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KJ Parker is real good but I didn’t think he really had the goods yet in Fencer. Wasn’t until Engineer that he was able to truly gently caress over the reader with some revelations, and then he got really good with The Folding Knife before pulling back a bit. His recent stuff since Savages is positively lighthearted compared to early Parker. Also in the main fantasy thread we’ve been talking a lot about the Commonweal series which I think would appeal to Abercrombie fans for it’s crazy wizards and military tactics. Not as strong characterization though, everything is a bit opaque.
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Nov 2, 2021 01:48
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The Commonweal is amazing, though it's closer to what if magic was ubiquitous rather than Abercrombie's what if only the worst people had magic.
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Nov 2, 2021 01:53
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Yeah it reminds me a bit of Malazan in that magic is everywhere and also I have a hard time getting a grip on any of the characters. But it’s not as long as Malazan so an easier read. Aside from Abercrombie, Christopher Buehlman is probably my favourite fantasy author although his best books are categorized as horror. I don’t know if there’s that many similarities between the two authors though or if they’re both just really good in their own ways.
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Nov 2, 2021 03:08
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Ccs posted:Yeah it reminds me a bit of Malazan in that magic is everywhere and also I have a hard time getting a grip on any of the characters. But it’s not as long as Malazan so an easier read. For a long while, I had no interest in reading Buehlman after seeing that his most popular novels were about vampires, but The Blacktongue Thief is one of my favorite fantasy novels of the last decade. It is undoubtedly the most fun that I've had reading fantasy in a long time. He perfectly captured the right tone and humor while also consistently upping the stakes involved with each adventure. loving great book and I think most Abercrombie fans would really dig it. I may have to check out the Commonweal series. Malazan-lite seems right up my alley because I really wanted to like Malazan but it was just a bridge too far on the path of intentionally opaque fantasy bullshit.
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Nov 2, 2021 03:24
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loquacius posted:Two passages (spoilers obv) Ah right. Yeah, I guess I can see how you'd get that impression there, but I don't think it was intended that way.
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Nov 2, 2021 15:46
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Ccs posted:KJ Parker is real good but I didn’t think he really had the goods yet in Fencer. Wasn’t until Engineer that he was able to truly gently caress over the reader with some revelations, and then he got really good with The Folding Knife before pulling back a bit. His recent stuff since Savages is positively lighthearted compared to early Parker. I like all of those and I can see KJ Parker but otherwise why? Commonweal is centered around a weird world and a weirder communist society. It entirely lacks in cynicism. And Buehlman's probably strongest book is basically an entirely straight reading of Christian mythology. I really couldn't say if you'd like any of those if you like Abercrombie.
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Nov 2, 2021 17:21
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Buehlman cites Abercrombie as a major influence for his recent The Blacktongue Thief. The voice of the main character reminds me a lot of one of Abercrombie's characters. And his "Between Two Fires" has the kind of brutal battle scenes I think any Abercrombie fan would enjoy. Commonweal is more of a stretch. But the military stuff plus the powerful wizards of whom there are only a few (a lot of people have magic in that world but only a few are of legendary status) showing up to possibly help, possibly further their own plans gave me an Abercrombie vibe. But I haven't finished the first book and it definitely has its own thing going on.
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Nov 2, 2021 17:57
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Between two fires is amazing and makes me really want to see a remake of that old Microprose game Darklands.
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Nov 3, 2021 06:51
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Well, I really didn't think much of The Wisdom of Crowds. Firstly, I've read every other book this guys written and generally I think hes as good as fantasy writers working today get - but this was a real disappointment to end this trilogy on. First third of the book moved along quite well. Going from Valbeck to Adua in teleportation mode was disappointing, but I was happy enough to be getting to the meat of the story. Part 2 was tedious, belabouring the point with the show trials, Broad felt like deadweight at this point, absolutely pointless chapters. Part 3 was actually just disappointing if eventful. The North storyline was obvious right from the moment Rikke and The Nail have their lovers spat, successfully guessed where we were going with that and was disappointed to find no rug to be pulled out from under me. Calder having his little "you don't see everything" moment was an eyeroll. Oh that badass kid from the clover chapter earlier, cool. I like Rikke and Clover but both of their storylines feel entirely plot driven. Clover atleast gets to act in character. Leo has some of the most impactful chapters in the book, its just a shame about Leo. He's odious and fully fleshed out. Some of the best character writing in the book and I hate him. I feel similarly about Savine, atleast I found her perspective more interesting than her husbands. Glokta and Ardee having actually been plotting to put her on the throne all along felt like a bit of a weird cop out. It's basically too weird and convoluted and doesn't make any sense particularly after shes traumatised in Valbeck. You'd think her dad would have chewed out those Eaters that were supposed to be looking after her, eh, eh. And then taken her into custody if her royal blood was that big of a deal. It felt tacked on. I guessed the ishri/zuri thing in the first book, just from Savine being in slight awe of her all along. Also she gets nice descriptions of things she does a lot of the time. Glad Yoru got got in an apparent rare mistake on his behalf. You know, unless Bayaz had decided to get rid of him himself and sent him on a fools errand? Broads POV stopped feeling even slightly impactful once he took up with the burners. Then he basically just goes back to breaking strikes for the now Queen, awesome. Broad plays the role of the proto-policeman in this novel. Judge ended up being a nothing character - more like a reference to The Joker more than anything else, even had the "how she got the name" bit or whatever. Not good. Risinau, who had been the head of the inquisition in valbeck in a previous life was just a demagogue and nothing else. Completely empty stuff. Vick who I liked is basically led around by the nose for the duration of the novel, to the point where she gets to fully have her mindblown by Pike and Glokta. Where have my infamously cunning and ruthless bosses been all this time?? I also don't know Vick, controlling the narrative from off screen I guess? Her ending was appropriate at least, rejecting the power games and moving on. Gorst genuinely deserved better, he's been dicked around since the blade itself. He's sad, he's depressed and suicidal and bloodthirsty. I genuinely thought he and Broad would come to blows and we'd have a narrative conclusion to the character archetype abercrombies laid down for both of them, the big violence dude who also has feelings (See Logen). I really thought he and Broad would have some gross bloody close quarters fight (presumably amidst the confusion of battle) and Gorst might have had a good death, but no his death loving sucked rear end. The stupid loser deserved to have a good death, not the one "he wanted." Finally Orso. What a waste, easily the most enjoyable character in the book, the only guy whose even remotely competent or kind to any degree and he just gets dispensed with at the end. I had really hoped the orso and rikke storyline would culminate with her sending him to Styria with Shivers, wherein hi-jinks might ensue but that would have been too fun. Explaining it away as "rikke wants to score brownie points with leo" as her rationale is less fun than "rikke says gently caress leo and sends orso on his way, cos the long eye" which she already uses as a rationale a bunch despite it being true or not. I wanted adventures in Styria. Instead he spends most of the book rotting in his cell, barely does anything but chat with hildi. It builds up to his escape and then his next escape, and then his next escape and then he gets hosed over by rikke. It just felt like a waste having had two previous novels with him. We will look back on his chapters in this book as being Hildi chapters when the next book follows her winning the future for Bayaz. Tbh, Hildi being Savine 2.0/Daniel Plainview sounds boring to me, as does black haired emo super fighter northern kid, even if Clover gets to be his Mr. Miyagi. Abercrombies lost me a bit on this one, the whole book feels like Joes just been watching movies and brexit news coverage since the last one came out and a whole bunch of poo poo is stewing around in this novel. His personal nihilism precludes a coherent opinion on any of it. It feels so entirely plot driven that I feel like the sales figures for the previous two books in the series must have green lit another trilogy because I don't understand why we do a whole lot of maneuvering just to get to "in the next trilogy Bayaz and Hildi will destroy the world with magic trains". All that being said I did ofc read the book in a handful of sittings and very much enjoyed the writing and some of the dialogue was a lot of fun. He has a love of regional turns of phrase that I always I enjoy. I'll probably get the next book but thats years from now I'm sure.
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Jan 2, 2022 03:24
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Relevant Tangent posted:The Commonweal is amazing, though it's closer to what if magic was ubiquitous rather than Abercrombie's what if only the worst people had magic. Eh. I'm a big fan of the theme that just having magic powers would make you a terrible person, which I *think* is what Abercrombie's going for in a lot of his stuff. I'll always be of the opinion that Glenn Cook hit on that the best in the first couple of Black Company books, where the story was told from the perspective of normal-rear end people who were interacting with these terrifying, immortal super-sorcerers who had sacrificed their humanity for power and replaced their regular names with scary titles like "The Eater" and "Strombringer." To put it another way: I don't think the idea is that the worst people are the ones with magic/power. I think the idea is that having magic/power would inevitably make you a terrible person.
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Jan 2, 2022 05:43
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the idea that power is inherently corrupting is great for the people who have power because it encourages everyone else not to seize power and use it to do non-lovely things i also loved the black company books, though i think dread empire's fall is my favorite cook series
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Jan 2, 2022 05:52
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I felt like The Wisdom of Crowds was a good conclusion to the new trilogy - the revolution went by super fast as others had pointed out, but I read Abercrombie for the character writing, humor and emotional reactions he can get. Plots a distant 4th or 5th place concern for me. The reccomendations for K.J. Parker earlier in the thread got me curious and I checked out The Folding Knife from the local library and god-drat, what a gut punch. The book tells you right at the start how the story ends and it still hurts to get there.
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Jan 8, 2022 16:19
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I like the Abercrombie books less the more he moves away from the sword and sorcery genre. I liked the stand-alones, but this trilogy had very little magic. There has been less and less magic in each successive book, which I know is consistent with the setting. I realize that's a bit of a silly reason to enjoy a book less, as I enjoy plenty of low fantasy and historic fiction books. I was annoyed by the lack of development concerning Bayaz and all the other magical stuff behind the scenes to do with the Maker and the Eaters, which seems it would be really interesting. There are other things too, like the characters being less developed. Too many storylines split the focus.
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Jan 9, 2022 00:50
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There'll probably be more magic in the future books, considering.
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Jan 9, 2022 01:36
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BananaNutkins posted:I like the Abercrombie books less the more he moves away from the sword and sorcery genre. I liked the stand-alones, but this trilogy had very little magic. There has been less and less magic in each successive book, which I know is consistent with the setting. Yeah I would have rather seen more of that than this revolution stuff. It just wasn't very good and while I've read all the other books multiple times I don't think I will re-read this trilogy.
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Jan 9, 2022 09:21
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To be fair to Joe, he doesn't sell his books on the promise of rainbows and unicorns.
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Jan 11, 2022 14:40
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Eminent Domain posted:I feel like it is going to be a little different at least. Lol
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Feb 6, 2022 01:31
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Harton posted:Lol Yeah I should have known better
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Feb 6, 2022 03:09
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Abercrombie subverts expectations I suppose. I went into this series thinking It would be the one where Bayaz meets his end or at least gets some comeuppance……….well gently caress I guess that happens because by the end he loses literally all the influence he had and all he plans get hosed……but Abercrombie did it in a way that left me completely disappointed Overall I enjoyed it and I’m glad it seems like we’re gonna get more.
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Feb 6, 2022 17:06
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gently caress Bayaz! Wait no not like that!
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Feb 6, 2022 17:07
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We might get more books, but I don't think there's any specifics plans or anything?
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Feb 6, 2022 18:40
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Crespolini posted:We might get more books, but I don't think there's any specifics plans or anything? I thought he said he intended for there to be three trilogies, so we should for sure be getting at least three more mainline novels. He seems to work pretty fast, so hopefully not too long of a wait (unless he needs more time to come up with good ideas, then i hope he does that)
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Feb 6, 2022 18:57
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The flashforward at the end is a naked sequel hook, there's absolutely going to be another series in the works
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Feb 6, 2022 18:58
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Ainsley McTree posted:I thought he said he intended for there to be three trilogies, so we should for sure be getting at least three more mainline novels. He seems to work pretty fast, so hopefully not too long of a wait (unless he needs more time to come up with good ideas, then i hope he does that) Unless he decides to write all three in one go again.
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Feb 6, 2022 19:00
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Ainsley McTree posted:I thought he said he intended for there to be three trilogies, so we should for sure be getting at least three more mainline novels. He seems to work pretty fast, so hopefully not too long of a wait (unless he needs more time to come up with good ideas, then i hope he does that) Oh cool. I just saw he was working on another series now about devils or something. Like not in the first law world.
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Feb 6, 2022 22:07
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If the rate of technological development and social change keeps steady I look forward to seeing the next books open with Bayaz inventing the atomic bomb and end with him getting thrown into a reactor shaft on the rebuilt Death Star.
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Feb 6, 2022 23:43
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BananaNutkins posted:I like the Abercrombie books less the more he moves away from the sword and sorcery genre. I liked the stand-alones, but this trilogy had very little magic. There has been less and less magic in each successive book, which I know is consistent with the setting. My frustration is more that I enjoyed his writing style a *lot* with the standalone books (really think he hit his stride with The Heroes), and with the new trilogy he seems to have trimmed a lot, with minimalist descriptions and more rough-sketch characters. He cut out a lot of elaborate, flowery, prose, and damnit, I was enjoying that flowery prose! And completely agree with you that there's too much vague teasing without enough payoff in the recent trilogy and there needs to be more magic poo poo/hints of it. This is a world where there's an elaborate magical meta-story going on behind the scenes, and I understand that it would ruin it to just outright explain that meta-story, but we didn't get nearly enough glimpses or at least clues about it in the recent three books. It was really disappointing on several fronts.
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Feb 7, 2022 04:58
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The trilogy of trilogies is only a theory, plus if that is what he's doing up next is three stand-alone novels set in the same world as an interstitial. He also wrote the YA Half A World trilogy in between trilogies and in general seemed a little burned out on the Circle of the World setting (imo) at the end of the last book.
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Feb 7, 2022 05:14
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Relevant Tangent posted:The trilogy of trilogies is only a theory, plus if that is what he's doing up next is three stand-alone novels set in the same world as an interstitial. He also wrote the YA Half A World trilogy in between trilogies and in general seemed a little burned out on the Circle of the World setting (imo) at the end of the last book. The Half of the World Series was labeled YA, but was as nasty and brutal as anything else he’s ever written. I was literally scratching my head when I read those books—not because they were bad, they were good, but rather because the YA label made no sense to me. The only “difference” I could see between that series and his other books was there wasn’t any sex.
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Feb 9, 2022 16:34
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ZombieLenin posted:The Half of the World Series was labeled YA, but was as nasty and brutal as anything else he’s ever written. I was literally scratching my head when I read those books—not because they were bad, they were good, but rather because the YA label made no sense to me. I think there was actually, wasn’t there? Nothing as graphic as anything in first law, but I have a distinct memory of reading a sex scene on a train and worrying about being judged
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Feb 9, 2022 17:10
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They were YA in the sense that he glossed over stuff he'd have described with upsetting detail in one of the first law books.
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Feb 9, 2022 17:19
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I recall him doing the fakeout sex scene he did with Monza and Shivers again but more chaste? Anyway the thing that really made it YA was the happy ending imo, they shoved that genie all the way back in the bottle at end after what really should have started a new age of warfare with the weapons of the past
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Feb 9, 2022 17:20
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No Dignity posted:I recall him doing the fakeout sex scene he did with Monza and Shivers again but more chaste? I think it was something like that yeah; we were supposed to think that the male and female lead were loving each other but syke, it's drama It was probably more of a fade to black thing than I'm remembering, I think I just got my hackles up because I was reading in public and I know how his scenes usually go
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Feb 9, 2022 17:25
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The protagonists were younger, so I guess they figured it'd do better as YA.
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Feb 9, 2022 18:46
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I'm reminded of how Terry Pratchett said something about the only thing that made his YA books YA was the age of the protagonists and language being a bit more straightforward but otherwise changing little about the content.
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Feb 9, 2022 20:39
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zerofiend posted:I'm reminded of how Terry Pratchett said something about the only thing that made his YA books YA was the age of the protagonists and language being a bit more straightforward but otherwise changing little about the content. Well, he took out the jokes too
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Feb 9, 2022 21:00
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No Dignity posted:The flashforward at the end is a naked sequel hook, there's absolutely going to be another series in the works If I'm being honest, that bit at the end was probably my favorite chunk of the book. Bayaz's plans going to poo poo has him pissed off, and now he's in the lab tinkering with poo poo he shouldn't touch.
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Feb 9, 2022 22:12
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Hughmoris posted:If I'm being honest, that bit at the end was probably my favorite chunk of the book. Bayaz's plans going to poo poo has him pissed off, and now he's in the lab tinkering with poo poo he shouldn't touch. There was a distinct lack of sauce in the last trilogy imo, give me that high fantasy intruding on the early modern world again
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Feb 9, 2022 22:31
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No Dignity posted:Well, he took out the jokes too Tiffany Aching has plenty of jokes. They're just not funny.
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Feb 10, 2022 02:46
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About two thirds through best served cold, not really feeling it as much. Like BananaNutkins I like at least a little magic happening, so it's definitely partly that, but do all his books continue the very gritty, nothing good ever happens line? Is best served cold just kind of a low point in the series? I was digging it at the start, but almost in tune with Monza's growing distaste for her own revenge the book has gotten less interesting, like yup, she did that, and is still working on it.
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Feb 14, 2022 20:00
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