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I saw Abercrombie and the First Law Trilogy mentioned in a few other Book Barn threads and got around to reading the first one two weeks ago. Since then I've been reading them at every spare moment and finally got through Best Served Cold today. These books are real bummers but it's a blast to hang out with each character. Really looking forward to Heroes.
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Oct 28, 2010 21:39
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She's not in the trilogy at all. I think the idea is that she wants to kill everyone either directly or indirectly involved in the death of her brother. Foscar and Mauthis didn't kill him but they didn't do anything to warn her or stop his death.
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Dec 2, 2010 02:00
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I also marathoned through The Heroes. I'd agree that it's probably his weakest of the five. A lot of the book felt like filler, and in the end not much happened besides some setting up for the next big story arc. But that's not to say it wasn't a good book; I still enjoyed myself quite a lot and I really wish there was more of it to read.
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Feb 4, 2011 07:42
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Kneel Before Zog posted:So for those who read both stand-alone novels. Which one reads better? I would say that Best Served Cold works better as a stand-alone than The Heroes does. Neither one requires that you read the First Law Trilogy but you might miss a lot of the stuff happening in The Heroes if you skip the trilogy, whereas for the most part you'd be unimpeded reading BSC.
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Apr 7, 2011 18:00
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:I wasn't really satisfied with Logen's sudden personality reversal at the start of the story. It seemed that after The First Law he had finally realized he was a psycho and that he was lying to himself when he tried to pretend he was a good man. And then at the start here he's back to "good man who becomes crazy when in battle, does bad poo poo while he's crazy, and then wonders whether he's a good man." He also seems to be going through the same plot arc as he did in The First Law, which I really hope isn't the case. He's cool and has some of the best scenes. But Jezal is my favorite character in all the books, and I wouldn't want him to come back if he just went through the same plot arc. Eh I didn't interpret it that way myself. Logen's come to terms with who he is and it terrifies him. He's not pretending to be a good man at the start of the story; he's running away from himself.
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Nov 28, 2012 19:19
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It seems an awfully big coincidence that Logen can talk to spirits but also has an unrelated condition where he goes berserk in combat. I've always felt there was something supernatural to the Bloody-Nine.Fly Molo posted:That's extremely debateable. I haven't seen anything to indicate that Logen is definitively being possessed by something, and I feel like it makes for a more powerful story if he isn't. Logen isn't a decent, or even lovely man being controlled by some outside force, the Bloody-Nine is who he is. When he isn't putting in the time and effort to try to be a good man, he's death incarnate, and that suits him. He feeds on the fear and respect other men feel for him, he loves that poo poo. Pretending to be Lamb, or Good Guy Logen is an act, and he feels relief every time he gives it up. The Bloody-Nine might be an alternate personality, or some kind of altered mental state, but I wouldn't say it's something external to Poor Lil' Logen. Meh, I disagree with this. The way the story is written, Logen has absolutely no control over the Bloody-Nine's actions or even control over when he switches, and with few exceptions he's always opposed to the switch and fearful of what's coming. He has no memory of anything the Bloody-Nine does. As he is transforming, the process is described as individual limbs being taken over by another person or entity; the hand swinging Logen's axe suddenly belongs to someone else and the voice coming out of his throat is not his own. It certainly suggests some kind of possession, supernatural or otherwise.
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Dec 4, 2012 00:46
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Your post was so disorganized that I don't know even half of what you're talking about and I just read the whole trilogy two months ago. With that said, if you liked the book at all you should keep going. The first book is mostly a setup book. The Ninth Layer fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Dec 15, 2012 |
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Dec 15, 2012 17:04
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You guys stopped reading Malazan at the last book?
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Feb 27, 2013 23:13
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It's just a book series. Not like you need a college degree to get through it or anything. I'd recommend people read Malazan because there are a lot of awesome characters doing unexpected and unpredictable things in a vast, old and mysterious world. Half the fun is finding new things about the story out just as the characters themselves encounter them. They're meaty books but then again so is almost everything else in fantasy. It's a great series and fans of fantasy owe it to themselves to check it out.
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Mar 16, 2013 09:03
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This isn't the thread for it but you're really underselling Erikson's characters and reducing them to their barest of plot points. Paran is an inexperienced noble placed in command of a legendary company known for being nearly impossible to direct, to the point that they outright kill officers they don't like. Quick Ben is a powerful character but at times he's too clever for his own good and at other times he's not clever enough, and he remains a persistent mystery throughout the series that hasn't been explained. Felisin's human stuff is still a huge factor after the second book and I'm surprised you missed it. She adopts a mistreated refuge and even names her Felisin the Younger after herself, but is so absorbed by her godhood status that she completely misses the abuse going on against her adopted charge. Both Felisin stories are tragedies. The difference between Abercrombie and Erikson when it comes to characters is that Abercrombie writes directly from the perspective of his characters while Erikson follows one character around a scene and narrates. Abercrombie focuses on a mall cast of well-developed characters while Erikson prefers a large cast of active players in the plot. They're different styles but that doesn't mean all of Erikson's characters are poo poo. The scope of the writing is just entirely different. I think it sucks that you're not only discouraging people from reading one of the best fantasy stories ever written but also insulting the people who enjoyed it. The Ninth Layer fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Mar 18, 2013 |
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Mar 18, 2013 04:28
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BananaNutkins posted:Hey, it's cool, I'm not insulting you because your a Malazan reader. Your past experiences have made you into the person you are and given you the tastes you have today. I mean, I noticed that most of your posts on these forums go in the Game Room, which is the table top pen and paper D&D sub-forum, right? Malazan is probably pretty fantastic as the D&D campaign it started out as. But as a book series on its own merits its pretty lacking. But hey, like I said before I get the appeal. You must be a real pleasure to know in person...
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Mar 18, 2013 08:49
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Jack Ketch posted:I just started Mark Lawrence's new book, Prince of Fools, it seems much in the same vein as Flashman according to what he's said about his influences. Though I'm having a hard time getting into it, mostly since I loved characters like Gorst, Shivers, Ninefingers and Jorg so maybe I'm kinda hosed but hopefully it grabs me soon, kinda mechanically reading it at work while there's downtime. I really wish it grabbed me like the first chapter of Prince of Thorns or Abercrombie's stuff. Ran into Snorri yet? I liked that book better than any of the Prince of Thorns books and I liked that series a fair amount
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Dec 26, 2014 02:05
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Best book is The Heroes by a lot imo. I enjoyed BSC a lot the first time through but found it weaker on a reread; imo The Heroes holds up even a second time around.
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Feb 23, 2015 04:41
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Suxpool posted:To be fair I don't think any other author is like Joe Abercrombie. The tool supposedly just lists other authors that people who like Abercrombie also like. I think the closest you can get to Joe is probably Mark Lawrence. Yeah I think the Gentlemen Bastards series is great, the second and third books get a bad rep because of how stellar the first book was in comparison. Lawrence's new series is imo better than the Prince of Thorns one was.
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Jun 2, 2016 00:24
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He's a huge bastard and I can't wait to find out what happens to him when the next book releases in 2026.
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Jun 25, 2017 04:53
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Glokta represents a puerile fantasy - the desire for an authority figure who shares and understands the reader's cynicism and frustration, and through them proves himself superior to the corrupt world around them. This isn't at all what Glokta does though. He succeeds because of corruption, not in spite of it. By the end he is an agent of the very corruption he spent the first book opposing.
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Jun 14, 2018 20:22
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:I never said that he didn't. Glokta simply has the advantage that he's super cynical and doesn't believe in anything, unlike Sult. Sure you did, you said he proves himself superior to a corrupt system by triumphing. But this triumph is one of the corrupt system. The tortured becomes the torturer becomes the creator of torturers. Unlike Sult who seeks the trappings of power, Glokta's character motivation throughout the trilogy is merely to survive the machinations of those with power over him. Glokta does not want to be King. His advantage is that he is a more useful servant to Bayaz because he understands his place in the system Bayaz built.
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Jun 14, 2018 21:50
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Note that I said nothing about triumphing over "the corrupt system". I said that he proves superior to the corrupt world around him. Mastering "the system" is part of that. The fantasy of Glokta is a character stumbling into power innocently (relatively speaking, of course). He accurately recognizes that the world around him is stupid and anyone holding any ideals is a pompous fool. This viewpoint is essentially true when it comes to how the world is presented, and it aligns with that of the reader. It's a fantasy of intellectual superiority, and the self-pity and villainy justify it by showing that it totally sucks, man. But Glokta is himself corrupted by the world he lives in. He perpetuates the corruption of this world through his very profession, and his character arc ends with him realizing that he does so because he enjoys it. He triumphs over Sult but only because of submission to and therefore assistance from the forces beyond Sult, and in doing so he only exchanges one master for another arguably worse one. The ending explicitly spells out that Glokta succeeded only because Bayaz assisted him in multiple ways; he did not succeed because of intellectual superiority but because Bayaz provided him material assistance and gave him hints as to how he could take down Sult. In part the ending reveals that Glokta is not as smart as he thinks he is, but rather he is just one piece on a much bigger board than he had thought. He may be sitting at the table of power, but he is playing someone else's hand.
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Jun 14, 2018 22:36
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Readers are perfectly fine with Glokta's moral corruption because it's only moral corruption. Unlike other characters, he doesn't pompously pretend to be anything else, but revels in being terrible. The text argues against this first point. Glokta is not devoid of morality even if he's reluctant to acknowledge it. He sympathizes with the Dagoskan citizenry and acts on this sympathy, he has a soft spot for women which is later exploited, he is loyal those he considers his friends, even if they turn out not to be as loyal to him. Through characters like West and Ardee the text suggests that Glokta could be a hero after all, if only he wasn't so self-pitying. But instead he thinks of himself as a monster and acts accordingly. The quote you showed reveals irritability, not smugness.
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Jun 14, 2018 23:14
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I was going to ask what you meant by "dishonest fantasy" but see that you edited it. Glokta's story is deeper than one of cynical intellectual superiority, despite your attempts to reduce it to that. To say that he triumphs over anything is to ignore that he ends the series where he started, inflicting suffering and ruining lives in service to an inescapable master.
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Jun 14, 2018 23:27
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Glokta isn't outplayed by them because he is given material support, not because he does anything particularly clever. Also you seem to be conflating "Glokta is a bad person and his life sucks" into "Glokta sucks" which isn't what anyone is saying.
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Jun 14, 2018 23:57
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His personal suffering informs his entire character. Without it Glokta would be a general, not a torturer. Setting that aside, Glokta still does not prove superior to anything. He spends the majority of the trilogy speculating on when his superiors will decide to unceremoniously dispose of him. The only thing that keeps him alive is his ability to get results, where "results" are whatever his superiors tell him to do. He outlasts Sult and Goyle only because he is a more useful instrument of Bayaz' will. Perhaps it is a fantasy of some readers to show up their incompetent boss, and when viewed in that light sure, Glokta's story is that kind of fantasy. But the ending to his story is explicitly that torturing Sult is a consolation prize; the true happy ending for Glokta would be death at the hands of Pike.
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Jun 15, 2018 00:38
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I'm enjoying you reimagining the plot series so you don't have to admit Glokta is a mangled torturer who ends the book series in as bad a situation or worse as the one he started in.
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Jun 15, 2018 09:00
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If you ignore the pages of monologue in which his suffering is described in agonizing detail and informs the way he acts and thinks, then sure his suffering doesn't matter. Really it's his promotion that is immaterial. He is more powerful but less free. His influence is borrowed, and he is now forever indebted. Your reading of Glokta as a self-insert of intellectual superiority says more about your own self than anything to do with the text.
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Jun 15, 2018 10:15
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The only mystery I think is relevant regarding Clover is who he fought and lost to in the Circle, a detail I feel was very conspicuously omitted. Otherwise I don't think he's anyone we are supposed to already know of. Regarding the rest, I think Bayaz is the Weaver (the prophecy of the Weaver being a bald man with endless pockets fits Bayaz too well) but I can't make much sense of what his plan may be. The Valbeck uprising has obvious parallels to the Tanner situation in LAoK but the way this situation is executed makes it difficult to sort out the end goal. Without rereading I'm not sure how he could have ensured Orso would show up to settle the revolt, and if Orso isn't involved I'm not sure what the uprising would have accomplished. However, I do very much think Bayaz was involved (and at least at the moment Sulfur is loyal to him). The timing of Bayaz showing up in the story and Jezal dying is a big giveaway and if it wasn't already clear enough his "long live the king" line to Orso seals the deal. So Bayaz wants Oros to be the king and wants the general public to dislike Orso... but why? Then there's Leo and how he fits in. Sulfur was hanging around in the North and wherever Sulfur is we can be sure Bayaz is meddling. But if Sulfur acted directly in that situation I can't think of how, beyond possibly messing with Rikke's visions. Did Sulfur influence the duel somehow? Not in the same way Bayaz influenced Jezal vs Gorst. When I do a reread I'll be paying careful attention to where and when Sulfur shows up. Finally, the end of LAoK made me think Pike was going to be Glokta's man first and foremost, but I definitely got "tying up loose ends" vibes from Pike interrupting Vick's interrogation of Malmer, and I find it hard to believe Glokta would have allowed his daughter to visit a city where he was directly planning an uprising. So this makes me think Pike is working with/for Bayaz. My only real complaint with this book is that it ended on such a huge cliffhanger! But at least it's only a year until the next book.
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Sep 23, 2019 21:58
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I mostly enjoyed it but it probably was my least favorite of the main books. Orso was imo the most compelling character in this trilogy of books so having him spend the finale sidelined and then chumped was very unsatisfying. He was a major focus of the first two books only for his story to go nowhere in the third, and I think knowing that it'll be harder for me to enjoy a reread of this trilogy. I also felt this book was very predictable and kept expecting a big reveal like some of the LAoK scenes, but most of the twists (Rikke faked her fallouts with her allies, Leo is going to take power for himself rather than restore Orso, Pike's boss Glokta is the weaver) I saw coming a few chapters or more ahead. I saw a few people here say they didn't want to see another Bayaz master plan but I think this trilogy could have used more of him, although it seems like he's set up to start some trouble in book 7 at least.
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Sep 16, 2021 17:59
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One thing I was half expecting to happen that didn't was Ninefingers showing up. Seemed like a long shot but there's a chapter in this book that ends with his name dropped, a few references to the spot where he "died" in the original trilogy, and one of the characters recalls being inspired by his tenacity as Lamb. He'd have to be pretty old by now but I wonder if he'll show up in the future, seeing as he's not confirmed dead yet.
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Sep 18, 2021 17:09
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Having had some time to reflect on the trilogy as a whole, I'm pretty down on how it all turned out. A big appeal of the First Law trilogy for me was in the mix of internal and external conflicts each major character experienced throughout the books and the way those conflicts built up and then resolved in the final book. With this new trilogy I felt like maybe half the POV characters had anything approaching an interesting story and the other half of the cast turned out to be total duds. I'll start with an example of a character I thought was really well done, a character I started out disliking and ended up really hating. In all of Abercrombie's books Leo stands out as one of his more unique major points of view. Whereas most of his POVs start off looking like villains or bastards and are either shown to be at least somewhat sympathetic over time, or else just stay bastards throughout, Leo instead is on paper a brave noble hero but ends up being the biggest villain of the trilogy. He grew up being told that winning and attaining power is what makes for a great man so he can't understand why the people around him don't love him for doing exactly that, even when it comes at their expense. He repeatedly chooses ambition over happiness because he believes ambition will secure him happiness. But all it does is wall him off in isolation and misery. Leo's story not only is built well and resolved well, it's a story that unfolds as a consequence of who he is as a person. But there's Broad and Vick who at least in my opinoin were a complete waste of page space. Broad is a far less badass Ninefingers with literally no character development. He's a man with a violent past who wants to do better but can't get past his love for violence, and that's exactly who he is after three books too. Nothing interesting happens in his story and even as a POV character he's almost always close enough to other POV characters that his viewpoint doesn't add anything. I actually think he would have worked better without a point of view, at least that way there'd be some mystery about what motivates him and he'd maybe come off as more dangerous too. Vick got set up to make Glokta style hard choices between her divided sympathies and then never gets any hard choices to make. She just ends up running errands all trilogy and her point of view ends up amounting to a mobile plot advancer that Joe sends anywhere he can't get his other characters to go. I thought Tallow would turn out to be her actual long lost brother but the actual twist was just.. he was spying on her. Nothing interesting happens to either of them and neither of them are particularly fun to read about either. There were interesting places to take these characters (working man torn between his class sympathies and need to feed his family? imperial agent who must reconcile perpetuating the same evils that destroyed her own childhood?) but they never get explored. Rikke was the biggest letdown for me . In the first book she was set up with a lot of great story potential, hints at inner conflicts to come, and intriguing dynamics going with the other characters. The Rikke/Leo/Savine/Orso love square thing going on in the first book was fun. So was the Rikke/Leo/Stour dynamic, with hints that her anger issues are bound to lead her into big mistakes. Then for the next two books she hangs out mostly by herself and does a lot of off-screen plotting in a very rational and calculating way to win the throne of the North, and the earlier character dynamics just sorta get dropped. It's Rikke in particular that makes me have trouble believing Joe wrote all three books in sequence just because of how big a shift there is in her story direction. In the end there's almost no real conflict in her storyline. Even Clover had more of an internal struggle.
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Sep 28, 2021 20:49
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Ccs posted:It felt like Broad was basically Logen with a family, minus the semi-supernatural Berserker rage. Instead he just takes off his eyeglasses. See his family was one of the interesting elements about him and even had some character themselves, especially May in A Little Hatred trying to make sure he gets set up good for helping Savine. Then they just fade out of the books. In Wisdom of Crowds when Savine hands Broad the letter from his "family" it made me go oh that's right he does have a wife and daughter I wonder where they were this whole time.
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Sep 28, 2021 22:24
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Usually boxing events have eight or nine matches on tap. Even when you buy a pay per view you still get four televised fights.
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Jun 7, 2023 14:18
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DangerDummy! posted:What's the general consensus on the trilogy following Red Country? I've seen some bitching and moaning about it in a few places, but I didn't dig too deep into it because I trust randos on the internet far less than most goons. They're good books (especially #2) but as a trilogy they don't come together nearly as well as the first set did. I know I was expecting the last book to be more like LAoK in terms of plot shattering twists and development and was a little disappointed with how the book wrapped things up, but not nearly to where I regret reading or anything.
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Jul 25, 2023 21:32
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