Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie...

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FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Plucky Brit posted:

Edit: Also I thought it's specifically mentioned that inquisitors wear white.

Inquisitors and Practicals wear black. It's the Arch Lector who dresses in spotless white.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2011 19:28

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 23:15

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Grand Prize Winner posted:

And his motivation is simple as poo poo: pure hatred for the Prophet.

His motivation isn't even that noble - the Prophet turned against him and raised his army of cannibal ninja wizards because Bayaz was such a megalomaniac. Bayaz killed Juvens, betrayed and killed Kanedidas and his daughter, has no problem with violating the second law when it suits his purpose, openly mocks the first law, and claims that in the final analysis the only law is what you can get away with. The last thousand years of human history has been him pushing chess pieces against the Prophet, and there is no limit as to what he's willing to do to defeat his enemies and hold on to his powers (up to and including setting off the magical equivalent of nuclear warheads inside crowded cities).

The world that Bayaz runs is pretty much indistinguishable from a world run by a standard Evil Dark Lord Necromancer, he just keeps a much lower profile and works through cut-outs (subborned leaders, his bank, his apprentices, etc.)

# ¿ Aug 1, 2011 10:17

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UncleMonkey posted:

I am loving this series. For the majority of the first book I wasn't sure how I felt. It was well written and tense. And yet at the same time I felt like absolutely nothing was happening. Then in about the final third of the book the plot threads started finally coming together and I really liked it and decided to keep going. I'm glad I did. The second book has been loving phenomenal.

You're in for a real treat with the third book. Just plot twist after plot twist after plot twist, bang bang band, every single one of which is fairly set up and well executed.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2011 03:12

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Kekekela posted:

Last Argument of Kings spoilers ->

He betrayed Tolemei as soon as she let him in to the house of the maker though. It seemed pretty clear that he was just using her from what was revealed at their final confrontation, but I agree with Above Our Own that it wasn't really clear why other than he just wanted power, which is constantly reinforced as his primary motivator throughout the third book.

I think she turned on him once she realized that he was just using her. They fought, and he killed her.

One of my favorite little details of the setting is the way that primary source of information about the mythological foundations of the world that most people are familiar with is a series of trashy, badly-written, overlong novels that most people turn their nose up at (no doubt authored by you-know-who and published by Valint & Balk Publishing, LLC). In other words, that world's equivalent of our cheesy fantasy novels.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2011 00:23

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Above Our Own posted:

He also spares innocents frequently even at great personal risk as the books go on. He's by no means a good guy (and is fully cognizant of this), since those don't exist in Abercrombie's worlds.

Over the course of the trilogy, his every effort at trying to cut innocent women a break usually ends up backfiring on him; his character arc has him eventually stamp out that part of himself (except for his treatment of Ardee) and when the time comes to put the pressure on the queen, someone who is in a tough spot through no fault of her own and never did anything to personally harm him, he breaks her down throughly and ruthlessly. For most of the trilogy he hates himself and he hates his job and he keeps trying to re-kindle the flicker of dashing chivalrous gallantry that he used to possess, buy by the end of it he seems resigned and at peace with what he really is - a stone-cold bastard.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2012 08:29

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Bussamove posted:

That's because the things he does have nothing to do with bettering the civilization he made and everything to do with one-upping Khalul and proving that he's the best at everything he does. He even destroyed a good chunk of the Union's capital city just to prove he was more skilled than Glustrod and could actually use the Seed for what he intended to do. The Gurkish attacking just gave him an excuse to actually try it so he could "save" Adua. Despite what he says to make himself look beneficent, Bayaz doesn't give one single poo poo about who died in the process because he did it and that makes him better than you. Even the king is treated like a replaceable toy. In the end he probably doesn't even care if the Union crumbles, because it's just a means to an end. He has footholds in the North and is working on one in Styria, he could easily turn either one of those into another Union in a few hundred years time.

Bayaz doesn't believe in banking, he believes in Bayaz. Controlling the money is just another way of maintaining absolute control. Khalul uses religion and set himself up as a holy figure, Bayaz uses finance and established the oldest banking house in the Union.

On Bayaz:

It's worse than that. He openly opposes any sort of political movement towards democracy, and murders anyone who looks like they might make a competent, strong-willed leader who won't do what he tells them to do. He regards the people of the Union (of the world, really) as insects to be managed in as efficient a matter as possible to give him maximum freedom of action. The Union is a horrible and grindingly unfair place to live, and it will never get better, as long as Bayaz is alive.

In The Heroes, Bayaz makes the point that with magic fading out of the world, he needs to develop new tools - which is why he's been backing the development of cannons.

# ¿ May 22, 2012 18:13

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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He's also really good at plotting. The sheer number of plot twists that he set up in books 1 and 2 of TFL that paid off (in a fair-to-the-reader-way!) in book 3 was really, really impressive - particularly for a first-time author.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2012 05:33

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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You're in for a treat. The stuff you're reading is some of his weakest work - the first book of the trilogy has a lot of table-setting, the pacing is wonky, and Abercrombie is still finding his feet as a writer. Books two and three are where things really take off. Strap in.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2012 09:07

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02-6611-0142-1 posted:

For most of the series Glokta tortures whoever he has to so that Sult doesn't kill him, but Glokta shows a disposition towards being genuinely interested in the truth. I think that given free reign Glokta would be a brutal ruler, but an effective one, and if he was going to torture people willy-nilly it would somehow benefit the realm, instead of Sult, who didn't care about the realm at all. You can see how Sult's power struggles were destabilizing the realm at a critical time.

Not only that, throughout the trilogy Glokta has a real soft spot for women caught in a hard place (one of the few remaining features of his previous life as a dashing chivalrous cavalryman), which usually ends up backfiring on him spectacularly. By the end of Book 3, that's been burned out him, as can be seen by his ruthless treatment of the new queen and her favorite handmaiden. He's finished his journey and become a complete stone-hearted badass, finally at ease with the brutality that his job requires.

Glokta is also really good at figuring things out throughout the trilogy, which is something he never gives himself credit for because he's so caught up in his self-loathing.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2012 06:09

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Mr.48 posted:

I dont think he was actually eating form the corpse, might have to reread that section to make sure though.

Anyways I'm pretty sure he is not an eater himself because as Shenkt mentioned in BSC, once you start it becomes an addiction and he doesnt want that liability.

Being an Eater has significant downsides, essentially making you a slave to your hunger. Bayaz is too proud and too wrapped up in being In Charge of everything, he isn't going make himself addicted to gorging himself fresh human pineal glands or whatever. He's better off just having a number of Eaters on retainer, and pushing them around like chess pieces.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2012 08:07

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Honest Ray posted:

So I've got 60 pages of Red Country left and no more Joe to read. Anyone have any suggestions?

Read "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy. You've just finished a bloody-minded western novel, now step up to the universally-acknowledged masterpiece of the form.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2013 07:17

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Too handsome. I always figured Logen looked like three miles of bad road.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2013 17:31

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Rurik posted:

So what genre does BSC represent and what are some good books that represent that genre? Cause that's what I'd like to read more.

A revenge novel. Someone double-crossed, left for dead, but they survived and want revenge.

Richard Stark's "The Hunter" is a great modern example. You might be familiar with the motion picture adaptations "Point Blank" and "Payback" (and this year's "Parker"). Come to think of it, that's also the plot of "V For Vendetta" (graphic novel and movie). The original Michael Caine version of "Get Carter", maybe.

# ¿ May 4, 2013 13:39

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Grand Prize Winner posted:

It's been a while since I've read Red Country. Sworbruck is the writer, right? I think he's an homage to the writer guy from Unforgiven.

Huge chunks of the plot, character, and setting are taken from very specific Western movies. The opening conversation on the first page could have been taken straight out of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, and the final scene was only missing someone yelling "Lamb! Laaaaaaamb!"

# ¿ May 21, 2013 20:50

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TheWorldIsSquare posted:

Not really, the only time he enjoys torturing is at the end with Arch Lector Sult, and he did show Carlot mercy which of course came to bite him.

He gives a lot of breaks to a lot of women who are in tough situations through no fault of their own (not just Eider, but that girl in Dagoska who he takes on as his personal assistant, Vitari, and of course Ardee) - it's the last ember of the chivalrous, dashing cavalryman he used to be - and they all (except Ardee) come back to bite him. It's burned out of him by the end of the trilogy, and his very ruthless treatment of the Queen and her handmaiden represents the completion of his character arc.

One overlooked aspect of Glokta is how good he is at figuring things out and how dogged his investigations are. Glokta himself is too busy feeling sorry for (and loathing) himself to notice just how much of the plot he manages to unentangle all by himself.

# ¿ May 30, 2013 05:31

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Bayaz set off the magical equivalent of the Little Boy atomic bomb in a crowded city, and laughed about how totally awesome he was for having pulled that off. He systematically murders any politician who looks like they might think for themselves or put the welfare of the people of the Union ahead of Bayaz's plans. He infiltrates and subverts any democratic or peasant rebellion. He almost certainly killed his mentor, his other mentor, and his other mentor's daughter (who was also his girlfriend) in pursuit of unlimited power. He admits that the people of the Union - of the world, really - are just cattle to be herded in ways that forward his plans. He asserts that he holds to no ethical system, and that the only Law he obeys is "whatever you can get away with".

Can you think of any line he wouldn't cross, any sacrifice he wouldn't make, any deal with Ruinous Powers that he wouldn't take in order to hold onto or expand his power?

He's a monster. He's functionally indistinguishable from a standard Dark Evil Fantasy Overlord. He just works through cut-outs and manages better PR for himself.

# ¿ May 30, 2013 20:21

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Zeitgueist posted:

I think that stuff like this serves as good reason for a critical examination of popular art like fantasy novels and the like, because it shows that no matter how evil the character may be, people will still find ways to try and justify the actions based on the fact that they are a major character and not explicitly stated to be evil.

Abercrombie/Bayaz gets away with it because he spends 90% of the book seeming like the very common mentor/mastermind Good Wizard fantasy character (of the Merlin/Gandalf/Aslan/Elminster/Fizban/Obi-Wan/etc. school). He's charming, he's low-key, he's adorably doddering, he seems to be carrying a heavy burden - he fits the part so perfectly that he's built up an enormous amount of reader goodwill, which is enough to have some left over even after the big reveal toward the end of the third book.

Abercrombie is making a point about how little critical thought we give to people who match our preconceived notions of goodness.

Glokta, characteristically, is the first to understand exactly who and what Bayaz is.

# ¿ May 30, 2013 21:17

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Tolkien already has a Gandalf-gone-bad character in Lord of the Rings: Saruman.

He's a Gandalf-grade wizard who loses track of his mission and decides to openly rule in Middle Earth instead of selflessly helping the other peoples on ME maintain their freedom. Which is pretty much Bayaz in a nutshell.

# ¿ May 31, 2013 03:21

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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I'm pretty sure the evil cannibal-wizard felt he had no choice but to become an evil cannibal wizard in order to stop the megalomaniacal super wizard from enslaving the world forever, and when we finally meet him in the next trilogy, he'll be a surprisingly sympathetic character.

There's still the small matter of his empire which brutally conquers its neighbors because it requires the human sacrifice of huge numbers of slaves in order to feed (literally) its magical shock-troops.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2013 16:09

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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So he's literally inhuman, then.

In other words: a monster.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2013 18:19

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Neurosis posted:

Did Bayaz mention why he doesn't just become an Eater? I can't think it's any moral objection to dining on soylent green.

Bayaz is all about controlling things. Becoming an Eater means losing control and becoming a slave to your hunger, which is exactly the opposite of how he rolls. He's much better off just putting an Eater or twelve on the payroll.

And if at some future date he absolutely needs the power boost, he can start chowing down.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2013 18:02

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Black Company is 10 books, currently collected into four omnibuses (omnibi?).

The first three books are the Books Of The North, and they are great. An elite mercenary unit ends up working for the Big Bad Evil Overlord(ess) and things get...complicated.

The second omnibus contains a follow-on novel from the first, and the two Books of the South, where the (very few) surviving members of the mercenary unit decide to head south in search of...something. I liked them a lot, but I'm a sucker for non-standard fantasy analogue cultures (you get fantasy-Zulus, a fantasy-India with fantasy-Buddhists and fantasy-Hindus and fantasy-Thugees, and even a fantasy-Vietnam).

The third and fourth omnibuses contain the four books of The Glittering Plain, which are long, discursive, wandering, and strangely plotted. I doubt I would have finished them if I hadn't been so keen on the characters from the first trilogy and willing to slog to anything to learn how it all ends up.

Read 'em in order, quit when you stop enjoying them. But definitely pick up the first trilogy.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 01:04

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Blue Raider posted:

Yeah, me too pretty much. Logan always struck me as just a big guy with a ton of mileage. Nothing really unique about his appearance except the missing digit.

Yeah, he always struck me as something of a Pratchett character - a fairly typical-looking big, old, scarred barbarian with nothing (except the missing finger) that really sticks in your memory. Until you think for a moment about how if a barbarian is THAT old and THAT scarred and still up and around then he's probably someone with that you really don't want to gently caress with.

Isn't a fairly common reaction in the TFL trilogy when people meet him to say "Him? HE'S the legendary Bloody Nine?"?

# ¿ Jun 19, 2013 21:33

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Most of the Northerners in the books are rather thoughtful and introspective (and surprisingly tolerant when it comes to other peoples and religions and cultures) - it's one of the slier aspects of Abercrombie's writing.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2013 21:09

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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At the bookstore yesterday, noticed a new hardcover collection of short stories titled "Dangerous Women" or something similar, edited by Gardner Dozois and George R R Martin. The first story was by Abercrombie and it features an earlier escapade from Shy's life. Just a little something for all you completists (there's also a story about a royal succession conflict from 200 years before Game of Thrones by GRRM, if that's your thing).

# ¿ Dec 7, 2013 04:50

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docbeard posted:

I don't quite agree. I think Bayaz actually has a very clear motivation: he wants to be right. He wants to win an argument with a dead man. His motivation is, broadly, gently caress YOU, DAD.

Yeah, his motivation is very clear. I don't know why people are so baffled by him. He says very clearly and directly that what he's interested in is power and control for its own sake. He's unusual in that he doesn't surround himself with the usual trappings of power (solid gold palace, a harem of a thousand beautiful concubines, legions of faceless stormtroopers, giant black tower that radiates evil, etc.) the way most power-mad dictators do, but the basic impulse is exactly the same.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 19:29

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Strategic Tea posted:

I think Bayaz is a great illustration of just how much power charisma really has over us.

Not just charisma - there's a lot of archetypal inertia built into the way his character is presented. The trope (ugh) of the helpful, friendly, slightly-dotty wizard advisor runs through all of fantasy from Merlin to Gandalf to Obi-Wan Kenobi to Fizban to Elminster, and the way Bayaz is introduced and acts in the first two books slots him right in to that continuum. The momentum of the trope is so strong that even when Bayaz is revealed to be something very, very different, people still try to justify his actions as if he was still the standard issue good guy advisor wizard.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 22:20

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Picked up Half A King today at B&N (where it was shelved with the F&SF, not the YA) and just finished it. Solid enough YA story, with all of Joe's tics in place - the Last Door instead of Back To The Mud, the last chapters were mirrors/echoes of the first, people refusing to submit by saying their knees don't bend easily, main character is a cripple who thinks to himself a lot, the last third is plot twist after plot twist (mostly set up fairly), etcetera. No sour spit, but page 102 has someone with a "sick-sour taste" in their mouth, which made me smile. I picked up on about half the plot twists, which is my usual batting average. I figured out the setting as soon as I saw the map, and am I the only who thinks the "elf-metal staff" is a length of rebar? Not mind blowing, but not bad, 4/5 stars, looking forward to the rest of the series. I hope it makes him a lot of money, but the YA shelves are packed with fantasy and SF and horror, so good luck to him.

The Ministers with their birds carrying messages and serving individual kings were irritatingly close to GRRM's Maesters, though. Am I going to be picking bits and pieces of ASOIAF out of every fantasy book I'll read for the rest of my life?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2014 03:28

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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coyo7e posted:

GRRM did not invent the carrier pigeon, sorry. They were even being used as late as in WWI and WWII.

I never claimed that GRRM invented the carrier pigeon, sorry. I did note that the use of an extensive network of message-carrying birds by a secular priesthood of scientist-advisors was very much straight out of ASOIAF, sorry. Unless this is a trope that's shown up in a bunch of earlier fantasy novels, sorry?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2014 23:11

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 23:15

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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coyo7e posted:

Yes. Your initial criticism came across a bit like a kid complaining about Anne Rice just feeling like a Tru Blood or Twilight rip-off (and being unaware of who Bram stoker was, or the lore he sourced), sorry.

I can see how a semi-literate person would make that mistake, sorry.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2014 19:53

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