Joe Abercrombie: The Collected Works (and in what order to read them) SPOILERS

[The hairy bear]

On 23/7/2016 at 5:24 AM, redjako said:

My point was more directed around the first trilogy, where the Shanka were pretty much disregarded.

Redjako,

Joe said once that when he started writing The First Law, he intended to have a world with much more magic in it. Perhaps that's why the Shanka seemed very important at the beginning and not so much at the end. In the early chapters of the first book there's also Caurib (possibly the only known sorcerer of Abercrombie's world unrelated to the magi) or Logen interacting with spirits and throwing fire through his mouth (he doesn't do it again in the whole saga).

I agree that it's a flaw in an otherwise great piece of work.

[redjako]

Aha, good points.

[akh]

In Sharp Ends, I enjoyed the Logen story the most by far, but to me the best parts in any of the books always were the Logen, Glokta and Cosca and a few other Northmen POV. Perhaps these characters are more colorful by default and hence easier to find interesting or intriguing, but still. 

Are there any news of anything new going to be written in the Bloody-Nine world?

[Whiskeyjack]

On 7/20/2016 at 8:58 PM, Let's Get Kraken said:

Also rereading the trilogy, half way through BtaH at the moment. More and more I am becoming convinced that the Bloody Nine really is some kind of a demon.

• Ferro refers to him having a devil inside of him, and multiple characters say he fights like a demon or a devil.
• Logen gets  a"cold feeling" right before he becomes the Bloody Nine. Demons and the Other Side are constantly described as cold or icy.
• Logen has inexhaustible stamina as the Bloody Nine and doesn't feel pain the way that normal men do. Both of these also seem to be true to some degree of Ferro, who has demon blood.
• Bayaz using the Seed, employing magic directly connected to the Other Side, knocks Logen out of B9 mode, which isn't something we've ever seen happen through other means. Usually the Bloody Nine just has to run its course.

The Bloody Nine also seems to be more articulate than Logen. The prose from its POV is almost poetic, which isn't what I would expect from someone in a berserker rage.

 

We had a thread about this a few years ago.  It's archived now, but can be found here - Bloody Nine discussion

I'll just quote my post on it, since it basically still applies.  I hope the Bloody Nine isn't a demon, and is a personality disorder.  I think that's more intriguing.  But I also think there's some evidence that points the other way.

Will start by saying that Logen is pretty much my favorite character from any book I've ever read. Feel like there is so much to him.

And personally, I have always preferred to think that the Bloody-Nine is indicative of him suffering from a serious psychological disorder. To me, that just makes the character more interesting. It means that every aspect of him - the good and the bad and the awful - is authentically part of him. He has to take ownership of it all. As readers, we have to assign responsibility of it all to him. There's no cop out, which is what you get when you conclude that "a spirit possessed him."

That said.....I've been re-reading the books recently, and came across some evidence in favor of the spirit possession theory. Nothing definitive, but it has me wondering if my preferred interpretation is wrong.

Both of these quotes come from Last Argument of Kings. The first is from the end of the chapter "Sweet Victory." I think its my favorite passage from the entire series.

If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person? You have to be realistic. He'd played at being a different man, but it had all been lies. The hardest kind to see through. The kind you tell yourself. He was the Bloody-Nine. That was the fact, and however he twisted, and squirmed, and wished to be someone else, there was no escaping it. Logen wanted to care.

But the Bloody-Nine cares for nothing.

The underlined part is the section at issue here. The Bloody-Nine cares for nothing.

Then, three chapters later, we have the ending of the chapter "Leaves on the Water." Logen is speaking with a spirit for the last time in the series.

'I ran before,' he muttered, 'and I only ran a circle. For me, Bethod's at the end of every path.'

'Then that is all our talk.' The spirit stood up from the fire.

'Perhaps I'll see you again.'

'I do not think so. The magic leaks from the world, and my kind sleep. I do not think so. Even if you beat the Feared, and I do not think you will.'

'Message o' hope then, eh?' Logen snorted. 'Luck go with you.'

The spirit faded back into the darkness, and was gone. It did not wish Logen luck. It did not care.

So....yeah. I guess it could just be a coincidence. But its kind of hard to believe that Abercrombie used the same wording, three chapters apart, without having any intention behind it.

I still prefer the psychological disorder theory, and I'll probably continue to favor that unless its disproved by absolute, direct evidence of the spirit possession theory. But even I have to admit that the above quotes are a point toward the Bloody-Nine being connected to the spirits in some way.

[Darth Richard II]

Could be a demon with a personality disorder!

[SeanF]

I tend to agree that the Bloody Nine is a demon.

[akh]

If he were a demon, then he'd have been fine to carry the Seed though, wouldn't he?

Something I noticed on my re-read was that in Bloody-Nine's POV he always refers to the sword Bayaz gave him as Kanedias' Sword or the Master Maker's sword as with some familiarity. Logen himself really didn't call it like that. Didn't letters also light up on the sword when he was cutting through the Shanka in the Old Empire? 

Still I think Logen's power has something to do with the spirits. Glustrod messed with demons, Juvens had magic, Kanedias had technology. The fourth brother (Be...-something) had spirits. That sounds a lot like the missing 'nature element'. Considering how poetically Bloody Nine compares itself with nature all the time, I'd guess the power comes from there. We don't know what happened to the fourth brother or when - we just know he's dead. And we don't know his powers either unfortunately. 

Nonetheless, only a spirit or a demon would make sense given how different he becomes once he goes berserk. Maybe it's just another spell - we've seen he knows "Breathe Fire", maybe this is something else spirit-magic.

I wonder what happens if a 'spirit-seer' eats the flesh of humans. I mean, Logen did some insane shit, wouldn't put cannibalism beyond him. But IIRC the berserk-episode started before he'd done dark work.

[jurble]

Bedesh isn't dead, as far as we know.  Glustrod was opposed by the Maker and Juvens due to breaking his father's Law.  Juvens and the Maker get killed by Bayaz because they're threats to his dominance - but Bedesh was never involved in politics.  Joe said in an AMA way, way back that Bedesh basically left home and was never found (he could've just been facetious - he mentions the cops found Bedesh's shoes).  Possible Bayaz killed him, but my impression is that Bayaz lets people live so long as they acknowledge his primacy and know their place.  So long as Bedesh didn't or doesn't make any noise, Bayaz has no concern with him.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Didn't Bayaz say that the sons of Euz were all dead? When he talks about killing Kanedias IIRC he say something like the last of the sons of Euz passed from the world. He also speaks about them all having destroyed each other on another occasion.

In some way, both Euz and Bedesh left the world, or disappeared.  We don't know exactly what their fate was.

[Jo498]

On 27.7.2016 at 5:20 PM, The hairy bear said:

Joe said once that when he started writing The First Law, he intended to have a world with much more magic in it. Perhaps that's why the Shanka seemed very important at the beginning and not so much at the end. In the early chapters of the first book there's also Caurib (possibly the only known sorcerer of Abercrombie's world unrelated to the magi) or Logen interacting with spirits and throwing fire through his mouth (he doesn't do it again in the whole saga).

I agree that it's a flaw in an otherwise great piece of work.

This is quite interesting and makes a lot of sense. I admit that I had forgotten about the fire breathing/spirits thing (which seems really unique although this explains why Bayaz needs Logen) but I found there was always a tension between the "down to earth", gritty, somewhat realistic main narrative and the background/resolution with age-old mages, demons, whatever. It seemed like a not very coherent mix of highest and lowest fantasy. In this respect both BSC and Heroes (the presence of magi representatives in Heroes is basically a red herring) and Shattered Sea are more consistent, I think.

[Pliskin]

Mmh, a trilogy of trilogies?

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Pliskin said:

Mmh, a trilogy of trilogies?

I'm guessing he meant each book consists of 3 acts? Otherwise we could be in for a long wait!

[Pliskin]

From what I understand each book he was planning will be cut into 3 smaller books. So it's really 9 books in total.

No?

Ok no, reading again, you're right I think.

[C.T. Phipps]

On 8/8/2016 at 7:18 AM, Jo498 said:

This is quite interesting and makes a lot of sense. I admit that I had forgotten about the fire breathing/spirits thing (which seems really unique although this explains why Bayaz needs Logen) but I found there was always a tension between the "down to earth", gritty, somewhat realistic main narrative and the background/resolution with age-old mages, demons, whatever. It seemed like a not very coherent mix of highest and lowest fantasy. In this respect both BSC and Heroes (the presence of magi representatives in Heroes is basically a red herring) and Shattered Sea are more consistent, I think.

I wrote an article for Grimdark Magazine which said that The First Law was deliberately the anti-Lord of the Rings.

So it had Gandalf and Aragorn both.

Tolkien, also, had big epic magic and yet it very very subdued.

[red snow]

26 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

From what I understand each book he was planning will be cut into 3 smaller books. So it's really 9 books in total.

No?

Ok no, reading again, you're right I think.

I'd like 9 books but that would essentially be the same output of his career to date. Could be a decade of he's finishing them all first.

I'd speculate it's the parts in each book as some of hos books have had more than 3 parts in them eg BSC

[sologdin]

1 hour ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I wrote an article for Grimdark Magazine which said that The First Law was deliberately the anti-Lord of the Rings.

So it had Gandalf and Aragorn both.

Tolkien, also, had big epic magic and yet it very very subdued.

quite right.  my reading is that bayaz is gandalf who takes the ring and uses it.

[Werthead]

Yeah, he says that each book will have three parts, so he's finished Part 1 of Book 1 and is now drafting Part 2, so he's halfway through the draft of Book 1 and he wants to complete all nine parts (up to Part 3 of Book 3 of the new trilogy) before redrafting and then prepping for publishing.

Based on that I suspect we won't see Book 1 of the new trilogy until 2018, but we'll then see Books 2 and 3 in 2019 and 2020. That's pretty good actually, as it means that 2017 will only be the third year since he started publishing that we're Abercrombieless.

[C.T. Phipps]

21 minutes ago, sologdin said:

quite right.  my reading is that bayaz is gandalf who takes the ring and uses it.

Hell, the entire journey is an inversion.

Byaz takes the Fellowship to get the ring rather than destroy it and it's a complete waste of time.

[sologdin]

agreed.  and he's anti-merlin to the extent that jez is not born for the sword in the stone, like arthur, but is rather a fiction.

[HexMachina]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Yeah, he says that each book will have three parts, so he's finished Part 1 of Book 1 and is now drafting Part 2, so he's halfway through the draft of Book 1 and he wants to complete all nine parts (up to Part 3 of Book 3 of the new trilogy) before redrafting and then prepping for publishing.

Based on that I suspect we won't see Book 1 of the new trilogy until 2018, but we'll then see Books 2 and 3 in 2019 and 2020. That's pretty good actually, as it means that 2017 will only be the third year since he started publishing that we're Abercrombieless.

He could even do what he did with Shattered Sea and release two books in the same year if they are all completed. (This did happen right? I'm not talking nonesense here?)