Joe Abercrombie

[The hairy bear]

On 12/4/2016 at 11:15 PM, Direwolves are totally sweet said:

There are exceptionally few things about Abercrombie's First Law I can complain about. One of them is the odd circular geography it all. But he clearly wasn't as worried about making a logical continental layout based on plate tectonics

I'm not sure that Abercrombie's world is that odd. The circular geography it's perceived because the maps are Adua-centric. In the real world, it's not that diferent from a regional map centered in Bormeo, that it's "surrounded" by islands (Sumatra, Java, Bali, Sulawesi, the Philipines,...) in a similar fashion.

Real world is full of weird shapes. I guess that if a fantasy author dared to devise an empire based on a boot-shaped peninsula, he would be mocked relentlessly.

[Argonath Diver]

I understand making a map that exaggerates perspective based on a central place. I love the hand-drawn, imprecise but decorative style of the maps featured in the original trilogy and the stand-alones. 

My exceptionally minor beef is simply that the physical geography of the areas described looks like a dartboard that ends in nothingness. Abercrombieworld may or may not be flat, with a giant serpent wrapped around the final uncrossable seas, saving Bayaz and Friends from swimming over into the void. Your map of Indonsia, for example, is a pretty clear massive archipelago with a continent or two looming in the distance.

Again, this is pretty meaningless. I somewhat enjoyed reading the trilogy and thinking that the Union was a big-ass place, the North smaller and remote, and Bad Guys Down South was a huge, unending and sprawling landmass of its own. At least it's simple! Good god, how many times reading Malazan did I have to pore over multiple books' maps to figure out where the hell people were. Then again, I really enjoyed doing that.

[red snow]

At the end of the day I could care less about the map. As long as the author doesn't contradict themselves within the story it's not an issue. I also agree with the comments that historially maps have tended to be quite centrist and the further you get from the cartographer's homeground the more vague it becomes. I could certainly see a circular map evolving in that sense - especially if there weren't trade routes causing distortions.

I tend to imagine Joe hasn't sat down and created a map beyond his general idea of one place is north of another, etc and ok'd an artists interpretation.

Looking forward to the anthology. I'll try and be polite and buy a copy from Bristol when he does the signing (Waterstones usually have a good price)

[Richard Writhen]

On ‎4‎/‎14‎/‎2016 at 2:58 AM, Jo498 said:

I do not remember where but someone matched the Shattered Sea map with a map of northern/eastern Europe to show the probable correspondences after the cataclysic event ("breaking of God").

 

There's a breaking of the planet in Belgariad / Malloreon too. To allow seas to "rush in".

 

I've gotta read the FLT. I've got an eye out for it.

[Argonath Diver]

I really don't mind the map, my apologies for bringing it up. 

Just into the final day of the Heroes. Oh boy. Won't be putting it down until it's over. Gonna jump off the Abercrombie ship til Sharp Ends after that. I need some Heroes Are Good, Bad Guys are Bad to tide me over. Hmm.

[Yevah]

Couldn't get into the first law. So tried the scattered sea, read half a king in 2 days it was so good. Picking up the next book tomorrow. I find it strange I enjoy scattered sea more when it's usually the opposite.

[Rhom]

10 hours ago, Yevah said:

Couldn't get into the first law. So tried the scattered sea, read half a king in 2 days it was so good. Picking up the next book tomorrow. I find it strange I enjoy scattered sea more when it's usually the opposite.

Shattered Sea is a bit more accessible from the jump, I think.  Its a faster paced book.  Joe had six other books under his belt to hone his craft.

The Blade Itself is by far his weakest work IMHO.  If you didn't get past that one, don't let that put you off of the entire First Law series.  He gets better with every book he writes.

[red snow]

11 hours ago, Yevah said:

Couldn't get into the first law. So tried the scattered sea, read half a king in 2 days it was so good. Picking up the next book tomorrow. I find it strange I enjoy scattered sea more when it's usually the opposite.

Like Rhom said. The Blade itself is his first book. Many authors (athough this is based by my reading of SFF) often come out the gate not a polished product and learn as they go along. With Joe it's a pretty steep curve meaning by the time you reach book 3 he's pretty damn good. This continues with his stand-alones (even if "Red country" wasn't my favourite the quality isn't questionable).

I think the Shattered Sea books work well because he intentionally kept things pacy and short, keeping in mind it was trying to grab younger audiences.

I'm really looking forward to how the sparser writing style he devloped with Shattered Sea applies to the next first law books. They might still be long books but hopefully they'll be very dense with a nice pace. I think he also got the knack of female characters down with the Shattered Sea and I certainly hope he has some young characters in First Law now we know he can do them too (although the young soldier in "the heroes" was good too)

[TheRevanchist]

6 hours ago, red snow said:

Like Rhom said. The Blade itself is his first book. Many authors (athough this is based by my reading of SFF) often come out the gate not a polished product and learn as they go along. With Joe it's a pretty steep curve meaning by the time you reach book 3 he's pretty damn good. This continues with his stand-alones (even if "Red country" wasn't my favourite the quality isn't questionable).

I think the Shattered Sea books work well because he intentionally kept things pacy and short, keeping in mind it was trying to grab younger audiences.

I'm really looking forward to how the sparser writing style he devloped with Shattered Sea applies to the next first law books. They might still be long books but hopefully they'll be very dense with a nice pace. I think he also got the knack of female characters down with the Shattered Sea and I certainly hope he has some young characters in First Law now we know he can do them too (although the young soldier in "the heroes" was good too)

I think that he was always good when it came to female characters. Monza (despite that she is a bit Monza ex machina considering the luck she has during that book), Vitari and Carlot were quite good characters IMO.

My biggest problem with his characters (despite that I actually like most of them) is that they are quite generic. When you know a few, then you know all Joe's characters. I hope that in the next books he will try to add some non-total opportunistic pricks/killers.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, TheRevanchist said:

I think that he was always good when it came to female characters. Monza (despite that she is a bit Monza ex machina considering the luck she has during that book), Vitari and Carlot were quite good characters IMO.

My biggest problem with his characters (despite that I actually like most of them) is that they are quite generic. When you know a few, then you know all Joe's characters. I hope that in the next books he will try to add some non-total opportunistic pricks/killers.

That's true - I noticed it quite a bit in shattered seas how some characters were similar to some of the First Law gang. At least initially. It's probably a good time-saving technique for shorter stories too.

I agree that the non POV female characters often worked quite well in First Law. There just seemed to be a higher density of them in Shattered Sea. And being angry wasn't the defining characteristic - although the angry one was still one of my favourites.

[HexMachina]

3 hours ago, TheRevanchist said:

I think that he was always good when it came to female characters. Monza (despite that she is a bit Monza ex machina considering the luck she has during that book), Vitari and Carlot were quite good characters IMO.

My biggest problem with his characters (despite that I actually like most of them) is that they are quite generic. When you know a few, then you know all Joe's characters. I hope that in the next books he will try to add some non-total opportunistic pricks/killers.

I'm currently reading BSC and agree that Monza is a very interesting character. I'm actually finding the characterisation here a lot better than it is in the first law trilogy, especially with the  characters whose perspective we don't get. Characters like Day, Vitari, Carlot and the Dukes are very well done IMO. And the characters where we get inside their heads are obviously even better (I love reading Morveer's POV)

[SeanF]

On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 2:19 AM, HelenaExMachina said:

I'm currently reading BSC and agree that Monza is a very interesting character. I'm actually finding the characterisation here a lot better than it is in the first law trilogy, especially with the  characters whose perspective we don't get. Characters like Day, Vitari, Carlot and the Dukes are very well done IMO. And the characters where we get inside their heads are obviously even better (I love reading Morveer's POV)

Best Served Cold is my favourite Abercrombie book.   Monza is, by any measure, an evil person, yet I really enjoy her character, and Morveer is hilarious.  What I like most is the very black humour throughout.

 

[Argonath Diver]

Absolutely crushed my re-read through Red Country in about a day and a half. Man, does that book move fast. Every single one of Abercrombie's characters is a despicable human who is also likable in some way. Our favorite multiple-named Northman tells Shy near the finale of Red Country that he is essentially evil personified, even though he doesn't want to be. I'd say Shy, Temple, or Collem West are maybe the characters furthest down the Chaotic Good side of the DnD sorting of good folks and bad. Temple's worst flaws seem to be cowardice and lack of purpose, which really aren't too bad at all compared to Monza's unwavering butchery of basically all of Styria to revenge one dickhead brother. West's horrible temper that overcomes his compassion and honor is dwarfed by the Bloody Nine coming out of everyone's favorite barbarian ever to be put in print.

More than anyone, I'd say any scene with Bayaz are my favorite moments of any of the books - even when he is off-screen as in BSC. Abercrombie perfectly establishes the guy's sheer dominance over humanity so well. I'm sure Sharp Ends will be entertaining as all get out, but damn am I looking forward to some more of the eternal conflict of these old bastards who've been running things for a long, long time.

Thanks, Joe, if you're lurking, for all these characters, and all this miserable depiction of human suffering, greed, and violence, with healthy dose of humor and a bit of hope and optimism to keep us reading. Now, if you don't mind, I think I will read some David Eddings or something. I need a nice farmer kid who saves the world from an unstoppable evil. Maybe some Hitchhiker's Guide - I think Marvin and Beeblebrox are sociopaths that would fit in nicely with some of your characters. Other than the whole android and 3 limbs stuff.

 

[Richard Writhen]

Gonna start TBI tonight. Quite excited about it.

 

 

Hopefully I've already sublimated any spoilers gleaned from The Heroes ...

[HexMachina]

I finished Best Served Cold yesterday, my first standalone by Abercrombie. Found it a lot better than the First Law trilogy, though I have to say I missed Glokta. The writing seemed to have improved a lot, and by and large the characters felt better developed. Quick question which I'll spoiler tag

Did anyone realise Shenkt was the Bone Thief before it was revealed? I didn't, but then I'm not the most observant of readers. Just wondering if there were sufficient clues to know that before the reveal

 

[williamjm]

3 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Quick question which I'll spoiler tag

 

  Hide contents

Did anyone realise Shenkt was the Bone Thief before it was revealed? I didn't, but then I'm not the most observant of readers. Just wondering if there were sufficient clues to know that before the reveal

 

I didn't realise that either. Even in retrospect I don't think there were that many clues, although it did make sense once it was revealed. We might need to ask someone who has re-read it whether it's obvious the second time round.

[TheRevanchist]

On 4/16/2016 at 0:28 AM, red snow said:

That's true - I noticed it quite a bit in shattered seas how some characters were similar to some of the First Law gang. At least initially. It's probably a good time-saving technique for shorter stories too.

I agree that the non POV female characters often worked quite well in First Law. There just seemed to be a higher density of them in Shattered Sea. And being angry wasn't the defining characteristic - although the angry one was still one of my favourites.

Yep. For this reason I hope that in the next trilogy we will see some different types of characters. Brand was quite a nice start (The Shattered Sea). He was quite different from the other killers in his books.

 

I'm currently reading BSC and agree that Monza is a very interesting character. I'm actually finding the characterisation here a lot better than it is in the first law trilogy, especially with the  characters whose perspective we don't get. Characters like Day, Vitari, Carlot and the Dukes are very well done IMO. And the characters where we get inside their heads are obviously even better (I love reading Morveer's POV)

Monza is quite great. Arguably my favorite Abercombie's character after Glokta and Bayaz. And Morveer is fantastic.

BCS is his best book IMO.

[Crowjack]

On 4/7/2016 at 5:16 AM, SeanF said:

To invoke him, you have to film yourself biting the head off a live hamster, and then post it here.

I'm thinking he's gotten too cool to hang out with the likes of us.

And we haven't seen Mark Lawrence around here lately either.

[SeanF]

15 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I finished Best Served Cold yesterday, my first standalone by Abercrombie. Found it a lot better than the First Law trilogy, though I have to say I missed Glokta. The writing seemed to have improved a lot, and by and large the characters felt better developed. Quick question which I'll spoiler tag

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Did anyone realise Shenkt was the Bone Thief before it was revealed? I didn't, but then I'm not the most observant of readers. Just wondering if there were sufficient clues to know that before the reveal

 

No, I didn't anticipate it, nor is it obvious to me with hindsight.

[MisterOJ]

26 minutes ago, Crowjack said:

And we haven't seen Mark Lawrence around here lately either.

And, sadly, we won't see him around anytime soon.