The Heroes

Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie, say he writes a damn good book.

Nearly the entire book takes place around a hill in the North called The Heroes, named for the famous warriors who are supposedly buried beneath giant slabs of stone. There's been an ongoing war for years between the North and the Union, which both sides are growing tired of.

Abercrombie manages to work in some important worldbuilding throughout the book. While The Heroes works as a standalone novel, with viewpoint characters that at most played minor roles in the previous books, some questions from past books are answered. What happened to Shivers after the events in Best Served Cold? What's the general state of the North and Union after The Last Argument of Kings? And so on. Plus, there are some technological advancements mentioned briefly in this story that lay the groundwork for the new trilogy Abercrombie is planning to launch in 2019.

True to form, most of Abercrombie's characters are various shades of “likeable” asshole. Beautifully-written, complexly flawed assholes. They are motivated by fear, greed, self-preservation, lust, and generally anything that you're not likely to find associated with heroic figures.

There are roughly six main POV characters, evenly split between the armies of the North and the Union. Each POV is carefully chosen to show us a different experience of war. Fighting for the North, we get to see the story through the eyes of a disgraced former prince, an elderly and honorable warrior who just wants to retire, and a young man determined to win glory in battle. Fighting for the Union, there's an ambitious wife of a mild-mannered officer, a depressed and nearly suicidal fighter with an unhealthy appetite for killing, and a jaded corporal who has to help the new recruits.

Abercrombie is renowned for his skill with crafting characters. He's mastered the art portraying characters with contrasting values and motivations. For example, a character might seem like a misunderstood man bent on redemption, and yet also be a depraved murderer who thinks only of themselves.

It isn't easy to sum up the plot of a book that is mostly one giant battle. In a broad sense, the story covers the climactic end of the war between the warriors of the North and the armies of the Union.

However, the story is more accurately described as a series of six interwoven character arcs that take place before, during, and after the battle. Unlikeable characters come close to redemption, likable characters fall from grace, and some find themselves nearly exactly where they started.

More than half the book is a multi-day battle, but I never felt like the fight scenes drug on too long. One fight scene, in particular, might be my favorite in all of fantasy, with a brilliant use of POV switching. There were plenty of “quieter” scenes that focused on character interactions to complement the bloody scenes.

The prose and dialogue are both skillfully done. Characters talked like real people, and the banter had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. Abercrombie also manages to string together words that are both crass and beautiful, never spending too long on descriptions or resorting to flowery prose.

One of the central themes of this book was that there are no heroes. People act in their own self-interest more often than not, and those that are truly selfless are quickly forgotten. A little bleak, maybe, but still a powerful theme for the book.

The characters, humor, grit, and dynamic worldbuilding all made this a fantastic read. The audio narration is done by the incredibly-talented Steven Pacey, who manages to make an excellent book even better.