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I might have missed it but does he ever go into more detail on what happened to the last son of Euz? Bedesh I think his name was.
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May 13, 2011 14:33
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I hate to do the wall of spoilers poo poo but I just finished the whole series last night so obviously spoilers on that below: - he ends Logen's story perfectly. Perfect symmetry given what we learn about him during the journey. Dogman's confrontation with him towards the end of Last Argument of Kings really showcases how much Logen's character deceives himself about his intentions. - Ferro's resolution I thought left a bit to be desired. Just heading down south to randomly hunt Eaters/Khalul/whatever doesn't seem terribly realistic given that she already fled there once because she lacked the power to fight them. - Longfoot was terribly uninteresting and unnecessary throughout. He seemed to serve no purpose despite having a very specialized role in the narrative. I think Abercrombie needed to do a little more show and little less tell with him. - Jezal's character seemed odd at the end. Throughout the series we see Jezal show courage or at least attempt to face obstacles head on. I just don't buy the whole cowardly puppet king role despite what Bayaz does to him near the end. - Bayaz was amazingly well written. I loved his character transformation, it was downright chilling at times. - Glokta was likewise so well written that I could have done with an entire book of his escapades with Frost and Severard. I think my biggest disappointment with the series was their betrayal. You knew it was coming at some point because of the nature of the story but it still hits you.
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May 20, 2011 14:41
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I always just assumed that's because of the damage he sustained but fair enough, perhaps I didn't read enough into that encounter.
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May 20, 2011 16:22
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Ahh thanks, I must have glossed over it.
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May 20, 2011 17:37
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I'm in the middle of Best Served Cold and something big just happened, normally I'd just wait and see but this is my favorite character in the series so I need to do know: Is Nicomo Cosca actually dead? I ask because he has nine lives and I don't count deaths in these books unless someone chops off a head
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Sep 13, 2011 13:40
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Just finished Best Served Cold, thought it was fantastic and far better overall than The First Law. I can see how it would rub some readers the wrong way though, there isn't really a "good" character to get behind most of the time. Going to start on The Heroes this weekend, any word on what hes working on now?
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Sep 16, 2011 14:00
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Whenever I find a new author I like I normally send a quick piece of fan mail just because my job is probably 10x easier than being an author but it still blows at times so I figure they could use the encouragement. I've never gotten anything but form mail back which is fine, I don't really expect anything. Joe actually sent me a personal response with that patented Abercrombie cynicism which I thought was pretty cool. Anyway I just finished The Heroes, it was fantastic and even better than BSC/TFL in many ways. The way he writes the North Men is a bit generic at times and I do tire a bit of Bayaz just showing up and pushing everyone around in all of the books but the character/plot arcs were pretty much perfection.
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Sep 21, 2011 15:17
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The Rat posted:The Sanderson stuff also tends to get a bit on the Dragonball Z-ish side of things. At least that's how the Mistborn trilogy struck me, especially in the latter half. I've only read one Sanderson book (Stormlight Archive first book) but it was definitely on the DBZ side of things. I won't call Abercrombie realistic but his stuff is generally a bit more grounded.
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Sep 21, 2011 16:36
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Clinton1011 posted:I'm going to try and find the line about Bedesh but I think Gustrod killed him during their war. (not 100% sure on the spelling of Gustrod) I think you might be wrong on that one, I think you've got who lived and died reversed. I'm doing a re-read so I'll find out at some point I guess. I remember someone had emailed Joe and said his response "played it coy".
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Sep 22, 2011 20:27
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Cwapface posted:Is it best to start with The Blade Itself with this guy, or can I pick up The Heroes or something and still 'get it'? I've only just sort of gotten interested in fantasy after reading the first two books of ASoIaF (yes, because of the HBO series before you ask) and I'm very interested in this guy from what I've heard about him, but I'm kind of uncertain about jumping into another fantasy series before I finish A Dance with Dragons (which could easily be months from now; I'm an undisciplined reader). I would read The First Law before reading anything else, there are a ton of great callbacks and recurring characters between books. You'll be surprised how quickly his stuff reads, I finished most of the trilogy in a few weekends of off/on reading.
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Sep 23, 2011 12:17
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dmccaff posted:I'm about 30% into The Blade Itself and I just can't get into it. I can't say it's boring, there's just nothing really making me care about the story or the characters so far. Is it worth sticking with? I'm not keen on the prose either but that's probably just nitpicking... It really clicked for me at about the 3/4 mark into the first book, I'd stick with it a bit longer. If Logen isn't growing on you by the end then I'd just finish it up and not bother with the rest though.
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Sep 26, 2011 19:05
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Ugly In The Morning posted:I meant during the events in BSC. They definitely tries to kill him then. Like the guy in the tunnel or the one that pulled a crossbow before dying to Morveer's poison. BSC Not really, they acted out of self-defense for the most part. Cosca killed Andiche and made up an absurd excuse. Sesaria only tried to kill him after Cosca literally hit him in the head. Victus knew he was next, hence him pulling a crossbow on Cosca. In fact he pulled the crossbow when Cosca was going for his knife to throw at him under the pretext that he had to use the bathroom.
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Oct 14, 2011 12:19
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Above Our Own posted:Well, halfway through Heroes and I feel like each book I've read is worse than the previous, but still not bad on the whole. Abercrombie does a great job turning traditional tropes around to create a darkly interesting world but at this point I feel like he's just rehashing all of his own themes and subverted traditions. I feel like he's created a bizzaro inverse middle earth where things are just as predictable as the traditional fantasy he's trying to get away from. Some good points in there, I agree that he's been a bit too enthusiastic in knocking down fantasy tropes and cliches. That said he is one of the better fantasy authors in writing character motivations, hell his characterization in general is very strong. I rarely feel like I'm actually reading fantasy when I'm going through his books too, he does setting and theme so well. I think he needs to move away from the whole Bayaz/Khalul conflict unless he's going to give it some closure because it's not really going anywhere. His next book is supposedly going to be themed after a western so hopefully he'll try something new with the setting because it's starting to become fairly predictable.
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Dec 14, 2011 17:00
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I'm more interested in what happened to Bedesh (one of the least mentioned sons of Euz), there isn't any specific reference to him dying or anything. He seems to have settled up north and be distantly related to Logen, going by their similar ability to speak with the spirits anyway.
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Jan 24, 2012 16:08
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Above Our Own posted:I feel like the whole subplot with Tolomei in the trilogy is really poorly thought out and isn't developed well in the story. Yeah I can agree with that. TFL spoilers She gets reincarnated by making a deal with blah blah on the other side just so she can get revenge. Yet she has several opportunities to gently caress him over and she just lets him live for no apparent reason. Her character motivation is supposedly revenge but she doesn't bother despite it being simple for her to renege on her end of the deal. quote:I am still of the opinion that Bayaz has him imprisoned somewhere. He tells Logen that he is the last human he knows of with this ability but then later tells him he had other plans if Logen died. Then again Bayaz is a lying piece of poo poo so who knows. Yeah I don't know if its one of those first book things he just glossed over or if its supposed to be an important point for later on.
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Jan 25, 2012 16:42
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Trevefresh2 posted:Could it be West? Was it ever really confirmed he was dead? Characters don't sit around by the corpse and describe it but its acknowledged hes dead. The only character who makes sense given the wording Joe chose is Logen but he could be using it intentionally so who knows. I really hope it isn't Shivers again or something, if hes going to revisit any character then it might as well be Ferro or Logen. Their arcs were basically finished in most respects but I'll read anything new involving them because they were so well done.
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Feb 22, 2012 18:14
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Glen Cook is definitely the way to go. It's easy to parse because his prose includes so few descriptive elements and it birthed or influenced several notable modern fantasy authors. You can really burn through his books quickly. I agree with Keke, read the whole thing. The later books are only disappointing in that he reuses way too many phrases and plots elements but he experiments with a lot of other things that at least make it interesting. His other projects are neat too, I thought Passage at Arms was excellent and really nails the feel of Das Boot in space. The Swordbearer is a rather dark riff on excalibur style hero origin stories. I tried Bakker and just couldn't get into his stuff, it's really heavy on internal dialogue and geopolitical stuff. Sanderson is easy reading but it feels a bit mechanical at times, The Way of Kings was a big improvement in some ways though. The Gunslinger fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Feb 25, 2012 |
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Feb 25, 2012 05:34
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Everyone is only a "violent badass" if you ignore all of the exposition and content between the confrontations. I don't really get where that comes from at all.
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Feb 29, 2012 22:01
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el_brio posted:Fair enough, but Duck's point (I think) wasn't that there were a couple of bad-asses sprinkled here and there but the whole trilogy is filled with uber-fighters-of-ultimate-deadliness. It got a little tired when Abercrombie introduced the 10th ultimate bad-rear end in the series. It kind of reminds me of Rothfuss. Also, just because you throw in a character who shits himself and is in always in pain (& constantly complaining about it) doesn't balance out all the other faults of the books. I am sick of people saying that Abercrombie is somehow doing something new and exciting in the genre. These books are as filled with the same tired swords and sorcery BS that most of the genre is. I like the books, but I am not going to fool myself into thinking that these are anything but standard fantasy fare. I like standard fantasy fair (to some extent) and I don't need to fool myself into thinking that I am reading some great genre-shattering work of art. That's a big straw man though. Who are the people saying that Joe is a genre shattering genius, dishing out literary perfection and lilting prose to the masses? He writes bleak, cynical fantasy quite well and generally has strong characterization. The point was simply that calling Logen a "violent badass" ignores all of the other nuance his character has. The books are not simply a series of violent setpieces with characters moving between as filler for the sake of it.
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Mar 1, 2012 00:15
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Great news, really looking forward to it. Sure Logen had a complete arc in TFL but I think Joe could some interesting things with him in a western setting, particularly some amusing plays on his northmen ancestry.
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Mar 20, 2012 14:33
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There's two hardcover Red Country(1, 2) listed there from different publishers, one is 560 pages and the other is 640. I'm assuming the difference in page count is something like font size or whatever? Anyone know?
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Apr 5, 2012 14:39
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UncleMonkey posted:I was just assuming that page counts are just estimates or placeholders at this point, since the book is still going through the editing process. Ahh ok. Is it normal for a hardcover to have two different publishers in the same region? That's the thing that made me do a doubletake. All of my previous Abercrombie books were Orion so I guess I'll just order the Orion one.
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Apr 5, 2012 14:52
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I think there is definitely character growth but I can see where hes coming from, it's usually tempered by the nihilistic world view of the author. Bayaz escaping everything relatively unscathed is getting a little exasperating as well. The red heads name is Shylo Vitari by the way, I forget that one all the time and have to keep looking it up 
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May 14, 2012 16:00
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UncleMonkey posted:Wait, doesn't Morveer get killed by Cosca after a failed attempt to poison him? Yes but BSC spoilers he lives on as an infamous poisoner/assassin after Monza blames all of the deaths at the end on him. His character always wanted acceptance and recognition so in a way it's probably the happiest ending he could get.
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May 14, 2012 18:03
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Clinton1011 posted:So did I read something wrong or is that cover describing The Bloody Nine as a coward He's living under a different name as a cowardly uncle to the novels protagonist was the main gist IIRC.
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Jul 11, 2012 15:35
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UncleMonkey posted:Yeah, that was the one that got my biggest reaction too. I just got such a huge grin and was giggling like an idiot. I also appreciated the names of the oxen. The names of the oxen was a really nice touch.
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Sep 6, 2012 18:29
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I'm about halfway through but it's definitely some of the best stuff Joe has written, his nihilistic world view just goes hand in hand with this style of western. I like how the previous characters are recognized by appearance and interactions as opposed to being named outright, very slick that he pulled it off without seeming smarmy or inclusive.
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Oct 25, 2012 14:13
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BSC/RC spoilers: You also see Carlot dan Eider in both books, shes named in BSC and plays The Mayor in Red Country. There are a few other minor appearances but I can't recall them offhand, I'll have to take a look when I get home. BSC definitely fleshes out the characters, enough that I wouldn't want to skip it personally. It's also a fantastic book, one of his best.
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Oct 26, 2012 23:47
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Finally finished up with Red Country, was pleasantly surprised at the length. Joes has definitely hit his stride now, I think this was my favorite book and man, what a great ending. I really like the cover/binding on the paperback, very striking. Can't wait for his next one already, I think I'll do a First Law re-read soon.
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Nov 1, 2012 20:09
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Temple is arguably the most interesting character later on so I would stick with it. I thought Shy was kinda boring at that point in the book too but its deceptively longer than it seems and you learn more about her later. She is definitely no Murcatto though 
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Nov 21, 2012 21:57
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wellwhoopdedooo posted:I've only read the books once, what scene is this? Not even going to spoiler this because it's in the first 50 pages of the first book, he breaths his campfire in, "stores it under his tongue" and uses it later. Joe probably realized how hard it would be to introduce real danger to a character with an ability like that. I get the impression he tried to forget it and hopes everyone else did too Also there is the whole hulking out, laughing at mortal wounds and possessing inhuman speed and strength thing. The Gunslinger fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Dec 6, 2012 |
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Dec 6, 2012 05:04
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Street Soldier posted:This is kind of silly, if he realised it while he was writing the book he could have just edited it out, it's explained in that very scene that spirits are leaving the world and he says something to the effect of "This will be the last time we talk." Joe's writing and characterization grew quite a bit between books is what I was referring to. There are a lot of weird, one off things in the books. TFL Things like the giant shanka beast wearing armor they encounter underground that is never mentioned before or after again. Just my interpretation but it was his first set of books so he was trying out new ideas and such. Anyway it's been awhile since I read that section but IIRC his ability to breath fire wasn't directly connected to the spirits, he just used that to actually summon them or something along those lines.
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Dec 6, 2012 13:33
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Clinton1011 posted:He actually traps the spirit in the fire under his tongue and releases it during a fight later in the book so it was actually directly connected to his powers over spirits. Ahh, fair enough my memory is hazy, I'm about due for a reread. I still think he hadn't fully thought through how the early stuff might affect plot points and characterization later on, it's a common thing with first books and fantasy authors. Giving them a bit too much in one respect then having to claw back a bit later kind of thing.
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Dec 6, 2012 19:08
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Zeitgueist posted:Yeah I've read a lot of fantasy and the subversion does go deeper than that. Just making him "not a kindly old wizard" isn't enough to get people going these days, I agree. I agree but he redeemed himself with Monza I thought.
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Dec 19, 2012 02:36
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Errr you should spoil the middle revelation in your statement there dude. The Dragon was some sort of invention by the Kanedias, they never really go into detail what its exact purpose was. Judging by his previous inventions like the Shanka it probably wouldn't have been good though.
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Dec 28, 2012 20:39
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quote:I probably sounded more like a grumpy internet guy than I intended, but I definitely get this "I got all my favourite movies and mashed them together into my own story" vibe from Abercrombie's work sometimes. I don't really get that at all from his stuff beyond the obvious satire and social commentary. The POV swap thing has been used before and it's also pretty possible that Joe had an idea for himself instead of watching an obscure movie. I don't really care either way, even if Joe rips off every idea he's ever had I think he does pretty well with the execution.
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Jan 17, 2013 13:15
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Also when you said Aeon Flux I thought Joe had gone into XBMC skinning. I kid, I kid!
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Jan 17, 2013 22:35
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His Divine Shadow posted:I'm reading The Heroes right now and I am wondering if Shivers will become a POV character in this book any? Or is only seen through the eyes of others? Only through others, he's a POV character in Best Served Cold though.
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Jan 30, 2013 15:54
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His Divine Shadow posted:Yeah I've finished that one beforehand. I would like to see where Shivers go from there on. He makes cameos in the other books but no POVs yet, maybe in the new trilogy. I thought his story was relatively complete but to each his own.
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Jan 30, 2013 16:21
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Sanderson is great at world building and systems but he has a very mechanical writing style and his characterization is very poor. I just finished Mistborn a few weeks ago and already can't remember most of the character names. The way he writes combat is the polar opposite of Abercrombie too, everything is very exaggerated, drawn out and fantastical. That's not to say people shouldn't try his books, I liked some of them and he has a great work ethic at least but I suspect he just lacks the natural talent of other fantasy authors. I just wouldn't recommend them to fans of Abercrombie books because they are very different.
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Feb 17, 2013 17:40
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