Before They Are Hanged
Ratings651
Average rating4.3
Disappointed, yet I love this series.
I've been waiting for the real grimdark part of this series for two books now. So far the darkest thing was chopping off of fingers during torture in The Blade Itself. A disembowelment here, chopped off limb there... Sure, it is grimdark but on the low end. Where the hell does the “Lord Grimdark” nickname for Abercrombie come from? I thought this would be brutal. Exhausting. Disgusting in places. Erikson, Cook, Kristoff have more ‘grimdark' stuff in one chapter than Abercrombie has in two books.
Instead it's incredibly entertaining and often funny. Some characters die, but I do feel that most of them have plot armor. I expected to be drained like after finishing a Malazan book. Instead I feel like I read bloodier Sanderson book.
I'd have to re-read ASOIAF but I think Abercrombie does the best character work in fantasy. Along with great prose and writing style full of (often sarcastic) inner monologues it's what elevates these books above the most. He gets into the heads of characters really well. You can easily see why they behave as they do.
I knew this would be 5 star book after three pages. I find his style incredible. It's not something amazing and rarely seen. It's actually the way most writers write, it's just done on whole another level. Glokta, Jezal and Ninefingers grew on me. Especially Glokta's sarcastic comments. Not to mention the character growth some of these went through. Spectacular.
But where's the plot? I already heard that this trilogy is sort of one book split into three but I wasn't expecting to feel it this heavily after two thirds done. There's barely anything happening! And yet it speaks so much more about Abercrombie's writing talent as I'm giving it 5/5 and want to continue. I will take a small break to accommodate other series I'm in the middle of first, though.
The ending was disappointing, I can't believe he wrote it like this. Reminded me of Luke in The Last Jedi when he tosses the lightsaber... nooooot a good thing. Subverting of expectations like this was the worst thing he could've done to end the book on.
But I'm really curious where it goes next... and I shouldn't say ‘it'. Rather they. The characters. The main plot really isn't that much interesting.
There were entire plotlines that gave absolutely nothing to the story except putting characters in certain situations to develop them.
I just need the plot to make sense no matter how much I care about the characters, so I can't give it more than 4 stars.
Before They Are Hanged is a book that I have a hard time putting my feelings on into words. This book was certainly an enjoyable one, but I have some pretty major frustrations with it after my time spent with it.
But, let's start with the positives first, as those outweigh the negatives by a fairly large margin.
The characters are still absolutely stellar, much like they were in The Blade Itself, each PoV character having an extremely strong voice in their inner monologue, giving you a more defined feeling of who they were.
A
s per the last book, Glokta remains my favourite, and if he carries on this way in Last Argument Of Kings, he'll end the series as my favourite character. But, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Jezal, who earns the most improved award, this time actually having some semblance of a character arc, which is genuinely very entertaining to read, albeit rather tropey.
This is great, since in TBI, he was a bit of a tool, and his chapters could occasionally turn into slogs if it was just him pottering about. This time he feels like a centerpiece for his chapters, instead of something that we're forced to endure while he experiences other people doing things.
Logen's old band is also a standout in this book, despite their minimal page time, and I'm very excited to see more from them throughout Book 3
The expansions to the world in the book are also a joy. We get more of an insight into the North, though I do wish that we were able to see more of an advancement of that plot however, as barring one major event following a hike in the woods, there really wasn't much going on in the North.
The journey west was a really enjoyable romp, with some super enjoyable action sequences, and fantastic worldbuilding, both for the history of the world, and the magic system.
Then there's Glokta's journey to Dagoska to fend off the Gurkish hordes was my favourite part of the book however. I love politics in fantasy, so seeing court politics in the middle of a siege was really fun, especially with Glokta's sardonic running commentary. This combined with further insights into his personal history made this a really fun section for me to read.
Other than that, there's the same usual positives for First Law. The dialogue is tight, and at times out right hilarious, the prose is solid, and it's pacing is perfect. But I do have a major issue with the book.
Ending spoilers are gonna follow, so I recommend not reading past here if you're yet to read the book. 4.5 stars out 5, I highly recommend reading it.
Anyway, onto the mini rant.
Why was a huge portion of the book wasted on the quest for the Seed, only for it to mean literally nothing at the end. I genuinely felt a little robbed of my time after reaching that twist. I get it, Macguffins fucking suck. They're almost never done well, so this is a twisting of that trope. But my god, it wasn't done well in this book in my opinion. Obviously my feelings on this are subject to change depending on how LAOK handles the fallout from this, but this being pulled didn't make me all that desperate for book 3. I'm still going to continue, as I have heard nothing but praise for the ending, but holy shit, I hated the conclusion to that story, especially considering it was the one I was most interested in.
I'm loving this series. The characters are some of the best in fantasy fiction. Steven Pacey once again delivered an incredible narrator performance. However, reviewing this as a book with a start and an end, it definitely suffers from middle book syndrome. Its arc was fairly weak. I expect that's at the expense of the grander trilogy arc. Looking forward to seeing for myself!
4.5 stars
Obsessed with these characters and the dark, gritty world of The First Law.
Can't wait to read the next book in the series.
4.5 the story really picks up here and there's never a dull moment. Characters I didn't expect to like are now my favorites. Good stuff.
This book was definitely an improvement on the last. Most of my complaints for the first book don't apply here because I now had context about this world and these characters.
I definitely started to feel much more attachments to the characters in this book. I felt like their arcs were getting very interesting, and a lot of those grim dark elements really started to shine. The plot was interesting, and I'm eating up all of these little breadcrumbs that are being left about the bigger picture. I'm very excited to see how all of these characters stories end up tying together.
What's the opposite of Middle Book Syndrome? Well, whatever it is called, this book is a prime example of it.
I loved absolutely every moment of reading this book.
There's no amount of praise I can give it, that will do it justice.
Let me just say, that if you liked book 1, you will absolutely love this one. And if you were on the fence about the first book, you will absolutely love this one.
I loved The Blade Itself, mainly because of the characters, and pretty much nothing has changed in book 2. Except the world became so much bigger and better defined. Not to mentioned the plot with its multitude of threads.
Highly highly recommend.
My main complaint with the last book was that there was essentially no plot what so ever. In this book that's changed, however if I could sum it up in one word that word would be meandering. It's just incredibly slow moving and it feels like only a couple things of any real significance happen plot wise. Also there are what feel like weird time skips to me. The characters will be doing something at the end of the chapter and when it gets back to their POV whatever they had been doing is completed.
You expect this in epic journey's of course, because you don't want to read an inch by inch play by play. However, in this case sometimes it skips things that would seem to be things of great tension rather than mundane journeying. Just something I found off putting.
The small events that do occur though continue to drive the characters forward. Some of them get a good amount of development this go around, albeit some arguably too abruptly. Overall though the character writing is still magnificent, to the extent Glokta in particular, is currently one of my favourite characters in all of Grimdark Fantasy and high up there in Fantasy as a whole. That's not a slight on the rest of the characters though as the one's I love and hate (for all the right reasons) are numerous.
I found myself laughing when they're sarcastic or witty, scowling when they do something objectionable, smirking when one of them gets what I think they deserve and a wide variety of other emotions and reactions. The last book was a 4.25 and while not perfect, I do think the improvements were enough to warrant a 5 here.
A good read. I don't find Joe's stuff engaging in the way that a truly amazing book is, where you sit there enraptured until you absolutely have to go to bed or do something else, powering through page after page, but it's enjoyable and nags at me to keep at it. The story is quite grim in an unpleasantly realistic way, and sometimes it can be tiring, but the story he's telling is engaging and every paragraph serves to build up to a climax you can feel coming a long way off. I also appreciate that Joe's characters genuinely feel fleshed out - they grow and backslide, and have some dimensionality to them. All in all, not a bad read.
Actualización de relectura, repito lo del final. Esperaba mucho más .
——-
Gran desarrollo de personajes, sin duda lo mejor que ofrece el libro. En cuanto a la historia, si bien varias cosas se desarrollaron y “resolvieron” , no sentí que cerrase de una forma espectacular, pareciera como si estuviese a la mitad del libro recién, esperaba mucho más.
What can I say. Just as great as the first, if not better.
Can't ever look at fruits the same way again tho.
10/10
9/10 fantastic. While I don't necessarily say it's a perfect book. The promise of the 3rd book and what could happen is making this a fantastic read.
Well, I finally understand why people so highly praise the First Law trilogy and Joe Abercrombie. The sequel to The Blade Itself is ten times better than the first book in terms of plot. Same great character writing and dialogue, but more gripping story-telling and much better pacing. 4.5 stars.
This book is such a great followup to The Blade Itself. Before They Are Hanged builds so much on the characters in the first one, expanding their depth while broadening the world. These books are way more character-focused than world-building fantasy and I would read about their adventures all day long.
I usually take longer breaks in between books in a series, but I don't think I can keep from starting
Last Argument of Kings as soon as possible.
Well that was a surprise. Almost all trilogies have “middling” second books whose job is to fill in some gaps and lay the grounds for the third one, and you forgive its lack of plot. However I so much more enjoyed this to the first book. It might not be empirically true but I got the feeling that the number of characters settled down and Abercrombie did I fine job in fleshing all of them out and the three distinct threads(North, East and South) were clear and easy to follow (a map would help but there are some fan ones online. Immediately jumped into the third one.
The second book of the First Law Trilogy is a big improvement over the first. It's paced better, written better, and the characters are fleshed out.
I wrote a review and it disappeared. YAY. My wifi is a spectacular piece of shit. So try No. 2 now. It took me a ridiculously long time to actually read this, but in this case that was caused by me having a lot of fun. When a book is good I often take my sweet time, I stop often to think about what is happening and what I feel about it. I look at fanart, the different works of the author, the different books in the series, the whole context of the book. Well, just having fun with the experience. When we pick up the story again the characters form up into little groups to take care of their respective story lines. In the north West is sent to deal with the freshly formed Northern kingdom, try to keep the crown prince in line and to gain him some glory, then he happens to meet up with Logen's old group. Bayaz and Quai pick up Logen, Jezal, Ferro and Longfoot to look for a mysterious artefact that will help them deal with the threat of the Gurkish prophet, Khalul. While Glokta is sent to Dagoska to somehow defend the city from the more immediate danger of the Gurkish Empire, or at least to get information and do what can be done. This is one of the things I actually extremely enjoyed about the story; the different groupings of characters and how they dealt with each other. For anyone interested in different types of people, temperaments and manners clashing and working things out, this is truly a joy about this one. At one point West, who is usually extremely controlled and civilised snaps in a battle and goes totally mental really suddenly. It was great to see the conflicting feelings as he was horrified by himself and felt guilty, while the Northmen were genuinely amazed by him. I absolutely love him in general, so yeah, there is that. Another interesting contrast was Logen and Jezal. Normally they would have no chance of having to communicate like this, but I guess the Fantasy Roadtrip of a Shitshow does that to people, so I can't complain much. Hopefully in the last book Glokta will meet Jezal again, as the latter had changed enough for their dynamic to be completely different now. Thinking of Jezal, he is interesting. I mean he is not a bad character, but in himself I wouldn't say he is all that special either. What he is great for is making others shine, amplifying them and himself gaining depth and colour and more interest through that. I find that quite brilliant. At one point his jaw gets broken and his face a bit... disfigured. I loved the way Mr. Abercrombie using Jezal's vanity. At first it feels silly to see his reaction, crying and all, but then when you think about how connected our face is to our self-identity and everything we are... yeah. It's adding a lot of depth to his character. Genuinely impressed. Glokta is just as cynical as always, with his wit and ruthlessness. Absolutely fantastic. Questionable choices here, a character pushed into situations that have no perfect outcome. With [b:Malice 15750692 Malice (The Faithful and the Fallen, #1) John Gwynne https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1342785006s/15750692.jpg 21444710] I have mentioned how sometimes things were too complicated and hard to follow, like at the very end, where a group of a lot of characters move together and it's hard to visualise all of them. Here the whole thing with the different groups made it so easy and fluid to just go with it and keep everyone in mind. The world scope is great in my opinion, not overwhelming, nor is it too constricted. It all feels comfortable. When I first started reading this and saw the grimdark subgenre marked, I expected it too be much darker than it actually is. Things happen, some people die, there is war and slavery, all kinds of nasty things without it being too much to me. Maybe I am just not that sensitive, I don't know. With darkness it's easy to go overboard. One of the pitfalls of it is going crazy, becoming too much and that taking away from the emotional weight of bad things. Everything becomes cartoonish, your brain tunes it all out and somehow the edge is lost. Even if the things happening are in line with certain things from reality, the depiction just becomes too much. Here it doesn't happen. Appreciated. People also shouldn't expect huge twists here. I don't think the book needs them, though, I feel it has its own atmosphere and flow without huge shockers being dropped on us. Then again, I am not really the type who cares about twists too much, more like the journey and the characters. Even though I said that, something interesting is going on with this one; I have no idea what is happening in the last book, I have no idea what endgame there will be, how we will close things down. I don't feel we are anywhere near, especially because we see literally nothing of the antagonists. None. Not the Northern threat, nor the Southern, the villains just don't come out to play at all. The “good” characters are grey of course, though. So I have no idea what to expect after this and refuse to think about it, because then I will probably give myself crazy ideas and expectations, which would colour my experience. We shouldn't go there. I'm definitely going to pick up the next book. I'm having a lot of fun with this, it's all kinds of entertaining, even if I have no idea where it will end up. Potential for sure, there is a lot and then we'll just wait and see. Have a good night and don't leave me hanging! (ohhhh god, no)
What a great book, perfect ending with great twists and turns and gosh some sadness sprinkled in between
3.5 stars
Felt very much like a middle book of a trilogy, but I enjoyed the character growth anyway. In fact, I don't know how Abercrombie does it but I'm perfectly happy following his characters as they walk around, even if I don't understand the big picture. He must be doing something right...
Executive Summary: Even better than the first entry in the trilogy, a dark and fun ride, not for the feint of heart.Full ReviewI enjoyed this entry even more than [b:The Blade Itself 944073 The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1) Joe Abercrombie http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1284167912s/944073.jpg 929009]. With most of the setup out of the way, Mr. Abercrombie now switchs to developing the characters and progressing the story further.Parts of this book reminded me of [a:Patrick Rothfuss 108424 Patrick Rothfuss http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1351307341p2/108424.jpg]'s Kingkiller chronicles. Stories shared within the main story building the lore and giving the reader clues as to just what the heck might be going on.This book is even darker than it's predecessor. It's not a nice world, and these aren't nice people. That doesn't stop you from rooting for them however.Mr. Abercrombie somehow manages to describe terrible acts of brutality yet through the thoughts of his characters you find yourself both laughing and sympathetic to killers like Logen and his friends and a torturer in Glokta. Bayaz is no Gandalf either.I'm still not sure how that's possible. There is obviously something wrong with me, and Mr. Abercrombie is tapping into that. Given the generally high rating of these books, I can take some small comfort that I'm not alone in this.My only real complaint about this book is that it doesn't so much end as it stops. Like [b:The Blade Itself 944073 The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1) Joe Abercrombie http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1284167912s/944073.jpg 929009], it's a reasonable stopping place though. It's probably a better one since some short term goals are accomplished, but there is still much left to be uncovered and resolved.I can't wait to finish this trilogy up next month. I might have to cheat and start early.Given the way things are going however, I suspect we won't be getting a “And they lived Happily Ever After..”