The Wisdom of Crowds

People who know me know that I am a massive Abercrombie fan. His Third Law world ticks all the boxes for me - the grittiness of grimdark, a wonderful cast of characters and dark, cynical sense of humour. This world has evolved from the more classical fantasy settings of the earlier books to a world of industry in this latest series and the parallels it draws to the French Revolution and Industrialization of Europe are fascinating. This is fantasy based on real world events that have transferred to a fantastical setting.

The Age of Madness has evolved from the initial Luddite style anti-progressive rumblings of the first novel into a full on revolution at the start of this. King Orso's victory is short lived as he stumbles straight into revolution as the Breaker's and the Burner's take charge. We continue to follow Savine, Leo and Rikke as they navigate this new order, with Savine and Leo learning to survive the revolutionaries and Rikke learning how to control the North.

The strength of Abercrombie is really in his characters. They are all flawed, all somewhat Machiavellian. You end up both liking and despising them at the same time. The growth in the characters over the series arc is impressive as well - the naivety has definitely worn off and these are some clever, scheming and morally ambiguous people. Abercrombie's world has no room for shining paragons of virtue. It gives it all a gritty reality that belies its fantasy setting

6 stars!
Seriously, I need to reevaluate my rating system in order to do justice to this book.

I've been looking forward to the conclusion of The Age of Madness all year and by the dead, Joe Abercrombie did not disappoint. The characterization and dialogue are off the charts. It's been quite the emotional and intellectual ride. I miss it already.

I am blown away. This is a masterpiece of work. Joe is currently dining with the great fantasy writers, alongside GRRM, Robin Hobb, Brandon Sanderson, amongst others who should be named but I'm far too lazy.

This is one of the worlds that you could read for the rest of your life and never tire.

The plot was fantastic, twist and turns throughout, keeping you on your toes.

Characters, well this is the author's speciality. He could make you hate someone for half the book, to then turn him/her into one of your favourites. The growth these characters go through is brilliant.

World building is top tier. You feel as though you are in this world with the characters, living, breathing the world of Adua and the like.

It doesn't get anymore epic than this. No criticisms, none at all. 5/5, my best read of 2021.

“The sad truth is, men love to follow a man other man fear... Makes them feel fearsome, too. We tell the odd fond story of the good men. The straight edges. Your Rudd Threetrees, your Dogmen. But it's the butchers men love to sing of. The burners and the blood-spillers. Your Cracknut Whirruns and your Black Dows. Your Bloody-Nines. Men don't dream of doing the right thing, but of ripping what they want from the world with their strength and their will.”

Orso is my favourite First Law character now, even more so than Monza, Rikke or Glokta, who are close contenders. I love the guy, he's such a breath of fresh air in this bleak, ruthless, horrifyingly realistic world.

I'm absolutely gutted by that ending. It made perfect sense since this is, after all, a book by Joe Abercrombie, but at the same time I feel so damn hollow inside. There has to be another trilogy or something in the first law universe to come in the near future, because otherwise the very last chapter leaves a lot of new, unanswered questions.

Made it to the end of first law. Too many thoughts to put into words just after reading but this series was great especially the characters. Even though most of the time they made decisions to frustrate me they were so well realized and despite my best efforts I could never guess what was going to happen next

 Overall I enjoyed the wrap up of the plot quite a bit and the action as always is top notch. But as I said in the first review that were just a couple POV and side characters that I could never really get interested in which makes parts of the story drag. Also some of the events that unfold feel very much like “cause the author wanted” rather than “this is consistent with the narrative, world and character”.

The original trilogy is a cut above, but even still, there are enough positives here that this series is definitely worth the read. 

Goodreads gives this 4.6 stars which is incredibly high but is also ridiculously low at the same time. WHO could possibly read this and not give it 5 stars? Do you not even like fantasy?

The amount of political machinations in this book has to be a literary record. I truly didn't predict a single thing happening or a single person living/dying by the end. I love this series so much and Joe has said that he plans on coming back after his next trilogy! My only issue is that Queen Terez just vanished and wasn't talked about the rest of the story.

Can't wait to reread this before his next installment in 5-7 years!

Abercrombie turns grim dark dial to eleven

Starts off very strong and intriguing right after the ending of The Trouble with Peace, but then slows down after a few chapters to create a setup in a new situation. And for a long time you just wonder what will the characters do, how will they survive?

Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie, say he knows how to write chaos…

The plot takes so many twists and turns and we get a couple of very epic battles with stakes higher than ever before. And it’s really surprising and amazing that characters continue to change even after a half of the book which is almost the end of the whole trilogy.

Also that open ending is so much more intriguing than The Last Argument of Kings.

Can’t wait for the next First Law book!