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The Trouble With Peace by Joe Abercrombie [SPOILER THREAD]


Corvinus85

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The whole ''Oh well my daughter is a traitor so I must resign. I will retire to the country and write a book. I name Pike as my replacement until you see fit to name a better replacement'' was shady of Glokta. My first thought at the end of the book was that Pike and him had arranged the rebellion to try and bring down Bayaz. We haven't heard the last from him IMO.

 

When Isher joined Leo with his forces at the end, anyone thought the way he was described was weird ? It felt like he didn't want to be there but had no other choice, and knew he was in trouble. He didn't look like the guy who started the rebellion in the first place and things would go their way. And the fact he managed to get away is also way too convenient don't you guys think ? 

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32 minutes ago, The Unborn said:

When Isher joined Leo with his forces at the end, anyone thought the way he was described was weird ? It felt like he didn't want to be there but had no other choice, and knew he was in trouble. He didn't look like the guy who started the rebellion in the first place and things would go their way. And the fact he managed to get away is also way too convenient don't you guys think ? 

I didn't.  I thought it was 100% on brand for a guy who was a big talker but never truly wanted to commit himself to the act.  He was always happy to pull the strings from behind and set pieces in motion, but actually getting involved was never going to be his style.

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3 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I didn't.  I thought it was 100% on brand for a guy who was a big talker but never truly wanted to commit himself to the act.  He was always happy to pull the strings from behind and set pieces in motion, but actually getting involved was never going to be his style.

Not only that, but I think he realized that being a good schemer does not make you a good general and he was feeling very out of his element.  In fact, none of the rebels seemed to show any generalship.  All the Union rebels deferred to Leo, who was basically a glorified Major, and the Northmen were following Nightfall, who seemed to think that generalship just meant yelling "attack!!"  The generalship in Heroes was far better (and even there it was plagued with errors and miscommunications). 

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3 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I didn't.  I thought it was 100% on brand for a guy who was a big talker but never truly wanted to commit himself to the act.  He was always happy to pull the strings from behind and set pieces in motion, but actually getting involved was never going to be his style.

I certainly agree that's in sync with who the character is, but the reason why I felt that way exactly with him is because a  couple of pages before, Vick caught Brint and Heugen together so I was ''surprised'' to see Isher show up with his force. Then I thought to my myself ''Heugen talked to Vick, so maybe they got to Isher and threatened his family so he could set a trap on Leo or something'' .

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On 10/15/2020 at 2:28 PM, Mentat said:

Though the grounds for this particular rebellion are mostly the petty ambitions of the rebels (the councilpersons want power and Leo wants to be a hero and saviour), the impression that the Union is very poorly managed is correct, and reasonable grounds for rebellion do exist.

The Union is drowned in debt, has been involved in several costly wars (which it lost), its outer provinces are heavily taxed and malcontent, its common folk are on the verge of an uprising, etc. It's also a puppet regime beholden to an evil wizard. Trying to talk these grievances through with Orso would likely be to no avail, as he is himself a straw man and we have seen he can rarely get any kind of policy enacted if at all. Resting control of the Union from Bayaz and his cronies, defaulting on the debt with V&B, enacting policies that protect the common folk and ensuring the provinces have adequate military support if needed and aren't crushed by taxes, would all be rebellion-worthy, as none of this can be achieved under the current regime

I think that the book could have been improved by having Isher&Co. stress those points. If the lords had focused in those actual justified grievances instead of Lord Wetterland's far-fetched conflict, the rebel side would come across as more likeable.

On 10/15/2020 at 5:00 PM, Corvinus85 said:

But the question is how is it that all those Midderland lords were able to raise several thousand levies and neither the Inquisition, nor the Crown looked closer at that.

That's actually addressed in the book. When Savine joins the conspiracy, one of her first suggestions is: "The Union is flooded with idle veterans. Men who have returned from war to find a changed world in which they have no place. I suggest the Open Council asks leave to raise troops to protect their interests from the Breakers. To quash riots and root out dissent. A pretext for arming yourselves which will male the Closed Council trust you more rather than less."

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Just now, The hairy bear said:

That's actually addressed in the book. When Savine joins the conspiracy, one of her first suggestions is: "The Union is flooded with idle veterans. Men who have returned from war to find a changed world in which they have no place. I suggest the Open Council asks leave to raise troops to protect their interests from the Breakers. To quash riots and root out dissent. A pretext for arming yourselves which will male the Closed Council trust you more rather than less."

I remembered that, which is why I phrased that way. Why wouldn't the Inquisition keep an eye them, knowing the tensions in the Open Council?

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I’ve finally managed to read The Trouble with Peace! It took me week to read but that was mainly due to the fact that I’ve been recovering from Covid, if it wasn’t for that I would definitely had read it in like two days.

 

I thought it was a definite improvement in comparison with ALH (which I overall liked but wasn’t mindblown). I liked the fact that this one didn’t seem as similar to any of the other Abercrombie books set in this world, which I think is a minor flaw of his other work. This one seemed bigger and more complex, as in I think this is the book with the most amount of factions at play than any of his other work (we had Orso et al, Leo/Savine, Isher, The Breakers, The Northern, The Styrians, Black Calder et al, Rikke). And it mostly felt organic to me. A few parts in the second “book” did remind me a bit of GoT Season 7 in regards to the pacing and the teleporting going on but it was ok.

 

I like were the characters are right now, and I like all the POV characters except for Broad. He is just not clicking with me. The best ones for me were still Savine, Orso and Leo. I found all three to be tragic in their own way, and I’m amazed that this is only book 2, so there is still yet ANOTHER book with this set of characters so that we can see the fallout of this storyline for an entire novel.

 

Vick is another character that was definitely a highlight. I was already attached to her on the first one but now I’m super curious to see were this goes. Rikke and Clover were perfectly fine.

 

I felt that the secondary character were way more alive and fleshed out in this one than in ALH. I particularly enjoyed Leo’s friends, Jappo, the cast of characters in Westport, Pike, Zuri, Sholla, the witch that helped Rikke, Lady Wetterlant, Isher, etc. I sincerely hope that in the next one we get to see more of the ones that are still alive. 

 

I still believe that this infighting in the Union is being manipulated by The Prophet from behind the scenes. I believe Bayaz sabotaged him and that’s why Ghurkul collapsed, but this is him having revenge. And I still maintain that Zuri is an Eater, but wouldn’t Sulfur figures that out at the end of this book? I have absolutely no idea how book 3 is gonna play out but I’m excited for it!

 

An overall solid book and I’m satisfied with it. If I were to rate it, it would be 4.5/5. 

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59 minutes ago, Nicomo Cosca said:

I’ve finally managed to read The Trouble with Peace! It took me week to read but that was mainly due to the fact that I’ve been recovering from Covid, if it wasn’t for that I would definitely had read it in like two days.

Hope you were able to make a complete recovery without any lasting side effects!  Glad to hear you are on the mend.

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On 10/16/2020 at 3:39 PM, SeanF said:

I don’t know to what extent Joe Abercrombie and Bernard Cornwall influence each other, but I’ve started reading Warlord.  It’s a rattling good yarn, but Athelstan is Jappo Murcatto to a t.

I was confused for a moment, thinking you were reading the Warlord Chronicles trilogy, then I realized you're talking about the final book in the Saxon Chronicles/The Last Kingdom series, right? Not released yet in the US.

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10 hours ago, Rhom said:

Hope you were able to make a complete recovery without any lasting side effects!  Glad to hear you are on the mend.

Thanks! I'm mostly fine right now and feeling normal again. Still taking care though.

Now, to stay on topic. Another thing I enjoyed is having a main character that is gay/bi with Leo, and I was actually rooting for him to hook up with Jurand when they were in Styria, but then it all got Abercrombied so yeah, no luck there hahaha curious to see if this is the last we've seen of Jurand.

Styria is just a wonderful setting for me. IDK if its just me being nostalgic for BSC but I greatly enjoyed the chapters there and how colorful the characters were. I agree with a few posts on the thread that Jappo could be a fantastic POV character in another novel/short story.

I also agree with other posts that the Great Change does include magic, maybe on an Apocalyptic scale (?). So far, Abercrombie has always tried new genres with every new story set in TFL World. Maybe in book 3 magic makes a huge comeback and he has more tools to play with in other standalones set in this world (like a legit dark fantasy with monsters and magic, maybe a post apocalptic novel, maybe something in Ghurkul). But that is another topic entirely.

I expect Bayaz to die on book 3, and it will probably be in an "anticlimatic" or ironic way. Let's see how this plays out... 

Oh, and look what Joe posted!

https://joeabercrombie.com/the-wisdom-of-crowds-cover-copy/

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I just finished and all I got to say is I love Clover. I've loved him since Heroes maybe? I get the books mixed up a tad. He's clearly my favorite character. When he knelt down and got blood all over himself and realized the guy was alive and just said thanks for the gore I laughed out loud. I was not expecting him to betray Stour but I sure should have, it's his nature and Stour is a lil shit.

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21 minutes ago, mactwist2 said:

I just finished and all I got to say is I love Clover. I've loved him since Heroes maybe? I get the books mixed up a tad. He's clearly my favorite character. When he knelt down and got blood all over himself and realized the guy was alive and just said thanks for the gore I laughed out loud. I was not expecting him to betray Stour but I sure should have, it's his nature and Stour is a lil shit.

He wasn't in Heroes though was he?

Thought that was one of the complaints about him in ALH, that he came out of nowhere.  :dunno: Maybe I'm misremembering.

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3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Clover didn't appear in any books before ALH. https://firstlaw.fandom.com/wiki/Jonas_Clover

Thought so.  Which is why he felt off in ALH, seemed like he could have been a guy in Heroes.  With Wonderful and the others acting like they know him well, I would imagine @mactwist2 may be confusing him with Curnden Craw.

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Quote

“Chaos. Fury. Destruction.

The Great Change is upon us . . .

Some say that to change the world you must first burn it down. Now that belief will be tested in the crucible of revolution: the Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry, and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds.

With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the world is turned upside down, no one is lower than a monarch.  And in the bloody North, Rikke and her fragile Protectorate are running out of allies . . . while Black Calder gathers his forces and plots his vengeance.

The banks have fallen, the sun of the Union has been torn down, and in the darkness behind the scenes, the threads of the Weaver’s ruthless plan are slowly being drawn together . . .”

https://joeabercrombie.com/the-wisdom-of-crowds-cover-copy/

oops saw it was already posted. Can’t wait to see how Calder responds. The north feels kind of detached from everything else now. 

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2 hours ago, Rhom said:

Thought so.  Which is why he felt off in ALH, seemed like he could have been a guy in Heroes.  With Wonderful and the others acting like they know him well, I would imagine @mactwist2 may be confusing him with Curnden Craw.

Yup. Certainly thought he was craw and both of them had history with Wonderful and they acted the exact same so I thought it was the same guy. I guess I'm an idiot.

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4 hours ago, mactwist2 said:

Yup. Certainly thought he was craw and both of them had history with Wonderful and they acted the exact same so I thought it was the same guy. I guess I'm an idiot.

Nah.  Remembering the ALH threads last year, plenty of people made the same mistake.

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2 hours ago, Rhom said:

Nah.  Remembering the ALH threads last year, plenty of people made the same mistake.

I mean for how good Joe is with characters it is strange 2 guys are like exactly the same. Could be I'm remembering Craw wrong but seems right to me. Both avoid the fight at all cost and betray when it suits them to get out of a shitty situation. Both are kinda clear that they're like that but likable so somehow people don't see it coming.

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26 minutes ago, mactwist2 said:

I mean for how good Joe is with characters it is strange 2 guys are like exactly the same. Could be I'm remembering Craw wrong but seems right to me. Both avoid the fight at all cost and betray when it suits them to get out of a shitty situation. Both are kinda clear that they're like that but likable so somehow people don't see it coming.

I think you are misremebering craw quite a bit. Craw was honourable as shit and would never have turned on wonderful or even stour. 

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