Wonderful book, the plot lines come together beautifully. Abercrombie really struggles with writing women, but it’s still a good story even if 90% of it is told from the perspective of men despite there being multiple pov’s. Easy enough to overlook when that story is as enrapturing as this one. Great character development, the world building really took shape, and the battle scenes came to life.

This is the other end of the spectrum for fantasy. All the blood, the cold wind, the sleepless nights are in this world. There is anxiety, hatred, egotism, and mercilessness. Wizards will cuss you out, throw fits and do things for themselves. Must read.

Abercrombie is one of the best authors I have read in a long time. This book, this series and all that follow this character set are excellent. He challenges a lot if the worn out tropes that we have seen in this genre. In particular he turns the kindly, benevolent wizard trope on its nose. Such interesting characters, particularly Glotka. I have read hundreds of books in this genre. I started out with the Hobbit and my thirst for these types of books has never waned even after 43 years. Lately, I find my beloved genre overtaken with books that are barely worth the appellation of “fantasy” or “sword and sorcery”. If I had my choice I would put 90% of the recent award winning books in the category of “drivel” With that said, I this recommend this book and series. Joe Abercrombie is an author who stand head and shoulders above his “peers”. Also try Steven Erickson.

Honestly, if this was the first book in the series, I probably would have stopped reading. Finished since I was already invested, but the pace is just so slow. He could have fit all this character development into two slightly longer books in my opinion and it would have been much better. Worse off for having stretched it three books. Very little happens in the way of events for me.

I love this series. Great characters. Great writing. Deep world building.

This what I’m talkin bout yo :))))