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Just finished the First Law trilogy. Holy poo poo that ate into my time, it's been a while since I read a book that flowed so well on the strength of its prose.Pimpmust posted:The first book IS mostly set-up, and reads like an extended chapter 1/prologue of some other fantasy series. Wizard gets the band together and- To Be Continued. The 500 pages is mostly made up of character building through a series of set piece fights/action scenes (Ninefingers whole backstory presentation was pretty well done actually). I'm really confused by all the people who keep saying Glokta is likeable. I'd say he's maybe verging on it at times, but never quite gets there. His wrap-up, I think, really seals this - he's finally put in a position of real power, where he can possibly make some choices that aren't completely terrible, maybe try to limit the suffering he causes to what is necessary. But for all the rationalizations of "not having a choice", his torturing of Sult just for the fun of it is, I think, a final moral resignation. He's admitting that he actually likes making people suffer and he is an evil bastard through and through. Also, yeah, treatment of women. In the trilogy on the whole it's kind of hosed up, but Glokta pretty much raping the Queen by proxy was one of the nastier things I've read, even for all the other horrible poo poo he did. Especially since Jezal didn't want to force himself on her, even not knowing she was a lesbian, but ends up unwittingly traumatizing the poor girl, thinking he's finally found a connection. Ugh. Seriously, the dude is one of the more despicable characters in fantasy. Well, eclipsed by Bayaz.
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Dec 20, 2012 12:21
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Zeitgueist posted:People have a strong tendency to lionize the protagonists in fiction, no matter how hard the creators try to make it not happen. Chalk it up to training from most of fiction, I guess, where the you usually can. I think the key bit that throws me off here is that Glokta's chapters are full of rationalizations, and what he does is more repulsive because it takes time and determination. Maybe it's because I'm relatively fresh from reading The Collector - that book has a protagonist who's a literal psychopath and it really delves into the initially convincing rationalizations he can offer to himself. Glokta really reminds me of a more intelligent, restrained version of that guy. Every time he does something completely horrible, he pretend-reflects on it by basically saying he has no choice, everyone does what they have to and so on. Given his backstory, I kept interpreting the character as essentially a malignant narcissist who was deprived of the opportunity to feel good about himself. I have to admit he's incredibly well-written though, you keep getting drawn into feeling like maybe there is some redemption around the corner and NOPE. Making the reader buy into the lies Glokta tells himself is some drat good writing, but after you put the book down, the only sympathetic bit is how much he suffers. Logen is a different story mainly because he obviously has a genuine psychotic mental illness that he can't cope with worth poo poo and he kind of blunders into doing things he regrets because he's a weak person. Sure, neither of them is a good man by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't find any shred of humanity in Glokta that isn't just self-deception.
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Dec 20, 2012 21:13
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What the hell is wrong with cutout genre characters that aren't like real people, anyway? There's a reason there's so many of them around, and have been forever, and it's because people find certain larger-than-life types in stories compelling. Yes, ultimately Glokta is a pile of archetypes mashed together, with maybe some novel combinations and flourishes from the author. However, he works because he's just well-written, with a good balance between horrible, witty and pitiable. Abercrombie is not as clever or innovative as some people make him out to be, but he is an excellent craftsman and makes the normally insufferable "cynical, bitter and sarcastic" character fun to read. Same goes for the other books. The Heroes is an absolutely by the numbers war story, more an homage to the genre than any attempt to push it forward. It's still loving excellent simply because Abercrombie writes fantastic action scenes and the characters' internal monologue is always entertaining, with a distinctive voice, internally consistent motivations and entirely plausible human concerns. Except in obviously exaggerated caricature, but that's a perfectly legitimate form of expression.
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Jun 13, 2018 23:35
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:We've entered the nihilistic "it doesn't matter if it's well written or not" phase. I'm saying it is in fact well written, and whether or not the characters are archetypes (or whether it's original or derivative in other respects) is completely orthogonal to that. Abercrombie's prose, as in the nuts-and-bolts craftsmanship of the choice of words and flow of the sentences, is very good. Of course you're going to respond with "no it isn't" but that's a matter of taste. And yes of course it doesn't stand up to masterpieces of literary fiction, it's a grimdark adventure novel. All you're doing is pointing at genre fiction, y'know, entertainment, and going "this is poo poo because it doesn't aim to comment on the zeitgeist and advance the literary arts". Basically, if you'll excuse the poor analogy, the equivalent of looking at a good pizza and saying "well this is a completely terrible salad". No worries, I did the same thing as a first year English Lit student, everyone goes through that phase before they realize they're being a pretentious twat and it's OK to read some books for intellectual stimulation and others to have a good time turning pages and finding out what happens next 
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Jun 14, 2018 08:44
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Honestly I disagree a lot with this notion that's often applied to fictional characters that caring about their loved ones is a redeeming feature or a measure of human decency. Everyone except complete psychopaths cares about their loved ones, the measure of human decency in the real world is whether you give a gently caress about other people than just your closest friends and family. Fictional characters can be completely horrible and still be interesting and charismatic, you don't have to look for every sign that maybe they're not that bad.
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Oct 23, 2019 18:03
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BananaNutkins posted:
No, not showing it was the right call. We don't need to see Leo spew homophobic insults while suppressing a boner for that whole situation to be the point where he becomes fully unsympathetic in his prejudice and total lack of self-awareness. It works better when skipped because we can very easily imagine it and it's bad enough.
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Nov 11, 2020 11:40
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His Divine Shadow posted:I also imagined the original bunch of Logens follower all as 20 years older than they where with a lot of grey, except shivers, so I had to revise that downwards after reading further books and seeing they couldn't be that old yet. Same here. I think it's due to their attitudes, Northerners just act older. If you're a Named.Man then it seems like world-weary folk-philosophizing and nodding sagely are a cultural expectation It's pretty cool and unique.
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Dec 14, 2020 08:29
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Not far into The Wisdom of Crowds and I'm finding it pretty disappointing. Sure, the book deals with the lovely aspects of revolution, but besides the satire being incredibly on the nose, it feels like the characters are just enacting the historical revolution playbook as if they're aware of it. Like, this is supposed to be the first one in their world, and they're already getting paranoid about counterrevolutionary threat before one has actually manifested, etc. If you read about the story of the French Revolution, it's fascinating because nobody involved had any idea what they were doing or what would happen tomorrow. They started off enthusiastic and full of hope, and the problems all crept up on them gradually until they turned into the Terror, the reaction and then bonapartism. It was to be a template for many revolutions to come, but at the time it was new territory for them. You don't get that sense here at all. It's like they all have a blueprint in their heads for "this is what a revolution looks like" despite being in the first one ever. It's somehow... rote. I hope it gets better later, maybe?
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Oct 17, 2021 18:30
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Monica Bellucci posted:Oh, have y'all read The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman? Y'should. I liked it a whole lot. It's just that one step less grimdark than Abercrombie's work and that's the sweet spot to me. The world sucks a lot but people can still choose basic decency and not always fail and get punished.
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Apr 18, 2024 08:00
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