Crowds just released on Kindle/presumably other ebook platforms. Time to stay up late and power through it.
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Sep 14, 2021 05:19
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Ninurta posted:The Wisdom of Crowds just released on Kindle/presumably other ebook platforms. Time to stay up late and power through it. I've got thirty pages of Billy Summers left, then I'm going to find out just how much cocaine the characters can do before Bayaz transmutes them all into V&B promissory notes. Devorum fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 07:12
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Devorum posted:I've got thirty pages of Billy Summers left, then I'm going to find out just how much cocaine the characters can do before Bayaz transmutes them all into V&B promissory notes. Good news, one of the early chapter characters snorts some pearl dust before going out in Adua for revenge while the People's Army storms the Agriot.
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Sep 14, 2021 09:02
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Picked a good day to check back in on this thread and learn the new book was just released.
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Sep 14, 2021 12:44
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I stayed up and read it. I did not like it at all. Effortpost up once I’ve had some sleep, but I think it’s the worst of the six trilogy books.
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Sep 14, 2021 13:08
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Oh poo poo it’s out?
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Sep 14, 2021 13:43
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I finished it. My feelings are complicated. Gonna need some time to digest things.
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Sep 14, 2021 14:54
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Haven’t gotten very far, but my thoughts up until this point is that Joe Abercrombie has a really idealistic notion of what a revolution really looks like. If it were that easy to get soldiers to put down their weapons and not follow orders to fire on crowds, capitalism would have ceased to exist a long long time ago. Especially professional soldiers, who become attached to the ruling classes in interests, and even more so when those professional soldiers are attached to a long established social narrative like a monarchy. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 20:24
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not all that happy with how things ended up for a lot of characters but that's been a common enough theme for these books i enjoyed parts of it greatly, as i have with all of his books barring the YA novels, but i thought this one especially was a bit predictable for someone who's read his previous works. i feel like he kinda recycled the some of the plotlines from book 2 straight into book 3 and his theft of the joker's "you wanna know how i got these scars" into judge's "you know why they call me judge" bit was really just hamfisted and disappointing i guess it's nice that he set up more sequels but i'm seriously bummed i'll never get any more orso
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Sep 14, 2021 21:32
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ZombieLenin posted:Haven’t gotten very far, but my thoughts up until this point is that Joe Abercrombie has a really idealistic notion of what a revolution really looks like. If it were that easy to get soldiers to put down their weapons and not follow orders to fire on crowds, capitalism would have ceased to exist a long long time ago. you really havent gotten very far lol
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Sep 14, 2021 21:56
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loving Leo. Keeps falling up.
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Sep 14, 2021 23:12
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scary ghost dog posted:you really havent gotten very far lol Yeah, no I haven’t. It’s just the whole set of scenes with professional Union soldiers opening city the gates of Adua to let in a mass of revolutionaries, refusing orders to fire on said revolutionaries, then the kings own opening the gates of the Agriont, and also refusing orders to fire on the crowd, made me think… If only the world really worked like that, and professional volunteer soldiers could be almost universally be relied on to shoot down people in the streets…the world would be a much better place. Ad a trained political theorist and historian, it was just a totally unbelievable set of scenes for me.
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Sep 14, 2021 23:31
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ZombieLenin posted:Yeah, no I haven’t. It’s just the whole set of scenes with professional Union soldiers opening city the gates of Adua to let in a mass of revolutionaries, refusing orders to fire on said revolutionaries, then the kings own opening the gates of the Agriont, and also refusing orders to fire on the crowd, made me think… well, keep reading
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Sep 14, 2021 23:38
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Suxpool posted:not all that happy with how things ended up for a lot of characters but that's been a common enough theme for these books Deep down I knew Orso was gonna get got but man he gets just hosed. At least he went out razzing Leo, the fucker. Hildi will have her revenge.
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Sep 15, 2021 00:09
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First 50 pages are already crazy as hell, excited to read more once my kids have gone to bed.
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Sep 15, 2021 00:17
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Finished. I spent the last quarter expecting Bayaz to come gently caress everybody up since people kept mouthing off to him and not understanding what he is capable of, but Glokta threw me for a swerve. I’m glad that the last few chapters showed that the first magi is about to make things a whole lot worse.
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Sep 15, 2021 05:54
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Eminent Domain posted:Deep down I knew Orso was gonna get got but man he gets just hosed. At least he went out razzing Leo, the fucker. Hildi will have her revenge. Well if there’s one takeaway from all Abercrombie’s books it’s that revenge is cool and good with no drawbacks so I fully expect here to end up both victorious and utterly miserable.
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Sep 15, 2021 17:52
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Best book of the two trilogies imo. The Great Change has come Citizens and Citizenesses. Shame about all the bodies. All the things I want to talk about are spoilers tbh.
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Sep 15, 2021 22:31
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Promised effortpost. Caveat: Some of these criticisms are "this is bad" and some are "I did not like this", obviously the second set are completely subjective. 1. I'm really mad that Orso died, he deserved better, and I wanted him to end up with Savine and...I don't know, adopt children or something. Yes, I know, it's very funny that he says he hates hangings all the time, and then he gets hanged. My sides, they are splitting. And having all the other characters tell Rikki she was right, and her not really feeling that guilty about it, did not sit well with me. 2. Savine going from "I hate babies" to "OMG I love my babies" is a trope I detest. I'm aware it occasionally happens in real life also. (Also, I think doctors/midwives could usually tell when a woman was going to have twins? Not always, though) 3. The great change/reign of the Judge was pretty much paint by numbers French Revolution. There wasn't really anything added by having our characters in it. It was also not particularly different from the Valbeck section of the first book. 4. For all the warnings that were given about Bayaz would be back to collect on this or that debt that the characters were ignoring, he sure did a lot of Not Appearing. If there are further books, maybe that will be remedied. Really, without the secret war against the Prophet, Bayaz' whole Thing looks kind of pointless. Maybe he just gets bored. 4.5 Also, Valint and Balk has been built up as a terrifying tool of Bayaz but they've burned down three branches of it now and there's no real reprisal. I thought the manager, or the missing key, or the vault, would turn out to be important in some way, but they really didn't. 5. Broad and Clover really didn't do much that was interesting. 6. Leo is just a loathsome character, and he got almost everything he wanted, (in this book.) Abercrombie's other characters are usually either loathsome but complicated, or trying to redeem themselves, with mixed results, or...something. Leo has been racist, sexist, and homophobic the whole time, and it's just unpleasant to see someone like that have their plans succeed almost perfectly. Granted, he may have trouble in the future with Savine and her crowd, but with that exception, things work out Too Well for him, IMO 7. The House of the Maker has been lurking too much in the background to not have done something. It keeps being mentioned every time someone describes Adua. Maybe the Burners could have tried to break in and accidentally unleashed...something, add a little fantasy/horror element to the Hot Redhead Robespierre narrative. Really, I think the book was either too short or too long. Either the whole thing should have been the mob marching on Adua, discovering that Pike betrayed them, and eventually culminating with the mob taking the city, or else it should have gone past that, and gotten the Savine/Leo feud to some sort of stable equilibrium.
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Sep 16, 2021 05:41
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I just finished the latest book and thought he managed to thread the needle juuuust barely. I will say my views on Abercrombie have changed a bit after reading so much KJ Parker. Joe’s battle scenes no longer seem as impressive and his grasp of military technology and the conduct of the armed forces is more Prachett’s Watch than any studied historical depiction. But drat if he doesn’t write more entertaining books than anyone in the genre. Also will weigh in on my thoughts about more specifics of what happened in this book once I’ve had time to think it over.
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Sep 16, 2021 05:43
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Alright, some thoughts on the book... Abercrombie is my favorite fantasy author. I've read individual fantasy novels I've enjoyed more than The First Law but as a series this one is the most consistent out there in terms of delivering focused, entertaining narratives. The latest trilogy shows how much better he's gotten at that very task. A ton happens, it's basically a page turner from the start of A Little Hatred, there's a huge amount of characters he needs to keep track of and he manages it, and he continually surprises the reader. That said, his surprises in this book involve a lot of stuff that can annoy the reader. Orso getting offed, which I suppose is this trilogy's version of West dying. Gotta kill the most heroic character I guess. Bayaz always appearing in the places you don't expect, which is fun, but never in the place you want, which isn't. Yoru Sulfur getting torn apart in his place was satisfying, and these books are great about being 90% ordinary people doing monstrous things, lulling you into a false sense of security before the actual monsters show up. The supernatural being used sparingly makes it all the more satisfying when there is a big drag down Eater fight. But in the end Bayaz is safe, planning the next bit in his plot. I'll get back to his newest recruits and the vision Rikke has later. The little mentions throughout the book of the House of the Maker always remind you magic is a force in the world, to the point that you start to wonder if the weather is changing to punish Bayaz' enemies or make passage easier for his allies or if its all a coincidence. For all the subtle magic though there's a big "why does Yoru wait so long to try anything? Is he waiting for the paperwork to go through or something?" He can't find Pike and kill him to put a stop to Valint and Balk's destruction much earlier? Is he waiting specifically for a kind of peace to be restored before he does any killing, or just wants to confirm that Glokta is involved? Why? I know why, in the terms of how the narrative is structured and paced, but I don't buy it in terms of what these characters are actually capable of. Leo will be the most divisive part of this book for people I think (or maybe Zuri turning out to actually be an Eater. Though that was foreshadowed pretty hard. The equivocation about "eating people and exploiting people through capitalism, basically the same" felt a bit hollow. I know part of these books is always trying to point at magical power and economic power being two ways of acheiving the same ends, and maybe this is meant to strengthen that theme, but it felt more like "aw gently caress I've made the only major brown characters in my sort of progressive fantasy trilogy into cannibals, damnit... better cover with something about how cannibalism is just capitalism with less steps.") Anyway, Leo. gently caress that guy! He doesn't grow at all. Suffering does not humble him much, just exposes greater depths of being lovely with more forethought. But not enough, seeing how easily Savine outmaneuvers him at the end. Their relationship is meant to mirror the Jezal/Bayaz situation from the first books, two ppl who were allies but the former realizing where the real power lies by the end. And Savine even has a cadre of supernatural immortal people to back her up that Leo doesn't know about. The reader has to feel that Leo got some of what he deserved, crippled and in pain with a ruined marriage, but he's also alive, maybe able to come to terms with his latent homosexuality in the future, and able to be made as comfortable as possible with the power of the state. Finally there's Rikke. Is she the most heroic character of the bunch who remain alive at the end? Maybe. Things would end a bit too happy for her if not for her vision. That felt like it was put in both as a sequel hook and as a way to make her story not just conclude with everyone celebrating and thinking everything would be fine forever. The vision is its own can of worms. The most blatant sequel bait in the entire series and also something I'm not sure if Joe will ever write. I imagine he will write more First Law books down the line, he's only 46, maybe we'll see a new trilogy with Glustrod's return sometime in his 50s. Or the characters will band together to avert such a crisis, finally coming together for the common good like it seemed they were doing before Leo stabbed Forest. Too naive to expect anyone to believe the "common good" in the Abercrombie universe though. I might have more thoughts later about the french revolutions sections of the book. At least people were pushed off a tower and he didn't have one of the engineers literally invent the guillotine. Gotta file the serial numbers off a bit better than that.
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Sep 16, 2021 15:06
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Just finished it. So happy my boy Clover made it out So sad Orso had to go. His last line literally had me laughing out loud
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Sep 16, 2021 17:03
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I mostly enjoyed it but it probably was my least favorite of the main books. Orso was imo the most compelling character in this trilogy of books so having him spend the finale sidelined and then chumped was very unsatisfying. He was a major focus of the first two books only for his story to go nowhere in the third, and I think knowing that it'll be harder for me to enjoy a reread of this trilogy. I also felt this book was very predictable and kept expecting a big reveal like some of the LAoK scenes, but most of the twists (Rikke faked her fallouts with her allies, Leo is going to take power for himself rather than restore Orso, Pike's boss Glokta is the weaver) I saw coming a few chapters or more ahead. I saw a few people here say they didn't want to see another Bayaz master plan but I think this trilogy could have used more of him, although it seems like he's set up to start some trouble in book 7 at least.
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Sep 16, 2021 17:59
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He's said he wants to do a trilogy of trilogies for the setting with other books to flesh out parts of the world we wouldn't otherwise have access to so it wouldn't surprise me at all if he does three stand alone books like he did between the first trilogy and the second trilogy. Maybe we'll get some more info on the South or the Old Empire. At some point we're going to see Abercrombie write a train robbery set in the Far Country or the North and it is going to be really fun.
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Sep 16, 2021 18:05
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Relevant Tangent posted:He's said he wants to do a trilogy of trilogies for the setting with other books to flesh out parts of the world we wouldn't otherwise have access to so it wouldn't surprise me at all if he does three stand alone books like he did between the first trilogy and the second trilogy. Maybe we'll get some more info on the South or the Old Empire. At some point we're going to see Abercrombie write a train robbery set in the Far Country or the North and it is going to be really fun. That sounds good to me. Another 6 books would be enough to take him up to a comfortable retirement age (I mean I wish he'd release a book a year but realistically I doubt we'll see another for at least a couple.) If each trilogy was a book this one did feel like the "middle book" of a series. There weren't the magical pyrotechnics I'd expect of a "finale". The bit between Eaters was fun but it wasn't the giant gently caress off magical explosions we've come to expect in a finale. But the vision at the end sets up a bigger finale that's been hinted at with occasional bits and Glustrod and stuff about the door between worlds coming unstuck again because Bayaz used the Seed.
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Sep 16, 2021 18:12
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Interesting that pretty much everyone has the same feelings. Abercrombie's treatment of Orso was just mean. Faking out the reader multiple times with the escapes and potential opportunities was just a dick move, and frankly the way it ended up make me regret getting invested in the character. The big reveal with Glotka as the Weaver and the Eaters was super predictable. The only characters whose arcs I was remotely satisfied with were Vic and Clover. Those two felt about right. Otherwise all of the effort in making horrible characters horrible in a slightly different way just felt like a waste of time, and seeing Savine and Leo end up on top with no consequences (other than their relationship with each other) was appropriately nihilistic I guess, but in a really unsatisfying way. Even Rikka, who I liked at first, is just another flavor of awful after trading Orso for some vague promise by a guy she knows she can't trust. Abercrombie tried to make it seem like this noble, pragmatic move, but I thought it just made her character seem easily intimidated and a lot less likeable. All the big, bad, scheming masterminds were total letdowns. Calder was no real threat at all, and Bayaz was almost totally absent. Seemed really inconsistent with the tone set by the rest of the books, and makes characters like Bayaz a lot less interesting. I get that Sabine and Leo are supposed to be the real villains in the trilogy, but I think Abercrombie needed to do more with what he had already established, or at least made it relevant in some way. Pretty bummed honestly. The epilogue sets up some interesting things, but I find that either I'm not invested in or just flat out hate most of the characters left standing. Which is fine I suppose if they are relegated to background roles in upcoming books, but it's disappointing and makes me less eager to pick them up.
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Sep 17, 2021 04:15
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I don't understand what people thought was going to happen to Orso. Dude was a gormless idiot who kept trusting people. Rikke would've been an idiot to help him escape. The North can't handle a war with the Union now, and there's no amount of gratitude Orso could show that'd outweigh the expense of putting him back on the throne. The witch we see in the woods loving up the people from across the river, was that the witch who was with Fenris way back? Also Sabine isn't the villain, she's going to make the Great Change mean something. Her jackass husband is the only unambiguous villain.
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Sep 17, 2021 04:39
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Relevant Tangent posted:The witch we see in the woods loving up the people from across the river, was that the witch who was with Fenris way back? yes. in the original trilogy dogman, grim & dow sneak into carleon and dow splits her head with an axe. later in the current trilogy she tattoos the seal around rikke's eye up in the high places. i don't think its ever mentioned who sewed up her skull with golden thread and brought her back from the dead. my best guess would be one of the magi since every time we see her she seems to be on the opposite side of bayaz' schemes in the north.
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Sep 17, 2021 08:49
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if you regret getting invested in a character only to see him die then you're looking for plot armor, which to be fair is quite common in fantasy and scifi orso was a king during a revolution, that he was alive at all at the end of the book is a miracle rikke's betrayal was pragmatic. think about it. helping a deposed monarch escape so he can threaten to take back the throne? and meanwhile you're on a war footing with the union, after already having a massive civil war? how would that be a smart move?
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Sep 17, 2021 10:04
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i was expecting rikke to stupidly try to take over the union using orso as a puppet lol
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Sep 17, 2021 13:51
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So at the end the young swordsman is Calder or Scale’s bastard son? I really like the set up of “look, you’re already a promising swordsman. But do you want to get on too and stay there? Clover is the man to learn from”
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Sep 17, 2021 16:32
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I'm assuming it's Calders Son/Nephew/Grandson from his last comment to Rikke about "Oh, you don't see everything with your eye then" after she tells him his family has been extinguished.
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Sep 17, 2021 17:55
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Doctor Jeep posted:if you regret getting invested in a character only to see him die then you're looking for plot armor, which to be fair is quite common in fantasy and scifi The French Revolution analogue was shined on so hard that I was sure Orso wasn't going to make it out alive. It's the way that Abercrombie went out of his way to set him up again and again, only to have his whole arc over three books really amount to nothing and have no impact on the ending status quo. I mean, credit where credit is due - I'm sure that was 100% intentional and it definitely got a reaction out of me. Good job Joe. I just didn't enjoy the manipulation and subversion in this case.
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Sep 17, 2021 18:50
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