Having just finished my second readthrough of Joe Abercrombie's "Best Served Cold", I find that I appreciated the excellently crafted character perspectives far more than on my first, with each character having easily recognizable and identifiable quirks and views of their own, making the world they inhabit more believable simply by virtue of them being so well-fleshed out.
Yet my impression from the first readthrough hasn't changed: Best Served Cold is a deeply unpleasant story about terrible people in which the only changes that take place are for the worse, whether in the characters themselves or in the setting they inhabit. It is to Abercrombie's credit that the characters still have magnetism about them that draws one in, but when the most likeable character is an unrepentantly treacherous drunken sellsword, almost virtuous in his completely honest dishonesty, this reader, at least, felt his connection to the narrative dwindle almost to nothing.
The previous reviewer mentioned "The First Law" as being a story about how things generally don't change and people don't grow; while I agree on one level, on another I find that the main theme was instead that people often fail to change, despite trying their best. Characters in that trilogy began their changes only to be snapped back by an uncaring world and by their own baser instincts, but at least they tried, and this reader could sympathize with their failure. In "Best Served Cold", the characters only change in station and position; the protagonist, Monza Murcatto, is on a quest for revenge, goes through with it, and is never forced to grow as a character in any real way. She remains an angry, tactically intelligent but headstrong general with a penchant for rationalizing monstrous actions from beginning to end.
About the only personal change sought and experienced is by the deuteragonist, Caul Shivers, and all of it for the worse. In the end, no one has grown and there are just less people left standing. It is an incredibly crafted revenge romp, but when no one truly questions anything aside from the details of their murder plans, a story becomes simply a series of events linked by blood and evil. If that is all a reader is looking for, then this is an amazing example; but if more is desired, readers like me will close the book deeply unsatisfied.
An exciting, well-written slog through insufferable darkness
Having just finished my second readthrough of Joe Abercrombie's "Best Served Cold", I find that I appreciated the excellently crafted character perspectives far more than on my first, with each character having easily recognizable and identifiable quirks and views of their own, making the world they inhabit more believable simply by virtue of them being so well-fleshed out.
Yet my impression from the first readthrough hasn't changed: Best Served Cold is a deeply unpleasant story about terrible people in which the only changes that take place are for the worse, whether in the characters themselves or in the setting they inhabit. It is to Abercrombie's credit that the characters still have magnetism about them that draws one in, but when the most likeable character is an unrepentantly treacherous drunken sellsword, almost virtuous in his completely honest dishonesty, this reader, at least, felt his connection to the narrative dwindle almost to nothing.
The previous reviewer mentioned "The First Law" as being a story about how things generally don't change and people don't grow; while I agree on one level, on another I find that the main theme was instead that people often fail to change, despite trying their best. Characters in that trilogy began their changes only to be snapped back by an uncaring world and by their own baser instincts, but at least they tried, and this reader could sympathize with their failure. In "Best Served Cold", the characters only change in station and position; the protagonist, Monza Murcatto, is on a quest for revenge, goes through with it, and is never forced to grow as a character in any real way. She remains an angry, tactically intelligent but headstrong general with a penchant for rationalizing monstrous actions from beginning to end.
About the only personal change sought and experienced is by the deuteragonist, Caul Shivers, and all of it for the worse. In the end, no one has grown and there are just less people left standing. It is an incredibly crafted revenge romp, but when no one truly questions anything aside from the details of their murder plans, a story becomes simply a series of events linked by blood and evil. If that is all a reader is looking for, then this is an amazing example; but if more is desired, readers like me will close the book deeply unsatisfied.