Dr.Retarded
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Excluding Half A King, his books are great. I even liked The Red Country and I hate westerns.
The end of the first trilogy is the greatest.
Looks like "A Little Hatred" has a tentative release of summer 2019.
hyped yo.
Progress Report February ’18 | Joe Abercrombie
Red Country was such a good ride. I really liked how they characterized Lamb throughout, and the way you could understand why he had to run away from his old life. He is not a good person.
Cosca had a similar arc too, after he was somewhat heroic in Best Served Cold and then showed how deplorable he became with alcohol. He was the character I truly had the most empathy for in Red Country
I felt sorry for Cosca but it was more pity than empathy.
Lamb, however, was my favorite part of the book. The knowledge that he cannot just fight because if he does then no one is safe.
I feel like Lamb sunk more and more into realising that he's more akin to a demon than a man when he fights. It was kinda sad that this man who has one talent can't fight because he will kill everyone he cares about. Not having any perspective chapters from Lamb was weird too, I was wondering if he was still chanting "still alive" over and over again, or if he was just completely succumbing to rage at that point.
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So, the newest addition to the First Law universe has been published. It is, as you can see above, titled A Little Hatred. According to publisher details, this is the first of a new trilogy that will focus on the territories that we all know and love - Midderland, Angland, and the North.
The cast of characters that inhabit this novel are extensive, and bear some resemblance to those we met in the first trilogy. Namely, we have; a barbarian warrior, a violent man trying to reform himself, and a rich fop who only thinks of himself. But then we have some interesting additions; an extremely ambitious business woman, an older warrior who'll do anything to survive, a woman who can see the future but cannot control it, and a heroic soldier.
If you have read anything by Joe Abercrombie before, you know what to expect - anyone with a shred of good intention in their heart will be beaten like a rented mule. But the heart of the plot captures an interesting angle that we hardly see in fantasy books; the modernization of the world. Factories are opening up, machines are being invented, and people are moving out of the country and into the cities. Change is at the heart of this novel. I, for one, am excited to see where it goes. The mix of technology, social progress, and limited magic is something we hardly see in fantasy - a genre bloated with exploring different magic systems, lithe elves, and bearded dwarves who live under mountains.
Speaking of fantasy, I think that Joe Abercrombie really wants to write historical fiction - not fantasy. He seems to take history, and shave off the serial numbers. Maybe he is straddling an interesting middle ground, where he is not forced into a story by the conventions of history, but can do whatever he wants by making it a faraway land that has never existed. I believe it works. Works so well you wish there was more of it. I guess they call that good writing.
I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys Joe Abercrombie. He has only developed as writer, and this may be his most well-crafted book to date.
Holy shit. Did you just crawl out of a hole Rip Van Winkle? While I agree with Abercrombie being a gifted writer, the push into Victorian type settings has been around for quite a while. I'm sure this helps keep him interested in writing and I can't wait to read it but the bolded statement from you above is hilariously out of date. You might want to expand your reading.