The Essential Malady

Over the last six months or so, I have read through four books by English author Joe Abercrombie. This began with his First Law Trilogy, which includes his debut novel, The Blade Itself. Following the success of this trilogy, he wrote three standalone novels including Best Served Cold which I have just completed. While it can definitely be read on its own, it is set in the same fantasy world after events of the trilogy and a number of characters appear or are mentioned. I have one more that has been lent to me called The Heroes which is the second of these standalone novels but I have set that one aside for now.

In general, there is a lot to enjoy in these novels though they aren’t my cup of tea. Similar to all too many modern novels, there are no real heroes and virtually every character is shown to be flawed in some significant way. The cripple Sand dan Glokta is probably the most prominent and likeable in the trilogy, though he is a torturer employed by the state who extracts confessions whether or not they are true. His humanity cracks through to his equally crippled conscience at a few significant points in the narrative; usually where a woman is involved. Jezal dan Luthar, a vain nobleman and Logen Ninefingers, a violent and ruthless northern warrior are the two other main characters and they too, have their moments.

Similarly to A Song of Ice and Fire and The Witcher novels, the flawed characters, corruption, violence and fornication are supposed to make the books more grounded and realistic. Yet outside of fiction, there really are moral and even heroic people who live good lives. None are perfect but there are many examples in history and today of people who lived largely virtuous lives; whether of noble or more humble origins. There are also plenty of people who get married and have children instead of fornicating, as well as people who are honest and don’t lie, cheat or steal in any egregious way. These people are real and I can point to plenty of examples in my own life as well as historically. This moral nihilism is the overarching theme to these novels and makes for a disappointing end to the original trilogy though one that is thematically consistent.

Another small criticism I have (which is less true of the later novels), is with a couple of bad writing habits Abercrombie has. Male characters (especially Jezal), say “Err” a lot and particularly in answer to females in conversation when even someone as awkward as myself would have had a ready answer. There are also a lot of irritating twin sentences that read something like, “A dog. A big dog.” From time to time this can be effective but more creative use of adjectives would have made the prose flow better. This is a minor criticism though as he writes well enough and much better than the majority of his contemporaries in the fantasy genre.

The subject of this post is not his books on the whole though but a notable character in Best Served Cold that fits in well with my growing series on ‘Gamma Fiction’. Continue reading →