Last Argument of the Kings Review

            Well, it's time for me to give you my take on the last book in the First Law Trilogy.  It's the Illusive One's review of Last Argument of the Kings.

            Like the previous two books, this one has three different storylines.  The war continues to rage in the north and has slowed to a stalemate.  After returning from his journey west, Logan Ninefingers has returned to the north to settle some unfinished business with the King of the North, Bethod, his oldest friend and his oldest enemy.

            The second deals with Jezal dan Luthar, who, after returning from his journey west, has decided that soldiering, adventuring, and winning glory is too painful an undertaking.  Unfortunately for him, the Magi Bayaz has not yet finished with Luthar and glory has a nasty habit of sneaking up on a man when he least expects it.

            In the third, Superior Glokta has returned to the Union and once again finds himself trying to prove Bayaz is a fake.  Unfortunately for him, he has too little time and too many masters who all are at each other’s throats and sooner or later, Glokta will have to pick a side.

            While all of this is going on, the King of the Union lies on his deathbed, the peasant’s revolt and the nobles scramble to steal his crown.  None of them seem willing to believe that the shadow of Gurkish invasion is about to fall on the Union and only Bayaz knows how to stop it.  But there are risks and there is no risks greater then breaking the First Law.

            Like the previous installments in First Law, I have next to nothing bad to say about this book.  The characters come into full circle, the battles are just as epic as ever, it had a lot of dark humor, and there were so many twist that my head just kept on spinning during the last quarter of the book.  If I had any criticism with this book, it's that their seemed to be too many battles in it and this dominates most of the book.  It also left a few things hanging and there were a few characters whose fates you weren’t sure of and it made the ending a little frustrating.  On a final note, this was the book where Bayaz was revealed to be the villain he is, and if you read this book you will find out why he is my number one villain.

            Unfortunately this review and my first two don't give the books justice.  So check them out and enjoy them.

All Around

10/10

             

Before They Are Hanged Review

           Within a year of the release of The Blade Itself, its sequel, Before They are Hanged was released and this was where the series really got good.

            Like the previous book, it follows along three different storylines that deal with the characters that were introduced in The Blade Itself.  The first of these deals with Logan Ninefingers, Jezal dan Luthar, Ferro Maljinn, and Bayaz as they journey west to retrieve a weapon that will allow Bayaz to defeat his rival who threatens the Union Government.  In order to find this they must cross the anarchic territory of the Old Empire, through warring factions, ancient cites full of monstrous creatures, and across freezing and barren mountains.  The biggest problem, however, is that they all hate each other and it's up to Logan to try to form some kind of fellowship between the three before they all kill each other out of ignorant, bigoted hatreds.

            The second deals with Collem West, now a Colonel in the Union Army, as he tries to keep the Union army from falling apart in the war with the barbarian North Kingdom.  With him is a band of barbarian champions once led by Logan Ninefingers, a few clans of disgruntled barbarians who have no love for their king and army of raw solders who have no experience fighting in the north.  Against him, is an entire army of battle harden barbarians with unnatural creatures supporting them and a seemingly invincible giant fighting as their champion. 

            The third deals with Glokta who has been promoted to Superior Inquisitor of Dagoska; a fortress city on the edge of the Gurkish Empire.  He is assigned to discover what happened to the previous Superior while trying to repair and defend the city from an inevitable invasion by the Gurkish Empire and root out spies within.

            All around, it was a great improvement over The Blade Itself.  Abercrombie quickly rooted out the problems that existed in it, gave more depth to the characters and made the battles more epic in scale and I have nothing negative to say about it.  So check it out after you read The Blade Itself.

All Around

10/10

The Blade Itself Review

            Throughout my reviews, particularly with my fantasy book reviews, I have referenced an obscure fantasy series, known as the First Law Trilogy and its stand alone sequel, Best Served Cold by freelance film editor Joe Abercrombie.  His new book, The Heroes, is due for release later this month, and I thought that this would be an appropriate time to do a review on these books.  The first of these will be The Illusive One's review of The Blade Itself.

            I was first introduced to this series in September of 2009, when an acquaintance referred them to me, describing the protagonists as villains but ones you quickly grow attached to.  Over a year later, I now consider Abercrombie to be the greatest fantasy writer since Tolkien.

            The first of these books revolves around three central characters whose lives are about to be made extremely difficult by the Magi Bayaz.  The first of these characters is the barbarian, Logan Ninefingers.  With all of his friends and family apparently dead and banished from the recently formed North Kingdom, Logan is just trying to survive with enemies all around him and can only hope his luck holds out until he can join Bayaz for whatever task he wants him for.  He comes off as being the world weary veteran of the characters, who is no longer interested in glory but just wants to survive, even though fighting is all he knows. 

            The second of these characters, (and my personal favorite of the three), is Sand dan Glokta, an Inquisitor of the island based nation, known the Union.  During the first half of the book, Glokta attempts to convict a tax evading trading company of treason and will do all he can to achieve this goal.  During the second half, Glokta is assigned to prove that Bayaz is not the Magi he claims to be and finds his life greatly changed as a result. 

            He is a difficult character to describe.  Originally a war hero, Glokta was severely crippled after a battle with a middle-eastern type empire, known as the Gurkish Empire and was captured and tortured for two years.  He emerged from that war severely crippled, unable to walk straight and states that uncomfortable is as good as it gets for him.  He uses what he learned from his time being tortured for the Inquisition for no reason other than he has nothing else better to do with his life.  He is a character you try to be sympathetic with, but find it difficult because of the line of work he is in and he shows no empathy for it.

            The last of the major characters is nobleman Jezal dan Luthar.  Up until this point, his life had consisted of a cushy desk job in the army, seducing women of the common class, ripping his friends off in games of poker, and training for a dueling completion.  This guy is the most unlikable of the three and is a complete ass.  Like many other nobles of fiction, he believes he is superior to everyone in a lower class then he, is a dick to all those around him, including those who consider him a friend, and throughout the entire book you want to see Logan beat the shit out of him or Gloka torture him.

            Their were also a number of noteworthy supporting characters including Major Collem West who is the closest thing to a good man in this series.  Born a commoner, West rose through the ranks of the Union army after winning a dueling completion and becoming a war hero in the same war that crippled Glokta and was a formally his best friend.

            Their was also Ferro Maljinn, a psychotic woman and former slave who seeks vengeance on the Gurkish Empire  who is introduced during the second half of the book.  Other than that, nothing much is revealed about the character other then she is a skilled fighter.

            The only real criticism I have with this book is that it doesn’t reveal much in plot and it ends with the country going to war and gives no clue as to where the series is heading.  Other than that, it was all great.  I found the characters realistic, extremely complicated and were in no way the usual cookie cutter, two dimensional characters you see in most fantasy books.  The dialogue was realistic, believable, and continued cursing, which you never see in fantasy.  Last to address are the fight scenes in the book.  Like the characters and dialogue, they are realistic, believable, and above all, bloody with the characters getting exhausted and wounded.  You'd be surprised how rare that is in a fantasy book as well.

            All around, however, this book was easily the worst of Joe Abercrombie’s books and obviously the work of an amateur author but that's not saying much.  It's absolutely worth reading and from this point, the books just kept on getting better.

All Around

8.5/10