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

[Richard Writhen]

46 minutes ago, HokieStone said:

Is this the thread to talk about the Shattered Sea trilogy as well?  I'm nearly done...would like to get some thoughts once I finished.

I think we're down to one JA thread. I was considering starting one for FLT dream-casting.

[HexMachina]

7 hours ago, HokieStone said:

Is this the thread to talk about the Shattered Sea trilogy as well?  I'm nearly done...would like to get some thoughts once I finished.

Here is a Shattered Sea specific thread 

 

 

[SeanF]

11 hours ago, HokieStone said:

Is this the thread to talk about the Shattered Sea trilogy as well?  I'm nearly done...would like to get some thoughts once I finished.

There is a Shattered Sea thread.  I'd welcome your opinions.

[HokieStone]

 

4 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Here is a Shattered Sea specific thread 

 

 

 

36 minutes ago, SeanF said:

There is a Shattered Sea thread.  I'd welcome your opinions.

 

Thanks very much...I'll likely finish the books this weekend, and then dive into that thread!

[Richard Writhen]

On ‎5‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 7:01 AM, HokieStone said:

Thanks very much...I'll likely finish the books this weekend, and then dive into that thread!

 

I stand corrected. Enjoy.

 

I finished BTAH. Great ending ... working on LAOK.

[Andrew Gilfellon]

Wait. Ferro was mentioned in BSC? Where? When? How?

[Mick of House Guinness]

4 minutes ago, Andrew Gilfellon said:

Wait. Ferro was mentioned in BSC? Where? When? How?

IIRC Ishiri/East Wind mentions an Eater having been killed by a mad women back home. The assumption is the killer was Ferro..

[Andrew Gilfellon]

2 hours ago, Mick of House Guinness said:

IIRC Ishiri/East Wind mentions an Eater having been killed by a mad women back home. The assumption is the killer was Ferro..

Ah. I must've missed that bit. I read the series when it first came out.  I got the LAOK with the missing pages. Recently listened to them on Audible again and I still missed that. Hah. Thanks.

[HexMachina]

3 hours ago, Mick of House Guinness said:

IIRC Ishiri/East Wind mentions an Eater having been killed by a mad women back home. The assumption is the killer was Ferro..

Yep, that's the one. I think she says a woman looking for revenge, rather than a mad woman though. 

The Audible books are really very good, I've been listening to them since I got some free credit and all the voices used are great

[Howdyphillip]

4 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Yep, that's the one. I think she says a woman looking for revenge, rather than a mad woman though. 

The Audible books are really very good, I've been listening to them since I got some free credit and all the voices used are great

I tried listening to one of The Shattered Sea trilogy on Audible and although I agree that it is very good, It just didn't resonate with me. The reason is every time I read Joe Abercrombie, I hear the characters in an American accent. This is really strange because the author is British, but it is how I hear them. 

On the other hand I read GRRM in a British accent, and he is American.

[red snow]

I enjoyed Sharp ends in that there were enough excellent segments to justify the less awesome ones. I'm not a huge fan of short stories in that I'm very particular about them. I was initially intrigued at how shev and javre appeared to have a novella within an anthology but their stories were more like snapshots and unless I failed to connect the dots left a lot of moments unresolved. I really hope we get to see the two of them down the road. Carcolf I'm not so bothered about but I agree with others that there seemed to be intentional hints that her father was someone we should know. No idea who though.

"Made a Monster" was chilling but like others have said it raises a ton of questions regarding Logen and his band of brothers. How and when did Logen return to the character we love? Because Dogman and co really shouldn't have much respect for him. I also felt bad for Bethod as it did seem he was speaking the truth in LAOK when he said he was a victim of Logen's machinations. Of course, we don't know (or I've forgotten) what Bethod did to make the monster and if we did he may seem less a victim again.

My hazy recollections has definitely comitted me to doing a re-read of the series just before the next trilogy lands. I'll certainly do the short stories again to as I think I'll get more out of it when more famiiar with the whole thing. I don't usually do rereads but there are enough twists and revelations in the series to make the experience a different one the second time through in that I can keep a closer eye on everything Logen and Bayaz do. Same with Bethod and many others.

I've started Mark Lawrence's "Wheel of Osheim" book. I only mention this because I used to draw similarities between the two (still do in terms of type of story) but it's really clear going straight from one to the other that their writing styles are very different. It could be their styles have both evolved over the years or I was maybe letting the story brush over the style.

[Richard Writhen]

Had to return LAOK. I'll come back to the FLT before the flicks come out, hopefully.

 

 

Maybe I'll find the other two standalones first.

[Voland]

Finished Sharp Ends on the way to work today. That was quite the dark note it ended on, and I agree with the questions it raises regarding Logen during the first trilogy. Which I have to reread since I haven't read any of them since they first came out. 

[redjako]

15 hours ago, Voland said:

Finished Sharp Ends on the way to work today. That was quite the dark note it ended on, and I agree with the questions it raises regarding Logen during the first trilogy. Which I have to reread since I haven't read any of them since they first came out. 

My first re-read of the initial trilogy, I still feel it wasn't setup very well (writing wise) for Logen and Bays to be the "bad guys". I think most of his novels progressed better as he wrote more, so that is why I feel it was shoe-horned in, and/or not very mind-blowing.

Still doesn't jive with the loyalty shown to Logan by his crew.

Just a forewarning. 

 

I think that's hindsight bias, honestly. I don't think we were supposed to pick up that Logen (when not being the Bloody-Nine) was that bad: I'd be prepared to bet that at the point the trilogy was being written, Joe hadn't decided that he was that bad (though he clearly intended that he should be worse than we knew).

 

I completely agree with this.

[Rhom]

You know, on first glance reading through Tough Times All Over, I thought it really seemed like Carcolf was Jezal's bastard daughter with Ardee raised by Glokta.  She's naturally beautiful, natural affinity for a sword despite not practicing, a bit bitter... But before I had even finished her mugging, I realized the age didn't match up with the timeline of when we first met her.

Shame, because I really thought all the other details fit so well.  

[SeanF]

8 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Okay so going back on the discussion about Logen, there actually is a scene in Best Served Cold that reminded me a lot of what he did in Made a Monster. It's the one where Monza was planning on showing mercy to Orso's other son, the one that had nothing to do with her betrayal, and Shivers murders him pretty much on a whim. He even mocks his pleading the same way that Logen does with Rattleneck's son. There were a lot of parallels between Shivers and the Bloody-Nine in that book, and that scene in particular is similar enough to convince me that Abercrombie had that particular notion of Logen at least as far back as 2009.

That's a good catch.  Monza worked very hard to turn Shivers into a vicious, brutal, conscienceless killer, bribing him with money, sex, and manipulating him emotionally.  Then, it turned out she didn't like the result.

[Andrew Gilfellon]

48 minutes ago, SeanF said:

That's a good catch.  Monza worked very hard to turn Shivers into a vicious, brutal, conscienceless killer, bribing him with money, sex, and manipulating him emotionally.  Then, it turned out she didn't like the result.

Bethod manipulating Logen with sex is not an image I was expecting today....but it happened.

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, Andrew Gilfellon said:

Bethod manipulating Logen with sex is not an image I was expecting today....but it happened.

I imagine Bethod manipulated him in other ways, helping him get revenge on his enemies.

[red snow]

On 10/06/2016 at 1:44 AM, Let's Get Kraken said:

Okay so going back on the discussion about Logen, there actually is a scene in Best Served Cold that reminded me a lot of what he did in Made a Monster. It's the one where Monza was planning on showing mercy to Orso's other son, the one that had nothing to do with her betrayal, and Shivers murders him pretty much on a whim. He even mocks his pleading the same way that Logen does with Rattleneck's son. There were a lot of parallels between Shivers and the Bloody-Nine in that book, and that scene in particular is similar enough to convince me that Abercrombie had that particular notion of Logen at least as far back as 2009.

That takes me back to the idea that Shivers was possessed by the entity that is "the bloody nine" but that fell apart for me in "red country". Unless of course it went back to Logen during the events of "red country". Posession would explain the shifts in behaviour and his band's respect of him but not being possessed is more interesting.

[Howdyphillip]

 I would also like to challenge the notion that Threetrees, the Dogman, and Harding Grimm wouldn't have followed Logen because of his actions as the Bloody Nine. Crunden Craw was able to second for Black Dow because of the situation he found himself in. Craw is probably the most moral out of all the bunch of murderers that we read about in the North, yet he aligns himself with the most despicable and feared man in the region out of his sense of duty. 

 I can also easily see how all of these guys would have found a respect for Logan after following him. When he wasn't on a killing spree, he was a pretty good dude. It was only after things got red that you had to stay away from him so as not to go back to the mud. (I loved typing that last sentence... Thanks Joe.)