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A review by gordonwaddell
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
3.0
Ok. Somewhat nice fantasy-Italy setting. As warned very dark and bloody with many unpleasant characters.
The book didn't hold it together through the mammoth (almost 900 pages - 1348 in ePub) read though and became *work* by the end. I think it was because...
• unpleasant characters aside as the story goes on you end up disliking them all and there is no cohesion or protagonist you really care about
• there is a character or two who are aberrations to the "normal, fallable human" nature of the rest of the characters who distort and distract the story - especially Shenkt. I can only hope these are explained in the supposedly unrelated First Law trilogy and they are more fantastic etc. However if they are they break the seal in this being relatively standalone and if they aren't then I think they just seriously weaken the book.
• Abercrombie's style provides a rolling narrative pace that is initially engaging and sucks you in. But it just gets tiring and loses it's power chapter after chapter after chapter. Shorter books or more style needed.
In all, not a bad read and I would consider more Abercrombie in the future but it won't be top of my list.
The book didn't hold it together through the mammoth (almost 900 pages - 1348 in ePub) read though and became *work* by the end. I think it was because...
• unpleasant characters aside as the story goes on you end up disliking them all and there is no cohesion or protagonist you really care about
• there is a character or two who are aberrations to the "normal, fallable human" nature of the rest of the characters who distort and distract the story - especially Shenkt. I can only hope these are explained in the supposedly unrelated First Law trilogy and they are more fantastic etc. However if they are they break the seal in this being relatively standalone and if they aren't then I think they just seriously weaken the book.
• Abercrombie's style provides a rolling narrative pace that is initially engaging and sucks you in. But it just gets tiring and loses it's power chapter after chapter after chapter. Shorter books or more style needed.
In all, not a bad read and I would consider more Abercrombie in the future but it won't be top of my list.