Last Argument of Kings – Joe Abercrombie

” Last Argument Of Kings: The First Law: Book Three:” as Amazon refers to it is not the end of our journey with Joe Abercrombie I’m already halfway thru Best Served Cold but more of that at a later date.

Last Argument Of Kings is difficult to review without giving away too much of what could be described as an apocalyptic ending.

An author should always end with the best and with Last Argument of Kings this theory is put into practice. The last of Joe Abercrombie’s debut fantasy collection, The First Law, demonstrates everything a finale should: gives some answers, and ties together the loose ends from a variety of plots. This series was always a swords and some small sorcerytale that used a wry dialogue with interleafed plotlines. Its not a comedy there is a large amount of tounge in cheek humour.

Its probably worthwile plagarising a paragraph from Colin P Linsey who puts it rather well:

“I’d hazard a guess though that there will be some readers who may not like how this series ended…because it isn’t necessarily pretty and it certainly isn’t a fairy tale ending. Unlike those tidier fantasy stories, Abercrombie doesn’t forget that battlefield corpses don’t just magically disappear and besieged cities aren’t magically made whole at the end of the day. His is a dirty, gritty world every bit as nasty as medieval Europe and the story and the endings reflect this adherence to realism. As Logen Nine-Fingers often says, you have to be realistic. Abercrombie definitely is realistic and the story reflects it. Wounds come at the price of disfigurement and death, people will do awful things to accomplish their goals, and people aren’t charitably motivated. The weak get squashed, soldiers get maimed, the powerful do horrendous evil to hang onto their power and the more things change, the more they stay the same. You have to be realistic about these things dear reader, and that realism is what sets this trilogy apart and makes it such a great read. ”

So last its over. The dead are dead and most of the living seem so. The rich are rich and the poor are er… poor. It remind me of tales of medieval England during the times of the 100yr war. My verdict thirteen out of ten. Not at all what I expected and after all my years this takes some doing. Well done Joe Abercrombie long may you entertain me!

Philip

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