15 replies to this topic

[Bartman]

So the other spoilers thread is closed and I had a question:

What did Ishri, Black Dow's sorceress actually do...
She gave him information yes, but I don't think that large explosion and fire was her (it could have been, yes, but it could have also been Bayaz, who was known to have been experimenting with explosions, and has a thing with fire already).
So, if it wasn't Ishri, what purpose did she even serve. She hinted at protecting Black Dow, but I was expecting her to come up from the Union's perspective somewhere. And, if she was informing to Black Dow, wouldn't she have told him about Calder's plotting before Craw did?

[Marcus Cicero]

Black Dow himself told Craw that the explosion was a surprise planned by Ishri. The timing, coming right after the peace agreement, was rather unfortunate.

[Bartman]

The quote is : "Oops," said Dow. " That'll be Ishri's surprise. Shitty timing for all concerned."

So, yea I guess you are right. I just thought he said it as an assumed kind of thing, and not as like "matter of fact". I saw it as a kind of -she was suppose to do something and this is something so...- kind of thing.
I have my doubts with Bayaz because he wasn't a fan of the negotiations, and he doesn't go with them up the hill.
... but I guess I'm stretching for evidence.

[Marcus Cicero]

I see what you mean. But it was an attack on Union forces, and although Bayaz certainly wouldn't mind doing that, he doesn't really have any reason to do so here. Either way, I'm not sure that the identity of the perpetrator really matters. It's not like it's a mystery that will have any future relevance.

[Bartman]

Good point.

Anyway,
I really enjoyed the book, and I guess the Union is going South, but:
Does any one think that the Dogman might have his hands full on the boarder?
And could the thing with Golden and Scale (Calder) turn into something bigger then what Calder had in mind, especially with a weak Scale...?
I must say, the Northern POV's are my favorite, I really like the clan/tribal warfare, and I hope Joe gives us more there in the upcoming trilogy or stand alone.

[Mark Ryswell]

Great book. I'm hoping Red Hat gets some more attention in future books; liked that he kind of regretted killing Curley, the lone Northerner who didn't bolt and run at the panic that ensued from fearing The Bloody Nine was fighting for the South.

[Bartman]

Yea, speaking of that part...
I thought it was a really cool tactic of the Dogman to use the name as a weapon. I hope we get to see some more of Logan, but now I think the possibility of imitators is there.

[althanis]

From the topic title I thought a sequel to The Heroes was being penned

[Jaxom 1974]

Did the search, read the first, locked thread...I assume this is the actual second thread...

In any case, finally read this book.  finished last night.  So much awesome in it.  Early on, perhaps because of the map used for the site of the battle, I kept thinking I was reading a fantasty-set re-telling of The Battle of Gettysburg by a British author...but that isn't exactly what it was.

Having read the other thread, I know a lot of people proclaimed love for this character or that one, but honestly, I'm not sure that I really truly liked any of them...maybe Craw.  That isn't to say that any of them were poorly written.  Far from it.  But I'm not sure I actually liked them.

Having read the other thread, whether Bayaz wants competence in the command tent or not, he wants people in the positions he puts them in.  At the end of The Heroes, he needs the army in the hands of petty, vindictive generals who will be more concerned about themselves than doing what is right, thus ensuring that they'll be more inclined to listen to him.

With Scale surviving, yet seeming to be a shell of his former self, I liked the paralell of Calder given the task of ruling from behind the curtains that is his brother, much in the way that Glotka is behind Jezal.

If I have one significant issue with any of Joe's books it's that there doesn't seem to be a decent, or any, comprehensive sites that list characters and histories and such to use a reference...

[SkynJay]

For some reason I think someone from this forum started an Abercrombie wiki, lost the bookmark though.

[Triskele]

I just finished this today.  I loved it.  And this is despite feeling like I didn't find any of the main POV characters as compelling as many of them in the previous books.  So that's actually quite the compliment.   I think I enjoyed this one more than any of the others except for LAoK which would edge out The Heroes.

JA is definitely my second favorite author after GRRM now.

Not a ton to add, but some random thoughts and a few questoins:

-I love Black Dow.  I was so sure he wasn't coming out of the circle, and I wasn't happy about it.  Although I had no good guess as to how it was going to play out.  I had a guess that maybe Bayaz was going to influence it the way that he did w/ the match between Jezal and Gorst.

-Stranger-Come-Knocking was fascinating in the small doses, but ultimately had very little to do w/ the plot of this one.  Will we get more?

-The explosion that was Ishri's "surprise:"  was that some magic/art or was that explosives?  I suspect the latter.

-I miss references to Valint and Balk

-How did Scale survive?  Were we just to think from Gorst's POV that he killed him but he didn't quite?

-Thank God for the map(s).

-I loved Beck just because it helped show an extra dimension to the cultural meaning of the names for the Northmen.  Red Beck indeed.  

After reading BSC and this back-to-back, it's really cool how we're moving towards this huge eternal conflict between Bayaz and The Prophet, yet we're getting glimpses of it through these stand-alones.  One a revenge novel based in Styria over the course of a year in a very linear fashion.  The other completely in one local in a three day battle.  Loving it.

To sum up, as Noel Gallagher once said, "You are a weird cunt,  Joe Abercrombie."  (4:35 or so)

Edited by Triskele, 08 August 2012 - 10:20 PM.

[Marcus Cicero]

Triskele, on 08 August 2012 - 10:20 PM, said:

I just finished this today.  I loved it.  And this is despite feeling like I didn't find any of the main POV characters as compelling as many of them in the previous books.  So that's actually quite the compliment.   I think I enjoyed this one more than any of the others except for LAoK which would edge out The Heroes.

I had the same reaction. IMO the trilogy has the best set of characters, but The Heroes is a superior novel to Before They are Hanged or Last Argument of Kings.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Trisky - Ishri's (autocorrect wanted to change that to Ishroi, lol) surprise was chemical explosives. I believe they had them in Glokta's storyline in Dagoska, and they definitely had them in Adua in LAoK. She may have detonated them magically, though.

[Triskele]

WrathOfTinyKittens, on 09 August 2012 - 09:25 AM, said:

Trisky - Ishri's (autocorrect wanted to change that to Ishroi, lol) surprise was chemical explosives. I believe they had them in Glokta's storyline in Dagoska, and they definitely had them in Adua in LAoK. She may have detonated them magically, though.

Best Served Cold

Spoiler

Did they use the same stuff at Duke Orso's place at the end of BSC when Cosca went down into the tunnel?

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Trisky - not gonna spoiler tag it since this discusses the previous book (plus it's a pain on the phone )

Anyway, yes it was the same stuff. Black powder or an equivalent. They even used the old western movie trick of using a trail of the powder as a fuse for the bomb.

[Triskele]

Does everyone else picture Bayaz as looking like Dr. Andrew Weil?

Edited by Triskele, 14 August 2012 - 02:07 AM.