Jurjen

Original review: Man. What a fucking book. A fantastic and vivid setting, strong character work and dynamics, the plot, themes, and character arcs go hand in hand together very well.

But that ending. That ending has left me speechless. What the fuck was going on. So many questions. I need a sequel STAT

reread: yeah this book still absolutely fucking rocks, especially that ending. Those last 10 pages are batshit. So much depth and meaning to the dialogue, and it's got a really strong list of secondary characters (callidus and veridius probs being the strongest).

Still need a sequel stat

It is completely unsurprising that I loved this book. Joe Abercrombie is unmatched in giving a diverse set of characters distinct voices within 50 pages, and this might be his best effort at that. This book is absolutely not hampered by not having the likes of Logen or Glokta in it, or it not being set in the First Law world.

I'm largely a dialogue reader, and Abercrombie's is matched in the genre by very few, that, combined with how fun the characters are to be around, makes just listening to the characters talk regardless of what they do a blast. It's hard picking a favourite character out of the group, which is a testament to how good a job Joe did. That said, the heart of this story is in Sunny and Alex' relationship, so probably them two.

Abercrombie isn't known for caring a lot about worldbuilding, but I found this alt-history 14th~ century Europe that had the Carthaginians unify Europe rather than the Romans, a lot of fun to exist in. Christianity took a divergence with having a female shepard who died on the wheel as a Jesus figure, Troy survived and became the premiere city in Europe rather than Constantinople, oh and human-devouring Elves are an existential threat to humanity, alongside magicians, werewolves and vampires roaming around. Neat stuff.

I think the plot might have relied on extended action setpieces a bit too much, and it dragged a bit near the middle. Of the 4, one, alongside maybe 50 pages, could have been cut, but I didn't find it a big deal. The ending, as I've come to expect from Joe, was a banger, and very heartfelt. The last 6 pages also got me super excited for the sequel! Beckert seems like a lot of fun. Curious to see where the story of the Devils is going.

Also curious to see if this story is consistently staying less cynical than the First Law.

I ended up enjoying this one a fair amount! It started a bit rough, as the world Wight built felt a bit too thin to me (the society he describes shouldn't really be able to subsist lol), meaning that the plot felt somewhat vacuous. But I realised Harrison Ford's wise words: “Kid, it ain't that kinda movie.”

What surprised me was the meta-narrarive going on behind the scenes, which ended up being my favourite part of the book. I didn't really know what Cradle was about before starting, so that caught me off-guard, but yeah, Wight was able to incorporate it in the world in a pretty intriguing way.

I don't think the character work was particularly inspiring, and the story draws on some of the fantasy clichés of the 2000s/2010s (every story needs special classes/identity groups harry potter/hunger games/percy jackson/divergence style), but they're not particularly important. Overall, it's pretty satisfying watching the protagonist grow in power, which I suppose is what this series is all about. The middle 50% is better than the first and last 25%, but with everyone saying the series gets much better past b1, i'm pretty excited for the second book!

4 stars feels a bit on the generous side, i'd say it's about a 7/10 3.5 stars, but I round up.

Blood Over Bright Haven is my favourite new pickup that I have read in the past year and a half, and it deserves all the hype it gets.

I tried writing a list of all the elements that made the book work so well, but that would undermine *why* the book is so good. Every element that makes this book great relies on another. The character work is enabled by the themes of the story, and the way the plot progresses naturally. Sciona's personality and character development was able to succeed because Wang put in the work of harmonising Sciona's personal struggle with a wider array of struggles present in Tiran. Without that, her arc would collapse. The philosophical underpinnings between the peoples in the story weren't just hollow, and existed to justify a few directions the plot had to go towards–as it so often does–but was consistently fundamental to character interactions through the entire book.

It is rare to say that a book in which you predicted almost all major plot developments accurately could still surprise and flounder you, and that it was enthralling from the first page to the last. But that is exactly what Blood Over Bright Haven did to me. It took me in its grasp, and never let go.

After about 30 pages I got the feeling that the book was going to be a complete retread of the story structure of the first 2 books, which I wasn’t looking forward to. Fortunately, that wasn't really the case. The message of this one felt different, and definitely one worth telling. If this series is unified by one concept it's definitely the feeling of belonging, and whereas b2 felt like it retread the same steps b1 did for the most part, Brigands & Breadknives felt like it had something new to say about it.

I think this book is stronger than the second, though it still doesn't really recapture the magic of the first. Not sure if it ever can be recaptured (and maybe that's okay). The side characters were fun. Zyll was great. Another strong ending.