In Which I Post A Book Review Just To See What Happens

Half a King by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Something I noticed when I read Clive Barker’s Abarat was that when an author of extreme material turns to YA and operates withing the restrictions of YA - cutting down on the bad language, the gore, the plumbing of the murkier depths of human nature - you often end up with some of the author’s strongest works. Excess can be indulgent and gratuitious. Joe Abercrombie has excelled in flaying the fantasy genre, not only with violence and grim realism, but also in attacking the foundations of epic fantasy with a profound, almost nihilistic cynicism. The First Law Trilogy was an exercise in turning the very idea of quest-battle-siege-heroic journey into one long cunning trap of futility and waste in order to maintain rather than upset a balance of power. It would be a crushing read if not for a certain amount of wit and charm in the blood and mud.

Half A King is a YA fantasy about a young prince thrust into kingship and then thrust out of it, and his quest for revenge. Yarvi is a crippled younger son of the king of a warlike northern tribe, destined to escape the shame and humiliation by becoming a Minister - half adviser and half priest. The murder of his father and brother results in his sudden unwilling ascent to the throne. Betrayal follows, but Yarvi survives and ends up chained to an oar on a merchant ship. He must put his mind and his training to work in gaining his freedom and his revenge and his throne, and every step of the way sees him make hard choices with heavy costs and terrible compromises.

So in some ways a typical epic fantasy tale of an outcast rising and regaining their birthright, but tightly plotted and fast-paced with twists of the story and twists of the knife as nothing comes easy or clean. Relative to his other work, Half A King has a light touch, but that doesn’t mean Abercrombie pulls his punches, and when they land they land all the harder. On the other hand, there is a cast of likable, well-drawn characters surrounding our driven, self-loathing hero, and not all of them die horribly or end up completely alienated from Yarvi, so it’s not quite as soul-crushing as the First Law Trilogy. With a complete story told in volume one, I’m dying to see where this trilogy goes next.

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