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Shattered Sea Trilogy II - Spoilers of "Half a King", "Half a World" & "Half a War"


The hairy bear

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Just finished it yesterday.  Bfff, that was intense.

 

It was harder than I expected, for a book that's sold under the YA label. I remember that I used to read plenty of YA when I was 11-12 without much problems, but I think I would have been traumatized by this ending if I had read it then. :P

 

Pretty much everyone ends up in a much worse place than when they began. At least Koll got to have the happy ending he deserved.

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ooooh boy...this book. The best thing i can say about it is that is might have been decent if it had not felt so rushed. Perhaps I could have forgiven it all the Abercrombie-sh cliches if it wasn't so bloody predictable. It reads like violent YA fiction, for the first time in the series, and is probably the second worst book J.A. has written. I really have nothing more to say about it, sadly. Hopefully Joe takes that sabbatical and comes back with some new ideas.  

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So annoyed I have to avoid this thread for a couple weeks. Why in the world is the ebook for the U.S. not out yet?



Well, the physical boo isn't out here yet either.

Random question, is this actual marked as YA anywhere? Everyone always says it is and I know it was written with a younger audience in mind, but everywhere I go they're shelved with the regular SFF.
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The second best book Joe Abercrombie wrote is still in the second half of the top 50 Fantasy books of all time. 

 

 

If you only know of 50 fantasy books, sure. Or if you are, you know, a raging fan boy. 

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I'm really hoping you're not a Patrick Rothfuss fan.

 

?

 

I read his first book but i didn't really enjoy it. Don't really know what that has to do with anything, however. 

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[spoiler] I think it's intentionally ambiguous as to whether or not Yarvi killed Skifra's family. Right after Yarvi says to Koll that he can't plan everything, we're given the strong impression that Yarvi killed Grom Gil Gorm, but we later find out it was actually Raith.[/spoiler]

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ooooh boy...this book. The best thing i can say about it is that is might have been decent if it had not felt so rushed. Perhaps I could have forgiven it all the Abercrombie-sh cliches if it wasn't so bloody predictable. It reads like violent YA fiction, for the first time in the series, and is probably the second worst book J.A. has written. I really have nothing more to say about it, sadly. Hopefully Joe takes that sabbatical and comes back with some new ideas.  

What's the worst book he has written?

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[spoiler] I think it's intentionally ambiguous as to whether or not Yarvi killed Skifra's family. Right after Yarvi says to Koll that he can't plan everything, we're given the strong impression that Yarvi killed Grom Gil Gorm, but we later find out it was actually Raith.[/spoiler]

 

[Spoiler] He denies it to Koll, as being a lie of Grandmother Wexen's, in the same breath as he denies being a traitor.  But, we later learn that he was a traitor, which implies that the other denial might be a lie too. [/Spoiler]

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[spoiler] I think it's intentionally ambiguous as to whether or not Yarvi killed Skifra's family. Right after Yarvi says to Koll that he can't plan everything, we're given the strong impression that Yarvi killed Grom Gil Gorm, but we later find out it was actually Raith.[/spoiler]

We were in Raith's POV when he did that, we were never supposed to think Yarvi was behind it - you must have misread that chapter.

I'm torn on whether
[spoiler]
Yarvi killed Skifrits family or not, yes he's shown to be the traitor but Grandmother Wexen was also shown to be just as ruthless and happy to lie so it could have been her last attempt at getting Yarvi.

He better hope Thorn never finds out he sent Yilling to Thorlby though, if she does I don't think his elf weapons will save him.

I was frustrated that we didn't get to see Thorn have a fight of note, but thought Uthil losing to Yilling solely due to poor weaponluck and Gorm getting poisoned were perfect.
[/spoiler]
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Finished last night.  I really enjoyed the trilogy.  Whatever efforts he may have been making to aim for a younger audience were definitely tossed out the door in those last couple of chapters.  :lol:

I had been considering recommending the series to my 12 year old nephew who is on a big Harry Potter kick... but I'm fairly certain my Catholic sister-in-law would not be a fan of me giving her middle child a book which climaxes in an unrepentant abortion! :lol:
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It was harder than I expected, for a book that's sold under the YA label. I remember that I used to read plenty of YA when I was 11-12 without much problems, but I think I would have been traumatized by this ending if I had read it then. :P

 

Pretty much everyone ends up in a much worse place than when they began. At least Koll got to have the happy ending he deserved.

 

?

 

OK, Thorn loses Brand, and that's terrible, but by Abercrombie standards, it's not a [i]dreadfully[/i] bad ending. She sails off into the sunset for further adventures. As does Raith, albeit [i]sans[/i] Rakki and Skara.

 

Rin loses Brand too, of course, but she and Koll are happy together and successful.

 

Yarvi becomes Grandfather Yarvi and (despite Skara having leverage over him) that's a whole lot better than where he began, the book or the series.

 

Skara is a queen in her own right, restoring Throvenland and much better off than where she began. So she lost Raith. So what? Never struck me as a particularly meaningful relationship anyway, and not that important to her.

 

Laithlin is also a queen, albeit Regent, and has her son, even if she's lost her husband.

 

Blue Jenner - better off. Mother Owd - better off.

 

Skifr wound up worse off. Uthil wound up dead, though it was probably the death he'd have chosen. But overall... yeah, this was a happy-ending book by Joe's standards.

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I really dug the books.  

 

Not sure why the last one is getting bad press around here.  Seemed consistent with the rest of the novels.  

 

 

I dunno about bad press, seems everyone here liked it aside form myself.. 

 

I'm at the stage where all of Abercrombie's books are starting to merge into big blob of sameness. 

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I just finished it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, very quick pace. I do agree that it's not quite as good as Half a World, which is my favorite in the trilogy. I wish Thorn had a larger role, kinda like the wild card that she was in in the previous book.

I think that the new POVs weren't as good as in the previous books, apart from Skara.

 

On Yarvi's scheming:

[spoiler] It only occurred to me that he was the traitor in the chapter where he kills Grandmother Wexen. My main suspect until then was Owd, just because she was an unknown, and happened to be present at all the important meetings.

However, Yarvi said that his treachery began when he was outmaneuvered at the straits, but one thing is left unexplained. Why didn't Gettland and Vasterland come to the aid of Throverland in time? The three nations together, led by capable leaders could have scored a victory sooner without all the bloodshed.

On Skifr's family: either Yarvi did it, or Skifr lied at Yarvi's suggestion, to give credence to her cause and have people trust that the witch is on their side; which would mean the burn scars were from an accident? I know I'm grasping here.

On Brand: I don't think Yarvi wanted Brand dead. Though if he did kill Skifr's family, this would be nothing. But it's one thing for Yarvi to piss off Uthil and his mom, another to piss off Thorn Bathu.

Yarvi almost turning into Palpatine at the end was a bit shocking, so I was glad when Skara put him in his place. [/spoiler]

 

On Skifr, elf-weapons and elf ruins:

[spoiler] I enjoyed trying to guess what weapons they used based on their description. I'm not sure what weapon Yarvi's staff is supposed to be: a long barrel rifle? About the only thing that goes for a staff.

What weapon did Skifr use at the battle of Bail's Point? Initially I thought she just had a revolver, but then shit started exploding, so... grenade launcher? Do the grenades leave a trail of smoke when launched?

How long would it take for radiation caused by a nuclear weapon to dissipate from a place? Because it's implied that thousands of years passed. The one thing that made me frown about their journey to Stokom was when Skifr turned on the lights in that building. Where was the power coming from?

Skifr definitely knows way more about the elf-world than just a normal explorer would. No one would know about radiation pills. I think she is descendant from a group of people that have striven to preserve the knowledge that was lost. [/spoiler]

 

Other things:

[spoiler] The thing I disliked the most was Brand's "off screen" death. Considering all the things he did in Half a World, Joe should have treated him better.

Uthil is still the best swordsman in the Shattered Sea, I don't care what anyone says. His death was a pretty good scene, I'll admit, but give them a clean mat, and Uthil beats Bright Yilling, or Grom-gil-Gorm. [/spoiler]

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