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I kept waiting for Ninefingers to show up in The Heroes and during that last scene with Calder I thought he would definitely make an appearance, but it turned out to just be more of Bayaz's maneuverings. So is Ninefingers really dead, or do we not know that yet? Anyway Abercrombie is a great writer, so much less pretentious in his style than many fantasy authors. Ccs fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Aug 13, 2011 |
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Aug 13, 2011 15:41
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drat, I never even thought of Bayaz being an eater but rereading that it makes sense. Goddamn, that means he's basically as bad as Khalul, except he doesn't make actual slaves out of people (just technical ones). That theory about him being Glustrod doesn't actually seem so far fetched now.
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Sep 11, 2011 22:01
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Kinda confused at the reactions to Red Country here. I thought it was great, less important plot wise as far as Abercrombie's world goes compared to Best Served Cold and The Heroes, but with a lot of heart. I really enjoyed Temple and Shy's characters. And it was great seeing what happened to Logen. Looking forward to Abercrombie's next book as always.
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Feb 12, 2013 05:08
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Sweet, that's a much better cover than the covers his recent books have been getting, which are just meaty arms holding swords. I liked the original covers for the First Law trilogy, which were maps with swords and coins and stuff spread out on them. But now they've been replaced with meaty rim-lit beef arms.
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Jul 8, 2014 18:09
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I think he teaches Jezal all that so Jezal will act as a good king towards the people. Bayaz knows he needs to keep the people believing in their ruler, and he wants to create good rulers, but have subtle control over all the major decisions in the background. The first king he trained went down in history as a legend, and he wants to repeat that, while guiding the Union from the shadows.
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Sep 23, 2014 23:48
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The "Kvothe" nonsense has lots of fans though, including culture-shaper Lin Manuel Miranda. I also like Rothfuss' books up until people here pointed out how much weirdness is going on with them, but I still enjoyed reading them and will enjoy the third one. A mini series for Best Served Cold would be great.
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Dec 22, 2016 00:19
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I'm reading the Shattered Sea books and they're not that much different from Abercrombie's other stuff. I expected he would have watered down his content a lot, like how China Mieville does when he writes young-adult, but the only difference seems to be the main character are younger than in The First Law.
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Jun 8, 2017 01:32
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I'm rereading The First Law and it just sucks so much when it's revealed Bayaz killed Juvens and Tolomei. And then Yulwei dies, the last Magi who's not a total bastard. sigh Great book, but once that happens Bayaz becomes a bigger villain that Khalul.
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Jun 25, 2017 04:28
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Didn't Jezal lose some of his teeth from that encounter? He never really mentions it for the rest of the series, whereas Glokta is always bothering about his lost teeth. Didn't seem like Bayaz would want the new king to have a disfigured face.
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Jun 28, 2017 01:13
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Amazon is doing LotR, some network has Rothfuss' nonsense, HBO has its dragons, who else is looking for a fantasy series? I always picture fantasy series working best as animation, done by some master like Mahiro Maeda or Watanabe.
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Mar 5, 2018 23:01
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Here's the guy who says he snapped the photos of The First Law pre-production at Sony, with the photos. Pretty funny if these are real and he was able to just take them at night: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/7pmnao/possible_proof_of_the_blade_itself_tvfilm/ https://imgur.com/gallery/P5gyS
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Mar 6, 2018 04:31
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Have Kalul actually appear would be weird but interesting. I gotta wonder whether he actually believes in God or, like Bayaz, is just an opportunist using everything at his disposal.
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Mar 6, 2018 22:27
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They could be something the Maker made, so they just seem magical compared to other weapons (dunno, haven't read that collection in a while.) I didn't really like the Javre stories much, they felt too out of place for Abercrombie's world. Though he does like experimenting with other genres, it felt like it was breaking too much into parody of fantasy.
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May 24, 2018 03:23
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Considering how weak the magi are I don't see how there could be a bunch of other wizards out there making magical artifacts. Bayaz sets some trees on fire and nearly faints, and he's the best of the bunch. The magic is leaking out of the world, and there's hardly any way to connect to the source except through the Seed, or by breaking the second law. So maybe the Templar swords were made by Glustrod or Euz. Leftovers from the great war that destroyed that city in the second book whose name I cant remember.
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May 31, 2018 03:05
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:What is this "novel" something then? Presenting the archetypes of a typical fantasy and then showing that those people are not what they seem. It's a tried and true narrative technique, sure, but it hadn't been done in the fantasy genre before Abercrombie. Though if you have other examples I'd like to read them.
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Jun 11, 2018 00:41
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:None of that "subverts expectations". The story is presented in such a cynical manner that nobody expects good to triumph and evil to be defeated. I did. I really liked Bayaz up until the last book. I thought he was a bit flawed and tempermental but was generally heroic, and that maybe he had abandoned the Union because of how corrupt it was getting. I didn't see the Valint and Balk twist coming until late in the 2nd book. Maybe I'm just slow. But I think part of why Bayaz's reveal is so satisfying is because he does subvert expectations. He doesn't truly cross the pale until he leaves Yulwei to die and then it's like "Oh, okay this guy is actually an awful bastard."
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Jun 11, 2018 23:44
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I don't think he did that to be subversive. He did it because Shivers has seen so much poo poo since his last run in with Logen that it's like, what's the point? At that point he's realized the futility of revenge, especially against someone who has attempted to start over. It's consistent with Shiver's world-weary character.
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Jun 13, 2018 03:13
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coolusername posted:
He marries Ardee and she seems to like him so he's got something besides the material.
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Jun 15, 2018 03:08
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Bravest of Lamps is good cause he stirs up debate in dead threads and makes me slightly reconsider books I otherwise uncritically enjoy. Even if he's just trolling it's still fun to discuss these books, and it's rare a real troll will be able to cite quotes the way BotL can.
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Jun 16, 2018 15:55
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Good news everyone!Joe Abercrombie posted:Looks very much as if the first book, A Little Hatred, will be published September 2019 in the UK and US, with the other two books, The Trouble With Peace, and The Beautiful Machine, following at beautifully regular and predictable one year intervals. This is the hope. No promises are made, of course. That would be MADNESS. We also hope that at least some of the key translations can be done in the meantime, so we can make that release date across a few different languages, which would be lovely. https://www.joeabercrombie.com/2018/06/29/progress-report-june-18/ It'll take place mostly in the Union and the North, so those of us hoping to see a bit more of Gurkhul will have to wait. Still, exciting news. Ccs fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jun 29, 2018 |
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Jun 29, 2018 22:42
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:So if these books are subversive, why do they feature a race of universally evil subhumans? Isn't that like the first thing you're expected to "subvert" if you're trying to avoid genre fantasy cliches? He sort of subverts a trope with the Shanka by not having them be the spawn the any great evil (like Melkor in LotR) but rather humanoid-hybrid creations made by an old recluse to use against his brother. They're the leftovers of one of these petty fights as opposed to footsoldiers in a great battle between good and evil.
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Jul 14, 2018 18:49
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Well gently caress a doodle doo I'm sorry it doesn't meet your qualifications of a worthy subversion.
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Jul 14, 2018 18:56
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packsmack posted:I'm re-reading heroes now because I read the link that was posted, before Botl resurrected the thread again, with Abercrombie discussing what he thought of each book. I forgot how big the cast was. It's kind of hilarious to me that this is supposed to be the most focused book. And it definitely is focused thematically. I'm liking how he is always bringing it back to being a hero and everything so far, but I'm afraid it's going to grow old as my read through progressrs, I'm only like 1/4 through right now. I remember liking The Heroes but the only characters I can remember from it are the ones also in the original trilogy. Most of the new characters he introduced didn't make much of a lasting impression.
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Jul 14, 2018 22:17
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:And he's a poor man's Švejk, which says it all. So do you only read unfinished novels or what? This, Man Without Qualities...
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Jul 15, 2018 19:55
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VagueRant posted:Yeah, I don't know, that's why I asked you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_%C5%A0vejk
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Jul 16, 2018 21:48
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Joe ragging on some authors and possibly himself. https://twitter.com/LordGrimdark/status/1026884136752037888
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Aug 7, 2018 21:31
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He just wrote a big takedown of Abercrombie’s books in the Bonfire of the Genresthread if you guys wanna read that. I’d say that Joe didn’t set out to write the first law out of a desire to subvert all fantasy tropes. He chose some to subvert and kept others that he liked or fit with the plot. The result is him writing a fantasy book to his tastes instead of a project that seeks to overturn all fantasy conventions forever.
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Aug 17, 2018 03:00
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VagueRant posted:I like that Joe realised the orcs in the original trilogy were a mistake and so never ever brought them up again. Or it’s just that the Skanka only add something to the story if the story is about stuff that Kanedias left lying around the world that cause trouble for everybody. The Divider, his possessed demon daughter, the Seed, and the shanka were all part of his legacy. The original trilogy put all that to rest so there’s not really a reason to show the Shanka again. Now it’s all gonna be about immortal wizards trying to harness new technologies to kill each other with. I’m actually not sure if I’m going to like the series as much without magic.
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Aug 17, 2018 22:22
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Bad covers, bad covers everywhere. Makes me appreciate how tasteful the first run of Joes book covers were when they first came out, before getting replaced with bad photoshop beefy arms like in that lot. The newest run of his books are back to good covers though.
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Oct 5, 2018 16:46
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See, even as parody covers they're still better than the photobashes.
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Oct 7, 2018 00:04
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Anyone subvert any tropes lately? Go tend to your Bonfire thread, it's languishing.
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Oct 30, 2018 18:50
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Awesome. Looking forward to seeing the interior of the Union again after so long on the outskirts.
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Nov 28, 2018 23:54
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Alright, a daughter of Glokta and Ardee. That should be fun, and a good way to address the issue of Ardee not having the ability to do much of anything in the first trilogy.
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Dec 4, 2018 18:17
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She won’t really have to claw her way there if she was already born at the top though. Hopefully she gets a great arc but Glokta had a much further way to climb.
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Dec 5, 2018 01:36
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He might still be able to reproduce but if he only has one kid it’s probably Jezals bastard since they likely wouldn’t abort it
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Dec 5, 2018 22:29
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Yeah anyone questioning whether the kid was his would probably be found face down by the docks in the river...
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Dec 6, 2018 04:47
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You can read the wiki but try not to spoil yourself. I really like the latter half of the third book. https://firstlaw.fandom.com/wiki/Last_Argument_of_Kings
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Apr 26, 2019 04:25
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UncleMonkey posted:It's already been made pretty clear that magic is disappearing from the world and the new age is the industrial revolution. I half expect that Bayaz and Khalul will fade away like forgotten relics. By The Heroes, isn't Bayaz pretty much fully invested in cannons? Like, that's his big plan? The First Law trilogy always felt to me like magic's last gasp, and the world is far better off for it. As much as it feels like a confrontation between Bayaz and Khalul has been building, it would also make sense to me (and at the same time be weirdly satisfying) if all of that ended in a whimper. Like, the war between the two of them has ultimately meant nothing and the world has just passed them by. They used to control through magic in the old times but as the world shifted and they were only left with immortality, they've pivoted their respective strategies to religious and economic control. Khalul has his religious empire and Bayaz has a modern-ish banking sector. Abercrombie clearly looked at what the two most successful forms of control in our modern world were and just picked those as the tools of his version of the illuminati. I'm not sure why Bayaz doesn't create an army of eaters the way Khalul does so he still has some magic at his disposal. He might see not breaking the second law as a symbol of his superiority. The fact that his favorite disciple, Yoru, became an eater anyway is just something he has to deal with instead of endorse. For people looking for something similar to Abercrombie to read before September, I just finished "The Scar" by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko. It was on a very similar wavelength to Abercrombie's writing, to the point that I would've sworn that he had read it before writing The Blade Itself, except that it wasn't translated into English until 2012 (it was originally published in Russian in 1997.) The character's arc is very similar to Jezal, but the authorial voice sounds a bit less cynical which helps it hit the lows and highs of Egert's arc more successfully than what Abercrombie does with Jezal. It's also got a sparing use of magic and lore, never letting them interfere with the importance of character moments. It's a stand-alone part of a tetralogy and it makes me really sad we probably won't get the other 3 books translated anytime soon.
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Jun 11, 2019 23:02
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There’s a review https://mobile.twitter.com/FanBooRev/status/1147851926505213952
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Jul 10, 2019 04:14
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I kinda like it, and ppl feel clever when they notice the obvious parallels btw history and the books. I kinda know what I’m getting with Abercrombie world wise, and if I want the weirder stuff I’ll go for Mieville.
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Nov 24, 2019 08:05
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