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anathenema posted:I accepted it because I loved the characters so much, but there was a distinct sense of unease throughout Best Served Cold in that it felt like everyone was taking the low road not out of a sense of practicality or comfort, as was the case in The First Law, but just out of a desire to be dark. Don't forget that the ending of BSC is the "happy end", he says he has toyed around with far more depressing stuff early on. Guy has a twisted sense of humor. 
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Apr 25, 2010 16:47
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Evfedu posted:I know it's a bit Out There to draw the comparison, but I think that Abercrombie has a bit of Pratchett in him with the whole shamefully well plotted books with a somewhat similar cast of characters in an increasingly well-drawn world. Try one of the Sam Vimes books if you haven't (good place to start probably being somewhere like Feet of Clay or Men at Arms). I don't think it is Out There at all. Abercrombie seems a lot like a much darker Terry Pratchett in his writing, also he seems to have a pretty similar personality and look on life as Sir Pratchett judging from his online posts, forum participations and interviews. Joshtafari posted:Abercrombie will have a short story in the anthology 'Swords and Dark Magic' coming out in a couple of weeks for those in need of a fix before 'Heroes' comes out, along with some other unknowns like Michael Moorcock and Glen Cook. Thanks a lot for the link, 10 seconds later I had it on my Kindle. Gotta love the Brave New World we're living in .
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Jun 25, 2010 06:15
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Joshtafari posted:I just read the story yesterday. It's a nice little story about a band of misfits in the North. Curious to know if the characters are going to be featured in 'The Heroes', or if this story will have no bearing on the new book. It's relatively short (27 pages), so I'm not sure it's worth picking the book up unless you are interested in some of the other authors, too. Yes, most of the authors of the collection are onex I'm quite fond of, so even with the rather short Abercrombie story (which is pretty good regardless of length) I'm quite happy with it, and glad for the link. Decius fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Jun 26, 2010 |
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Jun 26, 2010 07:43
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Hughmoris posted:Well, that sucks a donkey dick. I'm rather glad. Either he gets his own book or we never see him again would be the two options I'd like to see for him. I don't think being a side character in a book would the rest of his story justice.
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Sep 24, 2010 05:59
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Greenlit posted:I tried, but couldn't get terribly far into it. Couldn't find a single character to empathize with, and the juvenile dialog gave me loving headaches. It's not bad at all in my opinion, but it's quite a bit below his Takeshi Kovacs stuff. He tries a bit too hard to subvert the genre conventions and it shows. It seems a bit forced at times, which is too bad, because the premise is quite good. I like it overall, but it's not a "would sacrifice my firstborn to get an ARC" like Abercrombie, Erikson, Butcher or Bakker (or even his Takeshi Kovacs books) for me. I always found Glen Cook's Black Company as something people who enjoyed Abercrombie (and Bakker, Erikson and similars) like when I suggest it. Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun too, although it's quite a bit different in style and theme. Decius fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Nov 16, 2010 |
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Nov 16, 2010 13:27
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Regarding who is happy at the end of The First Law: Bayaz seems reasonably happy, since everything went his way and then some.
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Jan 11, 2011 10:48
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IRQ posted:I am suddenly a million less times pumped for The Heroes Why? If anything Ninefingers deserves his own book focused on him, not being some background/secondary/ensemble character in a book focused on something completely different. This works for Shivers - or even Bayaz as mover of pieces - very well, but for Ninefingers? He deserves better. And anyway, Ninefingers or not, the book is bloody amazing and there are more than enough people to bring the crazy Northener (and Southener). Decius fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Jan 30, 2011 |
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Jan 30, 2011 17:40
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Plucky Brit posted:
He doesn't. Don't forget that the whole business in Styria went completely contrary to what he wanted. And even in TFL not everything went according to his plan.
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Feb 4, 2011 12:04
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Destro posted:Heroes talk here I thought the book was OK, but it was very one dimensional and I got tired of hearing Craw talk about straight edge, and the Northmen playing the stereotypical part. As well as seeing more incompetence from the Union, both of which have already been done over and over again in the other books. Someone posted an amazon review earlier in this thread, and it kind of hits the nail on the head. I think Joe could have done more with this if it was a longer period than 3 days. 3 days is not enough time to give anyone character development, except maybe Calder, but he didn't change all that much, killing Tenways, and Reachey after the battle. Too bad about Bremer too, should of stayed in the North. I'm really more interested in the Prophet and Bayaz conflict, so far we don't know anything about the Prophet, so there is some unexplored ground yet for Joe to cover. I thought the characters very well done, although I didn't care for Craw and Bremer's inner whining was annoying (but that was probably a bit of the point). He even managed to make me feel sorry for Black Dow. And for incompetence - we have seen just as much from the Northerners too. And incompetence or not, the Union was the clear winner in the settlement compared to the North - but of course Bayaz was the main reason for this and the main winner of the whole thing (as usual except BSC). Decius fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Feb 9, 2011 |
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Feb 9, 2011 15:40
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Jekub posted:Drunk, and busy with a prostitute prior to getting knocked out, and not for the first time. At least according to bust up at the end with the young lady who's name I've forgotten. I loved that bit, for all his anger and resentment he was as much to blame as anyone. Finree, who was probably my favourite in the book next to (Black) Calder. Balls of Steel, standing up to and teasing Bayaz, who she knew was the most powerful man in the Union. Repeatedly. But also getting stumped by an idiot like Meed, showing that she isn't always as clever and subtle as she thinks she is (an issue I sometimes have with scheming characters is that they are too perfect at their craft). Decius fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Feb 9, 2011 |
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Feb 9, 2011 16:02
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savinhill posted:There was some foreshadowing, such as Stranger Who Comes supporting Calder for no good reason, Bayaz sending his his assistant out for mysterious purposes during the battle, and during one of the Union meetings Bayaz's assistant whispering to him and Bayaz being happy about what he said. Also the frequent instances where Calder thought he just got lucky throughout the three days. Calder was just one contingency plan, I'm sure Bayaz would have preferred an outright victory of the Union, but it worked out well enough for him. And yeah, I'm also sure he would have had a few other irons in the fire if Calder would have been killed, but Calder - at least outwardly - was the easiest to bend to his wishes.
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Feb 10, 2011 07:30
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KillRoy posted:Where were all the Shanka? I kept expecting them to show up at some point. Far to the north, while the battle was very much in the south of the Northlands. Not much reason for them to show up just yet, although I'm sure we will see them again in a later book.
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Feb 19, 2011 08:51
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Bummey posted:Adrian Tchaikovsky has planes and (simple) guns and poo poo in his series and it works very well. Paul Kearney's Monarchies of God are also set in a 1500-1600 world, with muzzle-loading smoothbores. Works without a problem. I get actually a bit annoyed that usually Fantasy means you either have to be stuck in a 8-11th century (European) world or in a contemporary world*. Put it into the 15th to early 20th century and I'm twice as eager to read it. Same with Pre-Medieval stuff (Butcher's Codex Alera for example). *I'm not a fan of about 90 % of the Steampunk stuff put out either (Felix Gilman, Vandermeer and Miéville are pretty much the only ones I read. Oh, and Westerfeld's Leviathan recently) Decius fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Mar 5, 2011 |
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Mar 5, 2011 08:09
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Both write very good prose (although Rothfuss' subject he writes about is often very cringeworthy, like all things involving women and sex), but Rothfuss main character(s) are far more accessible - not better mind you, but Abercrombie's protagonists tend to be hard to stomach at times even for me who loves flawed people.
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Mar 28, 2011 14:10
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hellvis454 posted:I just started with Joe Abercrombie after reading (and giving up) 3000+ pages of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. As long as you don't throw the books away again if you are disappointed. 
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May 6, 2011 10:05
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I liked it, especially the ending and the climax. It's more ... shallow... than usually, with things seeming more brisk, scene after scene and less in-depth than the other books, but it's a shortish YA novel after all. Still, delightfully grey characters, good scenes, lots of senseless death and destruction, resulting in no change at all for the commoner except more dead people, bleak as ever.
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Jul 12, 2014 18:05
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Finished Half a War and overall liked it a lot. Some scenes and story turns were a bit too predictable - others very much contrary to what you'd expect from YA fantasy (or in most media today - answering the question if to keep the baby or not with choosing abortion), but in general the story moved to a nice and not necessarily very expected conclusion, with giving me both good and bad feelings towards were protagonists (and former protagonists) end up. As usual for Abercrombie, it's not really a happy end, but compared to his other books it's quite happy-ish for the most part. Also, there is an absolutely amazing combat/siege scene in it, that both made me gleeful and horrified. Decius fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jul 19, 2015 |
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Jul 19, 2015 16:40
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Half a War: Yarvi has only very few of Bayaz characteristics, as evidenced by his "half a shoulder in the light" dialogue near the end, and he can't really end anywhere near Bayaz and his machinations simply because he is not immortal and the elf-weapons run out of ammo (although that can be solved by sending some thrall-suicide commandos into Stokholm). He's also not a shadow power, but a open one, and one that's not even free of being beholden to another. If you want to compare him, then he's more like what Glokta would be (if there was no Bayaz calling the shots). Which brings us to Skara, who has basically nothing of Monza, and ends up ruling over Yarvi - or at least as equal - if anything. The only thing they really have in common is that they are women in power and have given up a lower-class not very bright lover. Raith isn't anywhere Shiver was emotionally either. He has made his peace with the past. Same with Thorn, who ends up nowhere where Ferro does, Thorn had her revenge, she's doing what Rulf was doing before - being a Viking captain. Honestly I think you're really reaching with trying to make comparisons with the characters of other books. The gift to Thorn doesn't have any relevance - it's simply a shiny, useless bauble, the Apple Watch of 2100. Also, it was mentioned several times as mood indicator for Thorn. The death of Brand and Uthil wasn't glanced over at all, it was given pretty big room considering there was a war going on. Also, Uthil's death was something that you really could see from a mile away, that's something that bothered me a bit. The thing that made least sense for me was simple: Bright should have bottled up the two kings and the queen with their army with his 10000 men and then should have taken the other 40000 men and conquer their kingdoms, while they sit and look on helplessly until they surrender (looted grenade launchers aside). Breaking a siege at any costs makes sense if you expect a relief army coming for you, but if you outnumber your enemy 5:1 globally? You don't need to hurry. Decius fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Jul 20, 2015 |
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Jul 20, 2015 06:17
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hemale in pain posted:The first book really is excellent but the second is just awful garbage. I'm not even going to try the third. And outside of Internet hyperbole, where everything is either the best thing ever or complete trash, the first books is outstanding, the second is just good (one half) to mediocre (other half), but overall a disappointment, the third is again better, but never reaches how well written the first was. The fourth might be out around 2020. Probably. Decius fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Oct 15, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 13:37
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