Best Served Cold

Revenge tale in The First Law world? Say no more

The intro is just great, it’s really fascinating how Abercrombie can create a setup for a story in just 20 pages—I mean the whole setup for the 660 pages book is done in just 20 pages—and provide so many details about characters and places. And between main book parts we learn a bit about Monza's past and why she's so determined to reach the end of her revenge quest. South cities and culture feel new and fresh as a change from Union and the North after the first trilogy (and a part of the second). And the author once again creates a city under siege but in a bit different circumstances and for a shorter episode.

Nice band of characters with distinct points of view, high and low moments, laughs and quarrels. I really like Friendly with his OCD for whatever reason, maybe because he feels like a unique character. Also it’s interesting to see some side characters from the first trilogy and even more interesting to see some characters from the second trilogy here and how they become who they are after meeting them there. But sometimes characters recite events from the first trilogy where they participated and it feels a bit redundant cause a reader has probably already read about those events.

The action is very visceral—especially from a villain’s point of view—and realistic, a lot of really violent scenes like suffering from poisoning—which is a kinda new concept for The First Law—and torture. There’s even a very detailed description of someone falling through trees. A lot of stealth episodes here which also feels like a unique feature for the series.

Plot thickens with each chapter and each revenge kill is very different in everything. A few unexpected scenes and twists. A lot of betrayals, obviously. Some characters can't be trusted, undoubtedly. Innocent people die along the way, unfortunately. Many interesting thoughts and conversations about revenge. But overall it's just a bit too long.

Looking forward to reading all the spin-offs now, especially Sharp Ends.

At this point Abercrombie will have to write a real clanger to not get five stars from me. This one is a standalone within a known universe, however you do not need to read the others to enjoy (or hate) this one. All the usual Abercrombie moral obfuscations, wonderful characterizations, and fair amount of blood and guts are present. Do yourself a favour and listed to Steve Pacey's audio version. You will be asking the dog if he wants to go out for yet another walk...

This book was what I didn't know I wanted. I LOVED the cast of characters here—even when I wasn't rooting for them, I still had a blast reading about them because their interactions, banter, personalities, it's all so lively. I've also realised that I have a thing for gruesome, gritty stories, so there's that. And Monza. MONZA! MY GIRLLLL! I FUCKING LOVED HER!!!!! And also the revenge plot mixed with politics was exactly my cup of tea. Seriously, Abercrombie knocked it out of the park once again.

The ONLY thing I didn't care for in this book was Shivers—NOT because he's a badly written character or anything (because he's not)—but because preference wise I just never liked him all that much, even in the First Law trilogy. This is definitely a ‘me' thing, because if someone like Cosca were to have switched places with him or gotten his exact lines then I know I'd love it; it's just Shivers being, well, Shivers, that I for some reason could not give a damn about.

But aside from that extremely subjective nitpick, I loved everything else!!

“She set her mind to a thing, and did whatever it took. Shit on conscience and consequences both. Vengeance first, questions later.”

Net als bij The First Law Trilogy klonk dit boek niet als iets dat ik leuk zou vinden. Gelabeld als gewelddadig, donker en bloederig, leek dit wraakverhaal gewoon te grimmig naar mijn smaak. Zonder een read-along had ik het dus waarschijnlijk nooit opgepakt, wat zonde zou zijn geweest, want deze is mij uiteindelijk wel goed bevallen. Geen nieuwe favoriet, maar ondanks de gruwelijkheid toch best plezant!

“I never saw men act with such ignorance, violence and self-serving malice as when energised by a just cause.”

Dit wraakverhaal staat bol van de onsympathieke antihelden. Ze zijn allemaal moreel grijs en hebben weinig in hun persoonlijkheid om hen te prijzen. Ook al is dit een alleenstaand boek, doch is ieder personage uitgediept en van vlees en bloed. Elk krijgt hun eigen achtergrondverhaal, hun eigen unieke stem en persoonlijkheid. Hierbij wil ik ook opnieuw de audioboek voorlezer, Steven Pacey, prijzen, die Abercrombies schrijfkunst naar een nog hoger niveau weet te tillen met zijn acteerprestaties en geweldige gevoel voor timing.

“One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.”

Het verhaal zelf is vrij rechttoe rechtaan. Je weet vrijwel vanaf het begin hoe het gaat lopen. Zeven mannen, zeven moorden om wraak te nemen. En terwijl naar elke moord wordt toe gewerkt, worden de achtergronden van de personages ingevuld, verbonden worden gesloten, verraad wordt uitgelokt en ieder raakt verstrikt in een noodlottig web van hun eigen makelij.

“ ‘Things aren't what they used to be' is the rallying cry of small minds. When men say things used to be better, they invariably mean they were better for them, because they were young, and had all their hopes intact. The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave.”

Maar dankzij de pakkende, levendige en meeslepende schrijfstijl blijft het verhaal boeiend. De balans tussen de grimmige sfeer en humor is perfect. De spanning werd heel gradueel en dreigend opgebouwd, mede dankzij het slimme gebruik van herhalingen en catchphrases.

“Unhappy times are the best for levity. You don't light candles in the middle of the day, do you?”

Ondanks het gebrek aan personages om voor te supporteren, het ontbreken van een einde dat voldoening geeft en de algehele mistroostigheid van het verhaal, was dit echt een plezant, grappig en uitermate goed geschreven boek.

“The memories of our glories fade, and rot away into half-arsed anecdotes, thin and unconvincing as some other bastard's lies. The failures, the disappointments, the regrets, they stay raw as the moments they happened.”

Euh ja, nog een boek van Abercrombie.

Ik ga niet liegen en zeggen dat het beter is dan de First Law-trilogie, maar het is zeker niet slechter. Er zijn stukken en onderdelen waar het nóg een tandje bijsteekt, en er zijn stukken en onderdelen waar hij een paar steken laat vallen — vooral, vind ik, waar hij net iets te veel speelt met de vierde muur.

Maar wat ten allen tijde overeind blijft, zijn de personages. Twee ervan, Nicomo Costa en Caul Shivers, zijn afgriebelijk goed hernomen uit de trilogie hierboven, worden uitgediept dat het geen naam heeft.

Eén is naar mijn goesting maar bij het haar gesleept uit de vorige trilogie. En het hoofdpersonage, Monzcarro “Monza” Murcatto, lijkt op een kruising tussen het Uma Thurman-personage uit Kill Bill en Ash uit A Secret History.

Aangeraden, het boek, dat spreekt.

Executive Summary: Overall I enjoyed this stand-alone novel more than the First Law books themselves, despite the lack of likable characters. It's Kill Bill meets Ocean's 11 in a medieval setting.

Audio book: I believe this is the first audio book I've listened to narrated by Michael Page. I think he does a pretty good job. He is clear and easy to understand. He does a variety of accents and voices. I would definitely listen to another book read by him.

Full Review
I enjoy Mr. Abercrombie's writing quite a bit. But it's rather bleak. This book has only despicable characters.

First, we have the protagonist, a former mercenary bent of revenge.

Then we're got her assortment of “friends”:

- A ‘master' poisoner and his assistant

- A Northern Barbarian whose best skill is killing.

- A serial killer with an obsession for numbers. Rain Man he's not.

- Another mercenary whose loyalties are fluid based on whose paying the most.

- And a “retired” torturer

You know it's a bad sign when the most likable character is probably the serial killer.

That doesn't mean the characters are badly written. They are certainly quite entertaining too. Nicomo Cosca is especially amusing. But with no one really being likable to me, I wasn't sure what/who I was routing for by the end.

That sort of makes it a weird book to me. Typically even if the main character is “bad” they have some redeeming qualities or something to make them into a sort of anti-hero.

Monzcarro Murcatto may have had some redeeming qualities once, but now she is bitter and angry and won't let anything stand in the way of her revenge.

I think Mr. Abercrombie does do a good job in taking some minor characters from the first series and promoting them to larger roles in this stand alone novel. I think this also ties thing together nicely with the First Law trilogy without really spoiling things much.

I'd highly recommend reading First Law BEFORE tackling this book. Sure it's stand alone, but there is a lot of context and references you'll miss if you haven't read that first.

As a fantasy book, this was pretty light on the fantasy. It could almost have been an alternate history book if it weren't set in Mr. Abercrombie's First Law universe.

At its heart this is a revenge story. Monzo is determined to make the ones who wronged her pay. It makes for a fun romp full of unexpected consequences and lots of action.

Overall I really enjoyed it. Plus considering I wasn't sure what outcome I was rooting for, I ended up really liking the ending.

This book was really fun to read. It doesn't follow the current trends in fantasy literature. This book is fantasy without magic, for the most part, making it more of an alternate universe story set in medieval Europe. I recommend this to anyone interested in a gangster-revenge tale in a fantasy setting. I haven't read Joe's preceeding books, the First Law trilogy, but I am probably going to pick up [b:The Heroes 9300768 The Heroes Joe Abercrombie http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1284418103s/9300768.jpg 12879765], which follows this book.

Doesn't meet the level of the original trilogy, but I didn't expect it to. Essentially plays out like an action movie. Some really great parts, with some memorable characters, but even more backstabbing than you'd expect and at a certain point it just got a bit tiresome. The action and the banter remained quality, though.

Starting this book was a bit stressful because I wasn't sure how I would get along with the cast of new characters. I absolutely loved the First Law trilogy, specifically for its character arcs and world-building. Having to meet a new character in this book made me nervous. Once I picked the book up, however, I absolutely fell in love with the world and Abercrombie's writing style. Monza, though I did enjoy her story, did not grip me quite as much as Ninefingers and the gang. Monza's revenge story was extremely gripping and I enjoyed getting this story from a female protagonist I also love being able to see a least a few characters from the original trilogy, one of which was my favorite character in the book. This book confirmed my love for Abercrombie's writing and can't wait to start The Heroes.

I never thought I'd give a book written by Joe Abercrombie 3⭐️ but here we go...

I loved The First Law trilogy mostly because of the author's character work. And I am sad to say that in this one he fell short.
Let me explain.

Moral consistency.
Your characters do not need to be good people, they do not need to be likeable and they do not need to be impressive. All I ask for is moral consistency.
In the First Law trilogy we followed flawed, terrible, selfish, lost and brutal people, doing some of the nastiest, most gruesome things imaginable. Yet, I loved every single one of them, partially because the books took their sweet time introducing us to every single aspect of them, but mostly because they were who they were and the author did not pretend like they were better. They were flawed assholes doing what needed and did not wax poetically about how they have been wronged. And if they did think about it, it was in a self-deprecating way. There was moral consistency between the actions taken by the characters and their representation in the narrative.

In this book, we have the exact opposite.
We have a lead character who we barely know, and who is represented in a more and more hypocritical way, the further in the book we get. We do get multiple points of view, but I think it's save to say that the main character here is Monza (and to a smaller extent Shivers). I find Monza utterly unlikeable and not only because I believe her to be fundamentally a bad person, but because of the way the author tried to pretend like that's not the case. And since we are talking about her entire arc, I have no way of discussing this in a non-spoilery way.
The whole shtick here, is that at the end of this book, we are supposed to realise that Monza is not guilty of what she considers herself to be, but a victim of the misrepresentation, bad decisions and manipulation of the terrible men in her life - namely her brother. Except, in this relationship, she had the power this whole time. She knew what and who he was, yet did nothing about. Each time she had a choice in the matter and each time she chose to go with it and even took initiative whenever needed. Not to mention that her actions post his death were plenty indicative of her true nature.Let's examine some of the evidence:1. Benna conspired with Orso to have Monza take over the thousand swords by betraying Cosca - a man who took them in when they were nobodies and showed them tremendous kindness, and she just went with it. But not only did she CHOSE to go with the plan to take his place, but she didn't even warn him and as such put his life at danger. Not only that, when she ran to ask his help later, instead of apologising or at least talking normally to him about it, she insulted and abused him continuously. Why? 2. And even if I was willing to grant that Cosca's betrayal was Benna and Orso's fault only (which I'm not), wasn't Monza the one who manipulated Day to betray Morveer? Wasn't she the one who, in her desire to work with someone more amiable, whispered in her ear lies (proven lies, since Morveer was never going to betray Day). And why? Because she didn't like the way he exposed her own hypocrisy when it came to killing many people to get to one? 3. Benna's incompetence and utter lack of interest caused the deaths of thousands of people, including little children and what did she do - jack sh*t. All she did was say "Ah, c'est la vie, let's be more careful next time" (paraphrasing here). And that's not the end of it. Not only did she tolerate her brother's nasty ways - she slept with him. And that is not cute, no matter how you try to present it to me (and yes, there is enough evidence throughout the book that she actually messed with her own brother - disgusting). 4. You'd think that Monza would've empathised with Shivers when he shared that he had lost his brother. Instead she felt only boredom... towards the person she slept with, when he shared something so personal and so similar to her own pain. Great gal...There are many many more examples of her being a nasty selfish asshole - I don't have all day to write them all here.And all of that would've been okay for me, had it not been for the "plot twist" the author was going for. That all this time she was not the monster she thought she was, but a victim of other people's manipulations, who stoically took all the blame. Where is the accountability, sir? So Monza is pure and blameless, despite all the murdering of innocents she did, because she was "manipulated" by men, but Shivers is a terrible person for becoming dejected and wanting revenge after suffering, being mutilated and at the end, ultimately being manipulated by a woman? Where is the moral consistency?
On top of that, I'm gonna admit, I felt bored through a big chunk of this book. I couldn't care less about these battles and these power struggles. Because I didn't know the people who were involved. We took close to no time to get to know anybody. The author counted on some notable “cameos” from the original trilogy and while I loved seeing them, I was ultimately uninterested in this cast.
And if it wasn't for the amazing writing style, strong beginning of the story and, of course, the one and only Nicomo Cosca, I would've probably given this book a lower rating.

Every single character in this book is an awful person and deserves death, so how is it that Joe can have me rooting for people I'd otherwise want nothing to do with in real life?!

Joe has most definitely supplanted himself as an S-Tier author for me and I'll read anything he puts out. This book took me a good 200 pages to actually start enjoying it and then it just continuously got better and better. The constant back stabbing whether it was political or between mercenaries or “friends” made it impossible to know what was coming next.

The story follows the most famous mercenary Monza. She was betrayed by her employer, thrown off a mountain and left for dead. She somehow survives and will have her vengeance and woe be the person who stands in her path.

Another great Abercrombie book. All in all, I'd say that it's not quite as good in total as his First Law trilogy, but the writing, characterization, etc is still just as good as anything I've read of his.

The general gist is a revenge story, and not many can tell that story better than Abercrombie. Monza Murcatto narrowly survives a betrayal and assassination, and sets out to kill the 7 people involved. She enlists a band of "friends" (though only one is Friendly) and through intricate machinations works her way through a hit list. Think Tarantino movie, with a dash of some Coen brothers capers.

Things I loved:

• Abercrombie writes phenomenally distinct and interesting characters. The entire cast is a delight, particularly famed soldier of fortune Nicomo Cosca and poisoner Castor Morveer. Many of them had interesting, sometimes intersecting, character arcs as their experiences change them.
• The fight scenes are phenomenal--gritty, realistic (by the standards of the genre) and sometimes even funny.
• A great smattering of reveals and reversals that never felt unearned, and always made for a more interesting story.
• The back half of the book accelerated and was hard to put down! Plans crash into each other, things went wrong, new information emerged--this is where it started to feel like a caper movie.

Things that I didn't love:

• This is par for the course with Abercrombie, but there were some pretty significant scenes of brutality, torture, etc that had me putting the book down for a few weeks to read something lighter. Be warned! My personal, very subjective, opinion too is that in one of these cases, a character's changed outlook made them much less interesting.
• The various assassinations, while never the same (not really even close to the same), started to feel like settling into a routine after the first few. This changed closer to the end as more things started to go sideways.

Overall a 3.5 / 5 for me -- great and definitely worth a read.

Two years ago I devoured Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. It was a gritty sword-and-sorcery yarn, full of blood and guts, a few touches of sorcery, but mostly political intrigue shot through with battles, torture, adventure and dirty deeds. Good stuff. GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire is a pretty good parallel but then again Abercrombie actually finished his tale. Then he came out with this stand-alone tale which borrows a few minor characters from the First Law and takes place in the politically fractured Styrian continent. The main character is one Monza Murcatto, the general of the mercenary force known as the Thousand Swords. After a series of victories she's betrayed by her employer, Duke Orso and left for dead on a mountainside. Then, through 880 pages, she exacts her single-minded revenge on the seven men responsible for her betrayal. Along the way, we get some backstory on the events that led to her betrayal and they shed more and more light on the proceedings yet Monza herself never really feels like a fully-fleshed character. The most colorful character in the book is Nicomo Cosca, erstwhile leader of the Thousand Swords, and one who likes the sound of his own voice. The tale is a bloody, violent betrayal-fest, brutal and dark. And, I thought, far longer than it needed to be. Part of me was enjoying the mayhem, part of me was hoping just to finish so I could move on to something else. There were no major surprises in the plot but a few eyebrow-raising small ones. I'd recommend it only for big fans of Abercrombie's First Law trilogy.

Como la trilogía de “La Primera Ley”, “La Mejor Venganza” está excelentemente escrita. Un relato sanguinario (con bastante humor negro) de personajes nada agradables cuyo personaje principal desestabiliza naciones con tal de lograr su objetivo. Eso sí, hay que leerlo en inglés. La traducción actual al español es nefasta. 3.8/5