Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie...

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie...

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Ya I think there is a lot of evidence that Logen does not so much transform into the Bloody Nine as he is taken over by some kind of entity known as the Blood Nine. When you factor in the language Abercrombie uses to describe his transformation with Logen's rare ability to interact with the spirit world (even Bayaz can't do it), it seems like the theory that makes the most sense.

As far as Bayaz being the true evil villain, I think the story by the end reveals him to be just any bastard who uses people for his own gain. Hes no different than most of the other characters. I'm not sure I would go so far as to say he is the 'real' villain, since the main theme of the series is more or less a shades of grey idea. Khalul is not made better or worse by our revelations about Bayaz (remember that the eaters/Hundred Words reveal that they hate themselves and live in agony of their crimes), hes just no different.

# ¿ May 12, 2010 07:07

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 01:24

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Grand Prize Winner posted:

I agree with most of that but this one little quibble. Sure, some are all angsty, but others are like, "gently caress yeah! I eat human flesh and therefore have superpowers!"

There's one thing about the Eaters, though. If cannibalism gives you super-powers/magical abilities and the people in this world are a bunch of assholes, then what's stopping the whole planet from devolving into a cannibalistic nightmare? Either there's some special, Khalul's-boyz-only process that gives you super-mega-eater abilities or Bayaz isn't quite as outright evil as he seems. At least he isn't using Eaters en masse.

I think its insinuated that you can use the eating of human flesh to gain powers, but its more of a tool that you need to know how to use rather than 'Joe the Baker eats his customer and suddenly is awesome at everything'.

# ¿ May 13, 2010 05:30

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

BananaNutkins posted:

I feel basically the opposite. With each subsequent release, Joe has refined his technique and his character development. Yes, there's a substantial amount of similarities, especially between Shivers and Logan, but what he accomplishes with Shivers works far better logically than what he did with Logan.

His story-telling methods have expanded significantly and show a willingness to take risks that weren't there before. See the Monza and Shivers sex scene The one that does not take place with Monza and Shivers and the long section where the viewpoint shifts every time a new character dies, ratcheting up the tension when you finally reach the characters you care about. I got a real sense of dread, which for me, is a rare feeling to get from a fantasy novel.

I'm really looking forward to reading Abercrombie develop more as an author. I agree with some of what Above Our Own said, in that at times he seems to focus too hard on doing the opposite of the fantasy cliches that it ends up at least somewhat predictably un-cliche.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2011 05:25

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Just finished reading Best Served Cold after enjoying his first trilogy and while I enjoyed it a lot, I was a little distracted by abercrombies use of a main character so similar to The Cripple. I don't think this is spoiler worthy, but just in case...
I felt like Monza and Glokta were too similar and it got a little...wierd. Skilled, respected warriors cut down in their prime? Check. Fall from a position of power and privilege? Check. Horrible physical injuries inflicted by others? Check. Deserted by most of their 'friends'? Check. Frequent sentences and passages devoted to detailing the subtle nuances of their chronic panic? Check.

The Shivers/Bloody Nine comparisons are also pretty obvious, and while that didn't bother me so much for some reason, its there. They are clearly different characters with different motives, but the similarities were a bit 'eh' for an author who is clearly very talented not only at story telling, but creating characters. Someone who can create a duo like Morveer and Day shouldn't end up with so similar main characters. I'm starting The Heros this week and I just hope he can break out of it a bit.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2012 00:42

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

nutranurse posted:

Man, I The Heroes taught me to absolutely hate Gorst. Abercrombie did a good job of explaining his character and letting us see why Gorst is Gorst, but Jesus he's just a rabid attack dog with few redeeming features. All he does is lust after Finree in the gooniest possible way. To him she's not even a person, just a pretty idea for his spank bank. I love how Abercrombie subverts the hero trope with Gorst because, were we to not see into Gorst's mind, he would seem like a kind of tragic hero.

He seems brave and valiant (but really just has a suicidal death wish).

He seems loyal (but really hates everything about who he is and would defect if he wasn't so much of a coward).

He seems unjustly handled and tragic (but really his fall came about because he was getting drunk and banging a prostitute instead of, you know, being the king's body guard).

It's great to see Gorst almost become self-aware of his lovely flaws/self-obsessed nature at the end of The Heroes, but nope! He just says "SOMETIMES I SHOULD JUST SHUT UP BECAUSE I HAVE A SQUEAKY VOICE" and learns nothing. It's so great.

On that note, I also have to congratulate Abercrombie on making another strong female lead in Finree the verbal lashing she gave Gorst at the end of The Heroes was born out of such righteous fury, and, in my mind at least, is what cements her as a person, not just some hot chick for dudes to lust after.

Basically Gorst has a 'nice-guy' complex and is a bad person.

I think I read into the Gorst character a different way. Basically what I ended up with is that Gorst lost it all in the fire and while he did lust after Finree, she has become some kind of symbol of the life he had/could have had and what he has now. Its not just about a hot girl who he wanted to marry and now never can, its about the status and respect he had as an elite officer, the honor of his title and family ancestry, etc. Its all gone and Gorst has convinced himself in his despair and madness that if he can somehow win Finree, through martial prowess (the only way he knows how), he can win it all back. But the fall has poisoned Gorst. He can no longer find the honor and glory in fighting and killing, and its soured into simple murder done so he can regain what he probably doesn't even want..

tl;dr, I agree, no one writes about evil characters doing good and good characters doing evil like Abercrombie. The tortured soul is his expertise.

Also, any chance we could get the OP updated with Red Country?

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 21:25

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Umph posted:

I'll try again someday. It reads like Joe was just totally creatively drained so it makes it harder to read because I know how amazing of a writer he is. I think the Heroes made him one of the best fantasy novelists of all time and should be a guidebook on how to write effective fiction. The guy needs/deserves a rest.

Red Country follows in the footsteps of the other standalone novels in that it is an homage to a specific literary genre. As a Western, its different than Best Served Cold and Heros because both of those books take place outside of the normal day to day life. The Western has different themes and I think Red Country hits just about all of them really well (the frontier as a outlet for the rejected and unsettled of civilized society, native peoples vs. immigrants, the impact of rapidly changing technology, etc). It just does so at a slower pace compared to Heroes aka The Killer Angels.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2013 02:15

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Mr.48 posted:

The ambiguity about Logen's possession in Red Country is simply a result of us not getting Logen's POV in Red Country like we did in The First Law. Red Country shows us what Logen's/B9's behaviour looks like from an outsiders perspective, which goes a long way of explaining why Logen is so hated and feared.

His Divine Shadow posted:

I subscribe to the idea that the bloody nine is something that takes control of Logen, but what you just describe is also why I feel that doesn't make him without any blame or cheapens his story. Logen seems to enjoy the kind of life that's filled with violence and gets himself into situations where the bloody nine will emerge. So he does bear some responsibility for what the bloody nine does.

In Red Country he had successfully blocked it out of his life for a long time, but to get his family back he had to become that person again and he finds that he still likes it, until the bloody nine emerges and he starts killing his friends, that part's not so great, but it's just so nice to not have to sit and take poo poo from no nothing farmers and bullies and have respect, do what he's good at and so forth, gotta be realistic about these things...

This is why Red Country not having Logen PoV's is so amazing. When Logen and Shy go into the bar, Logen seems to revel in the build up to the actual violence. He is enjoying not only the anticipation of violence, but the reaction of the 3 men. It reaches a climax and Logen dispatches 2 of the men almost effortlessly, with the third only living thanks to Shy. The interesting question is, was that the Bloody Nine or Logen? We know Logen is a skilled, feared fighter on his own and surely he would have no trouble dispatching a couple of part time mercenaries without the Bloody Nine. But he also dispatches them when he could have easily incapacitated them - remember, he needs answers from them. If that was the Bloody Nine, then Logen has almost total control over when and where it comes out, and why did he use it when he really had no reason to? If that was Logen, then he reveled in the blood shed and the taking of lives (lives who, if we are honest, were probably just dudes down on their luck who needed the cash the kidnapping job provided). Someone like that can't be considered "good".

In my opinion, the relationship between Logen and the Blood Nine in Red Country is ambiguous because Joe wants it to be so and he challenges our perception of Logen as a noble savage who years for a life of honor but cannot control his Mr. Hyde at all times.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2013 05:38

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

UncleMonkey posted:

The scene in the bar was definitely the Bloody Nine taking over. Logen knew what would happen of course and clearly enjoyed it. But it definitely was not him. When he was going to lynch the one guy and Shy stepped in, that was the first time he almost attacked her. But he manages to snap out of it and that's the first time he stresses to her that she needs to stay out of his way when he gets like that. It foreshadows the incident towards the end with Logen fighting the Dragon People perfectly.

Then Logen is objectively a bad person because those people really did not need killing. He butchers those first 2 people so effortlessly, even after essentially warning them that he is going to kill him through his loud monologue, that it stands to reason that Logen Ninefingers could have just walked up and knocked em all out without much trouble. Instead he releases the Bloodynine on some country bumpkins for no other reason than to satisfy his pent up blood lust?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2013 02:57

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Ornamented Death posted:

Yeah it's not like they took part in kidnapping his kids, murdering his friend, and burning down his farm. Oh wait...

There aren't many fantasy settings in which that particular set of men would have survived.

I might be misremembering, but I thought it was implied that those 3 left because their job had turned into something more than they planed? Like they signed on to kidnap some people but murdering and so forth was more than they wanted? Maybe that was just Logen's musing though. Either way, he absolutely relished unleashing the Bloody-Nine on those 3 the way a fox would relish butchering some fat chickens.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2013 22:26

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Ornamented Death posted:

They did, in fact, come to that conclusion, but only after murdering Logen's friend, burning down his farm, and kidnapping his children. Again, doing stuff like that and then saying "sorry bro, we changed our minds!" isn't going to save them in essentially any fantasy setting.

No for sure. Its very Abercrombie to have a couple of down-on-their-luck guys sign up for a kidnapping job out of desperation, bail when their conscience over takes them and then run into he single most dangerous man for 200 miles.

Jeffrey posted:

I'm sure most of the original POV characters will be in it, just not the focus. I doubt he'd go so far as to set it after their deaths. Surely Shivers will be redeemed one of these days(nope)!

I felt completely satisfied by the character arcs of both Logen and Shivers at the end of Red Country. I would read another book with them in it with a big grin on my face but if we never heard directly from them again, I'd give Joe a single slow nod of appreciation and look eagerly towards his next characters. After all, arguably the biggest message running through all of his books so far is 'Warriors either die young or linger on as old men haunted by the ghosts of their youth' - Logen, Shivers, Cosca and even Glamma Golden all served to highlight this perfectly and their stories ending in the same book has a beautiful symmetry to it.

cheese fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Aug 20, 2013

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 03:30

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

nutranurse posted:

Glamma Golden's whole "I just want to see my family again" speech in Red Country was so that I nearly ran into the back of another car while listening to it.

I love the way Abercrombie tells stories without actually telling them. If you read the end of The Heroes and then Glamma's parts in Red Country, you know a lot about what happened in the north in the years in between.

Xenix posted:

I doubt we'll see Logen again, but I'm sure we'll hear rumors or other things about him. I don't think we've seen the last of Shivers, though.

I dunno, I really felt like his arc finished.

cheese fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Aug 22, 2013

# ¿ Aug 22, 2013 00:43

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Ravenfood posted:

BSC, The Heroes, and Red Country are all standalones? Will I miss/gain anything reading them in any particular order?

Under no circumstances should you read them out of that order. You will regret it and, as others have said, miss out on important and loving awesome character arcs.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 07:14

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

packsmack posted:

I really liked the poisoner guy's story too.

You are all wrong and this person is right, the poisoner arc is the best arc and I hope he comes out of no where in the next book and does something accidentally awesome.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2013 07:18

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

BananaNutkins posted:

He's dead. I made this spoiler long so that people wouldn't go, ah, that spoiler is only four characters long so that means he's dead. Although, now that I think about it alive is only five characters and people might assume that instead. But he's dead. Very very dead. Maybe the next book is all about Morveer's mother.

Wait, what? Am I remembering it wrong? I thought he poisons the crown and then gets away scott free?

# ¿ Sep 20, 2013 06:51

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 01:24

cheese: Jan 7, 2004; Shop around for doctors! Always fucking shop for doctors. Doctors are stupid assholes. And they get by because people are cowed by their mystical bullshit quality of being able to maintain a 3.0 GPA at some Guatemalan medical college for 3 semesters. Find one that makes sense.

Wangsbig posted:

Maybe the ambiguity actually adds to the character and there's no need to be upset about it

Complete agree. There are multiple points where strong evidence is presented that Logan is both in control and not in control of his Blood Nine persona, and he does both "good" and "bad" things as a result of this. Even the alcoholic angle of it doesn't really feel right, because its hard to imagine an alcoholic using his alcoholism for good the way Logan does.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 06:18

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