Fantasy Book Club Series discussion
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The Heroes
The First Law Series
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The Heroes Part II-Day One
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Speaking of good lines, this one from Craw and Shivers‘You get scared, Shivers?’
A pause, that eye of his glinting as the sun peeped through the branches. ‘Used to. All the time.’
‘What changed?’
‘Got my eye burned out o’ my head.’
So much for calming small talk. ‘Reckon that could change your outlook.’
‘Halves it.’
Splutter, cough, laugh.
Looks like Dow likes being king of the north, but hating the fact that he is stuck on the throne talking. Leadership not at all what he expected. However it looks like he is going to get his battle.
Lee wrote: "Looks like Dow likes being king of the north, but hating the fact that he is stuck on the throne talking. Leadership not at all what he expected. However it looks like he is going to get his battle."The battle scenes in this book are really good. Buckle up Lee, you are just about to get to the carnage. Yes, more than we've already had and probably one of the best large scale battle sequences in the series so far.
Looking forward to it, he has set up nicely. Especially with the union having to rush there.
Mod
I am liking Finree. and finding Gorsts crush on her a little too creepy!
Besides that Calder and Craw are very interesting....
Agree that Gorst is a creepy guy. I can see Craw getting between Calder and Black Dow seeing he helped nurse Calder as a baby. Probably won't end well for Craw. He's too honourable to survive in this book I suspect.
So Ishri's back. Looks like Black Dow's been sucked into the war between Bayaz and Khalul.
Yeah I was surprised to see Ishri pop up, but then not surprised, since everything seems to be revolving around Bayez and Khalul. I guess Abercrombie want's us to see the bigger picture of the story and so these side stories, (heroes and Best Served) we are reminded that we are part of a much larger story. It is a clever way to write and portents a lot more books in the story.
Let me start with my favorite quote of this part:Calder: "Guess he couldn't beat the Union without my mighty sword-arm."
Craw: "What's his plan? Cut it off and throw it at 'em?"
Although the Halves it one that David put also made me chuckle.
I like day 1, but i still don't have a clue where this train is heading. And since i'm cheering for both sides, i fear i'm going to be in trouble!
Oh sorry another one:Finree to Hal: "They're idiots!"
"Have you ever noticed that everyone's an idiot but you?"
Fin opened her eyes wide. "You see it too?"
I love that one, need to remember it. I might be able to put it to good use one of these days.
What i'm still not very sure about: who are the three men from the tagline? I'm still counting more than three important men in this war... Guess i'll have to keep reading to find out.
Hanne wrote: "I like day 1, but i still don't have a clue where this train is heading. And since i'm cheering for both sides, i fear i'm going to be in trouble! "Ha ha. Abercrombie's good at doing that. I guess we'll have to cheer for individuals rather than sides. The sides are Bayas vs Khalul after all and they just both need to die. Can't see it happening soon though.
Absolutely! And just having read Legend by David Gemmell the difference just can't be any bigger.Right now I haven't spend that much more time with these dozens of characters and yet i'm already cheering for half of them (no matter which side they're on). I just never got this feeling with Legend.
I wouldn't mind getting to know Ulrich more. You have to admire a man who bites the head off live chickens. I took it as a promise of more to come. Compare him to Stanger-Come-Knocking. At least Abercrombie delivers on his promises.
Mod
Ah thanks Maggie, i guess that makes sense!
I'm wondering what Bayaz is cooking up in the background. Gherkish sugar? Black magic? He's the embodiment of wizard's hubris but somehow makes it work for him.The battle scenes are great. He does a couple, um, contagious POVs where one POV character is killed by another, who becomes the POV character until he is killed by someone else, who then becomes the POV. Wacky fun!
Gorst is just kind of pitifully pathetic. Kind of a Lancelot figure with all the romance sucked out of him. The squeaky voice, the fact that he's in the king's dog house after that incident in Styria, the commander who keeps demanding he cut out the heroics, the unhealthy obsession with Finree - he just can't catch a break, can he?
Gorst is pitiful...until he fights. I like the change in his voice narration between his inner voice and actual voice
Eric wrote: "The battle scenes are great. He does a couple, um, contagious POVs where one POV character is killed by another, who becomes the POV character until he is killed by someone else, who then becomes the POV."This is the next element of story-telling that Abercrombie tries - he mixes the Aristotelian "one-place" with cinematic blend-overs from one soon-to-be-dead to the next one. I don't know if I like it that one can see the artist at work; maybe I'd like to find just a smooth end-product. But art and craft, it is!
As I hear, Abercrombie blended Western and Fantasy in "Red Country". Is this the mashup of History lessons like England vs Scotland? In the tactical preparations and the battle scenes, it reads more like a historical fiction of some important mediaeval war. Of course, there are magical influences like Bayaz and Isri, but they don't shine through in the first parts.
Andreas wrote: "Eric wrote: "The battle scenes are great. He does a couple, um, contagious POVs where one POV character is killed by another, who becomes the POV character until he is killed by someone else, who t..."I'm entirely in favor of art and craft, myself. I was reading an article recently about a high school student who sent a letter to famous authors asking them if they deliberately placed symbolism in their work, and it kind of blew my mind how many of them claimed they didn't. Maybe I'm just too much a product of a post-modern world, but I think it's fun when I notice some Easter egg an author has placed in a book. This is fantasy. We're reading about wizards and dragons, so we might as well have fun with it as writers and as readers, and for me that means the occasional knowing wink at the audience.
Red Country definitely borrows Western tropes and twists them into the shape of fantasy such that they're not parodies of the Western but adaptations of its conventions into the fantasy genre.
I am feeling sorry for both Bremer and Calder....gosh but they have some good lines!