Before They Are Hanged

My main complaint with the last book was that there was essentially no plot what so ever. In this book that's changed, however if I could sum it up in one word that word would be meandering. It's just incredibly slow moving and it feels like only a couple things of any real significance happen plot wise. Also there are what feel like weird time skips to me. The characters will be doing something at the end of the chapter and when it gets back to their POV whatever they had been doing is completed.

You expect this in epic journey's of course, because you don't want to read an inch by inch play by play. However, in this case sometimes it skips things that would seem to be things of great tension rather than mundane journeying. Just something I found off putting.

The small events that do occur though continue to drive the characters forward. Some of them get a good amount of development this go around, albeit some arguably too abruptly. Overall though the character writing is still magnificent, to the extent Glokta in particular, is currently one of my favourite characters in all of Grimdark Fantasy and high up there in Fantasy as a whole. That's not a slight on the rest of the characters though as the one's I love and hate (for all the right reasons) are numerous.

I found myself laughing when they're sarcastic or witty, scowling when they do something objectionable, smirking when one of them gets what I think they deserve and a wide variety of other emotions and reactions.  The last book was a 4.25 and while not perfect, I do think the improvements were enough to warrant a 5 here.