A Little Hatred

This is an adult grim dark political high fantasy, which follows the First law series, as well as the 3 standalone written after it. Now, you don't have to read any of the other books I just mentioned before you pick this one up, but I'll advise you to have read at least the First Law trilogy prior. Because it will give you much needed context and will introduce you to some of the keyed secondary characters.

I didn't know what to expect from this book and when I initially saw the setting, I will admit, I was a bit disappointed. Not because of the place, but because of the time. To be frank, I was hoping for a smaller time gap and a bit more focus on magic.

Still, the more I read, the more I got into the book and I have to once again, applaud the author's fantastic writing style. He creates such bleak atmosphere and such vivid characters, and even better than that, he writes dialog that has me laughing out loud, and inner monologues that have me nodding along with how accurately they describe some elements of the human condition, which we sometimes struggle to define for ourselves.

There were many chapters I wanted to highlight but I will only stop at one - The Little People. This one is a great example of a device, if you can call it that, which the author likes to utilise in tense action packed chapters. Where he will switch rapidly between different povs and draw subtle, or not so subtle, parallels between them. He did that masterfully in this chapter and what made it even better was the fact that it featured almost exclusively random inconsequential to the major plot characters, some of which we would never see again. It helped level up the whole “reality” of the story and allowed for better involvement of the reader.

There's a lot I want to say about the surprises we were served and the theories I have, but I don't want to spoil anything for you, so I shall leave it here.

I gave the book 5 stars and I am so excited to continue with the series (especially what I am suspecting turns out to be true).