Tristan

I like many others was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid, while Walking with Dinosaurs was my #1 dinosaur show to watch, Jurassic Park was definitely the second. So it was surprising to realize I had never actually read the book the movie was based on.

I think if I had read this book when I was younger I would have been very annoyed with the slow burn aspect of the setup. Something about the corporate maneuverings and the critiques of corporate and scientific cultures just hit right. The opening paragraphs on how bio-tech is going to change the world is still super relevant, just replace bio-tech with AI. My favorite part was obviously the dinosaur-horror in the middle of the book as the park breaks down. The last act of the book lost some momentum as the dinosaurs revert from horror movie slashers to more animal like behaviour. It was interesting enough to read but I totally understand why it was cut for the movie.

Character-wise the book was a bit hit or miss for me. I enjoyed Hammond as the corporate villain more than his counter part in the movie. The relationship between him and his employees and how each one justifies continuing the project was some of the most interesting parts of the book. Ellie as a character was much more background then I would have guessed. She gets three moments she gets to shine, one paleo botany and two action sequences, but beyond that she is relegated to a secondary character. Her character has a lot of misogyny and objectification turned towards her, if it was intended to be a commentary on sexism it needed to be undercut more by actions in the story. Grant gets a bit less to do in the book but I really liked how his internal monologue showed how he reaches conclusions. In the movie he just knows Trex's vision is based on movement while in the book he is able to piece together from his knowledge, observations and luck. Not much to say about Malcolm, still a really fun character.

Overall I really enjoyed my read, you can go into for just the thriller-adventure aspect and or the deeper themes explored in the book.

Revisiting this series for the first time was fun. The characters are what brought me back to this series. Abercrombie has a great way of introducing a character as a trope or caricature and then slowly adding more depth. He seems to want to try and balance all his characters just at the point where you can both love then and hate them; then continue to add more and more complications to the character. Whether it works will be up to the reader but there are enough POV's that the book has a good chance to grab you.

I am more neutral on the worldbuilding. I really like the trope of people powerful enough that their personal squabbles have become myths and twisted through time. The Magi really embody this, with every past slight having been magnified over the years. I did not really like the five continents setup each with one culture. It is walked back some as the people in each region are shown to have differences but still not my favorite setup and just felt really artificial. Obviously there is a reason for that but that is not known at the start the book and even after the reveal feels a bit clunky.

While the character interactions are great, the book is very much a setup for the rest of the series rather then standing on its own. Not necessarily a bad thing but for a long book it would have been nice to have a stronger plot for this book. The POV's that have more to do, Glokta and Dogman, are the more interesting stories to follow. The Bayaz plotline POV's suffer from the characters not having much agency and just following along not knowing what is going on. This is less severe on a reread as a lot of foreshadowing and ironic statements are made but on a first read-through it could be frustrating. Of all the POV's Ferro, is probably the most short changed she is introduced late and not given much of anything to do or characters to interact with until the last third. On the use of torture in the book; it is obviously used a lot and is mainly seen to be used to get people to confess to some made up charges. Though it is shown that the info extracted was useful and true. It is a bit easier to believe when the people are almost comically guilty. It doesn't really show the Glokta getting false information, dead ends or picking up innocent people. I think I'll keep an eye on how often torture "works perfectly" in the series as I continue my read.

Like the first book, the characters are what bring this world to life and keep me reading as fast as I can. This seems like this is the book that gives the characters what they need even in often gruesome and horrifying ways. Such as, Logan being able to be a positive mentor without his previous life weighting him down or West experiencing a culture that accepts his faults and celebrates his competency. Of course there is a lot of character backsliding into their old habits as well. You get to see the beginning of what these characters could be and what would really make them happy beyond their stated goals or the mantra in their head. The character interactions in this book are just so much fun especially when multiple POV's are present to bounce off of one another and we get the contrasting internal monologues. Another favorite part of this book is everything to do with the Magi, they are just so petty to one another I love it.

If I had one critique on the characters, it would be the relationship drama between Logan and Ferro in the latter part of the book. I can somewhat believe they could have communication problems but it is just the most boring route to take that conflict. Logan getting offended because Ferro punched him in his sleep is just stupid, we've seen his band they do equally random violent things and he knows her backstory by this point as well.

The plot of the book is also improved from the first book and I feel this book while still very much a part of a trilogy stands up on its own much better. The highlights for me are the war in the north and the siege of Dagoska. The quest for the Seed is more of a stew for character interactions and purposefully not a driving factor in the overall story. There are enough fight scenes and lore that it keeps it interesting for the final anti-climax. The Dagoska story line was shorter then I remembered and left me wanting more, I felt Glokta's story slowed a lot once he was back to intriguing in Adua.

Continuing from the first book many POV's don't have a lot of agency in their story lines. Jezal, Logan and Ferro are just following Bayaz and only have agency during the fight scenes. Glokta once back in Adua is back to following Sult's and now V&B's orders and West has to follow orders in the beginning of the book. It's probably not a coincidence that my favorite plots to follow are when these really interesting characters get to do things themselves.

I didn't think to much about it during my read but in reflection the way torture is used in this series is starting to get to me a bit. In all but one of the on page torture scenes is torture or the threat of torture used to get information that is completely true, actionable and or gets the victim to do what is desired. Even in the case where the practical was shown to have erred it is later undercut with the fact he actually did have the right person, she was just a magic cannibal and could resist. It also annoyed me that even though the Inquisition is notorious in this world and known to use torture extensively there is no counter espionage at all. This is especially true of the Gurkish (and to a lesser extent the merchants) who are described as liking cunning plots. Two Gurkish envoys are tortured and killed and it seems like they did not even consider it an option or make contingencies. Why aren't they plotting behind false faces and fake names? Why send in an envoy that actually knows the true information and not with multiple conflicting stories? I know the answer is that the plot needs to move forward and Glokta can usually just tell when it is the truth anyway it just leaves the world a little more flat if the antagonists aren't doing some of the more obvious counter moves. While I'm not expecting completely true to life experiences, I having more nuanced results would have made the use of torture in this book more palatable.

I've noticed in my reviews that I tend to focus more on my critiques and what didn't work for me then what I enjoyed. If anybody ever reads this then I'm sorry I working on that, haha. I just want to reiterate that I really enjoyed this book!

2.5/5 - My main takeaway from this read is that the gimmick of this series was wearing thin for me. I might have had a more positive reaction at a different time.

While the book keeps the historical framing device and sarcastic tone, something about this one was just not as fun. This book ends up being the mongol conquests if facilitated by a random diplomat (from alt-Rome). The protagonist seems to be able get away with everything due to effective dealing with bureaucracy and reading books. Most plot points in the book have an aside detailing how he read a book to get a critical piece of information or has is friend cheat the bureaucracy. After a while it felt a bit grating.

My biggest criticism would be the plot/side characters. Nobody but the protagonist really has agency on the plot after the setup. All the side characters that do come up feel very flat. Any opposition in the story is a problem that can/will be solved fairly quickly then moved on from.

4/5 - This review is after a reread before I continue onto the next book. On a reread I enjoyed it much more.

Hanrahan's Black Iron God book are some of my favorite books and when I first picked this up I was hoping for his creative world building. It was then a little jarring to come into a world so full of LOTR and DnD tropes. In my first read through it was distracting to encounter the aftermath of A DnD campaign in a LOTR copy and a few odd choices like calling the dark lord Lord Bone. On the reread I was able to ignore these elements and enjoy the story knowing it gets to new and interesting places.

This book really felt like a setup book to bring the setting from the typical end of the story everybody knows, the group of adventurers takes down the dark lord, to the story the author really wants to tell. That being what happens when to occupy the dark lords domain and the start of a civil war in the "good" alliance.

Alf's POV is the stand out in this book, he has the more interesting plot in the book and the better side characters to interact with. Especially the talking sword which is just always a fun concept. Alf is also a bit of a refreshing character as his backstory, age and personality make his displayed power feel earned rather than a chosen one trope.

Olva's POV suffers from being the audience surrogate. She has from stories and legends essentially the same knowledge that the reader can assume from the setting. In her chapters we get to see where the stories were wrong or exaggerated and that evil was not ended defeated with the dark lord. Her chapters were very slow, a large portion of her chapters are her waiting, being captured or traveling and only really useful to give the audience information for Alf's chapters.