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I really hope he writes a book or two that delves more into the magic system he made. That scene where Bayaz loses control on the way to get the seed and reality starts warping was one of the most potent moments of "holy gently caress that's cool" I've ever read in a book.
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Aug 12, 2011 00:36
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Clinton1011 posted:I hope you are going to pick up Best Served Cold next, then The Heroes. I think he only gets better with every book he releases. I really disliked Best Served Cold, it just didn't work for me. The Heroes ruled though. I kind of feel like the risk of writing *Dark Fantasy* is that authors feel like they have an obligation to screw their characters and make unhappy endings even when it doesn't make sense to do so. Abercrombie has avoided this so far and I really like his characters, but sometimes I kind of worry that he'll end up like K.J. Parker and just start throwing unhappy endings in for no reason. I found The Folding Knife to be guilty of the very cliches it was trying to subvert, with an ending where it was like "welp, suddenly everything goes wrong even though things were totally fixable" and the catalyst for everything collapsing felt as contrived as when a bunch of eagles swoop down and save Sam and Frodo from Mount Doom
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Aug 12, 2011 12:16
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Liesmith posted:I really disliked Best Served Cold, it just didn't work for me. The Heroes ruled though. Because differences in opinions make the world go 'round: I've read two KJ Parker books, The Company and The Folding Knife, and the endings of both felt, to me, like some of the best endings I'd read in fantasy. Completely satisfying, and entirely part of the story.
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Aug 12, 2011 16:54
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Yeah, the only time I've really felt like an author decided "gently caress it, let's just torture the main character" was in Robin Hobb's Assassins trilogy. That just piled poo poo on until it drove me right out of the story.
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Aug 13, 2011 00:41
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What irritated me about the Assassin trilogy is that the main character brings it all on himself. The princess who his uncle marries clearly loves him, his foster father who talks with dogs would have killed himself before hurting him, he completely fucks up the plot to make him kind by being a jerk to everyone he meets, he's mean to the dude who can see the future because he's a homophobe, he's even a dick to his wolf pal. Then he gets a new trilogy where he keeps loving up even more and it's just a disaster.
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Aug 13, 2011 00:52
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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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Well the ending of Last Argument Of Kings made it seem like he's dead but I wouldn't be surprised if he does make an appearance.
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Aug 14, 2011 03:13
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Bummey posted:What? No. No. HBO would butcher this series just like they did with A Song of Ice and Fire. Books should not be made into movies. Muppet Christmas Carol is the only exception to this. Yeah they shouldn't have ever made The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, The Shining, L.A. Confidential, Psycho, No Country for Old Men, Goodfellas, Silence of the Lambs, or Ice Station Zebra into films. What a total waste of time those endeavors were. Okay maybe we could have done without Ice Station Zebra. oatgan fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Aug 14, 2011 |
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Aug 14, 2011 08:06
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Oatgan posted:Yeah they shouldn't have ever made The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, The Shining, L.A. Confidential, Psycho, No Country for Old Men, Goodfellas, Silence of the Lambs, or Ice Station Zebra into films. What a total waste of time those endeavors were. I would have 12 miserable hours of my life back if they never made Godfather.
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Aug 14, 2011 09:14
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Oatgan posted:Yeah they shouldn't have ever made The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, The Shining, L.A. Confidential, Psycho, No Country for Old Men, Goodfellas, Silence of the Lambs, or Ice Station Zebra into films. What a total waste of time those endeavors were. The books were better. v  v Movies just can't give you the same experience as a good book.
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Aug 14, 2011 21:14
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Bummey posted:The books were better. v Say what you want, but The Prestige the movie was 10 times more entertaining than the Prestige the book According to my subjective enjoyment, and not because it had that plush blonde chick in it..
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Aug 14, 2011 21:35
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Bummey posted:The books were better. v They are separate mediums and you can enjoy one, the other, or both. It's not mutually exclusive. A movie with fantastic acting and direction can be absolutely better than a well-written novel.
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Aug 15, 2011 00:57
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:They are separate mediums and you can enjoy one, the other, or both. It's not mutually exclusive. A movie with fantastic acting and direction can be absolutely better than a well-written novel. That's not what I'm arguing, but this isn't the place for such a debate.
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Aug 15, 2011 02:17
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A co-worker just let me know that Joe mentioned in his blog that he sent a draft in to his editors. I checked his blog and he provides a bit of information on the upcoming book. Here is a link to that post on the blog. http://www.joeabercrombie.com/news/
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Aug 16, 2011 15:21
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Clinton1011 posted:A co-worker just let me know that Joe mentioned in his blog that he sent a draft in to his editors. I checked his blog and he provides a bit of information on the upcoming book. Eh, it's only the rough draft of a single section of what will probably be 4 sections long. Red Country is so much better than A Red Country, so I hope he goes with that.
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Aug 16, 2011 23:05
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Can someone refresh my memory - Does Abercrombie ever say why Bayaz killed Juvens?
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Aug 18, 2011 23:20
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I've always thought that Bayaz manipulated the Master Maker into killing Juvens, then killed Kanedias right after the battle.
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Aug 19, 2011 06:16
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Substar posted:Can someone refresh my memory - Does Abercrombie ever say why Bayaz killed Juvens? Bayaz says something along the lines of "Juvens thought he could improve the world with good intentions". Mostly it's because by killing Juvens and then using that as an excuse to unite the apprentices to kill Kanedias he left himself as the most powerful individual left in the world.
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Aug 19, 2011 23:22
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Beastie posted:Well the ending of Last Argument Of Kings made it seem like he's dead but I wouldn't be surprised if he does make an appearance. Given that the he ends exactly the way he begins, going over a cliff, I'm pretty much 100% certain that he's going to be back.
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Aug 20, 2011 04:26
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I had not even thought of that .
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Aug 20, 2011 23:14
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Ithaqua posted:Given that the he ends exactly the way he begins, going over a cliff, I'm pretty much 100% certain that he's going to be back. You mean you're pretty much 100% certain that he's not going to be back. His story ended perfectly! Bringing him back would not be good character development.
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Aug 21, 2011 01:43
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Bummey posted:You mean you're pretty much 100% certain that he's not going to be back. His story ended perfectly! Bringing him back would not be good character development. He'd be in his late 70's anyway, given how much time has passes. More likely we find out he's had a daughter or a son and follow their story.
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Aug 21, 2011 01:53
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Has that much time passed? I always got the impression he was in his mid-late 30's but had done a lot of hard living. The North seems like a place to age fast and die young.
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Aug 21, 2011 02:00
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Late 70s? BSC happens a bit after the trilogy, and Heroes happens a bit after BSC, so he'd be his trilogy age plus a few years.
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Aug 21, 2011 09:00
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Dude, he's not a young man, but he's not pushing 70.
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Aug 21, 2011 09:22
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I always got the feeling that The Bloody Nine was in his early-to-mid thirties, in the trilogy. I think Heroes takes place 8 years after that. I said it before when I heard Abercrombie was going with a Western Theme: Logen Ninefingers. William Munny. Boom.
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Aug 21, 2011 09:44
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That would be interesting if Ninefingers came back only to get axed almost immediately in The North. Seems like a pretty brutal way to have him go. Arrive gloriously and get taken out only a few pages later.
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Aug 23, 2011 03:57
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Yeah that'd be about as cool as Randall Flagg's ending.
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Aug 23, 2011 04:39
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wellwhoopdedooo posted:Yeah that'd be about as cool as Randall Flagg's ending. I.e. please don't do it Joe.
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Aug 23, 2011 06:01
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Omar ending is the only way to go.
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Aug 23, 2011 06:51
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One of Ishri's lines popped out at me while re-reading BSC. "My brother was killed by a woman seeking vengeance." Since she's from the south, she might be referring to Ferro. I also have a retarded theory that Glustrod is still alive, masquerading as Bayaz. Bayaz made a big deal about Glustrod was the first one to break the first law, and how he was the first to learn how to change his face and shape. He also knows a lot about what mistakes Glustrod made using the Seed in Alculus, and he claims after he defeated him Glustrod just disappeared. Nothing concrete, but kit would explain how Bayaz turned into such a dick.
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Aug 26, 2011 05:32
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I gotta say, I loving love the new trade paperback covers for The Heroes and BSC. Wish more fantasy publishers would go with poo poo like that.
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Aug 26, 2011 12:16
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A Nice Boy posted:I gotta say, I loving love the new trade paperback covers for The Heroes and BSC. Wish more fantasy publishers would go with poo poo like that. These ones http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2011/08/11/new-us-covers/ ? Better than the atrocious US originals, still not as good as the map covers we got in the civilised world.
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Aug 26, 2011 12:34
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Regarding the end of The Heroes, in the last scene with Bayaz: When Yoru was serving Bayaz "Meat" did anyone else feel it was subtly implied that Bayaz was breaking the second law? It seemed like Joe went out of his way to have it described repeatedly only as "meat."
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Aug 26, 2011 15:25
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Substar posted:Regarding the end of The Heroes, in the last scene with Bayaz: Yes, but I don't think it was subtle. He was eating the bodies of the dead. I think we're supposed to get the impression that he stirred all this poo poo up, and then is feasting on the deaths of others. He's a jerk.
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Aug 26, 2011 16:14
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Metonymy posted:Yes, but I don't think it was subtle. He was eating the bodies of the dead. I think we're supposed to get the impression that he stirred all this poo poo up, and then is feasting on the deaths of others. He's a jerk. So he's officially an Eater, then?
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Aug 26, 2011 16:42
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reflir posted:Yep, that's about right. I actually stopped reading because I didn't like the second book as much as the first (which I liked a lot) (with the exception of all the parts in the Old Empire, which were awesome), and the third seemed to be the second minus the Old Empire parts so there was really no point to it. Bayaz as a kingmaker isn't nearly as cool as Bayaz as a tour guide. This post is from a few pages ago, but I just wanted to let you know that you quit reading right before the best parts of the entire trilogy. The first half of LAoK is pretty dull, but the second half is nuts.
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Aug 26, 2011 20:43
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Substar posted:Regarding the end of The Heroes, in the last scene with Bayaz: Not only is that implication there, but the conspicuous presence of Black Dow's body in the pile of corpses suggested (to me, anyway) that Bayaz was eating his former pawn. That whole scene was pretty chilling.
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Aug 26, 2011 22:17
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When Calder jokingly asked what's for desert Yoru Sulfur points out the corpses and says he will have to get it him self or something like that.
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Aug 26, 2011 23:36
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I'm re-reading the books and one question stands out to me: how did Tul Duru and the rest survive their duels with Logen? I mean, "it's easier to divert the Whiteflow than to stop the Bloody-Nine."
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Aug 27, 2011 02:10
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