A review by ryanberger
Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 

 Abercrombie is Confucius with a crossbow. Since the moment he rolled The Bloody Nine down a hill and into our lives at the beginning of The Blade Itself, he has dispensed bite sized frontier wisdom and hard life lessons through jagged plots and sharp characters. First Law fans thrill at hearing that you can't have too many knives, it's better to do it than to live in fear of it-- and of course, you've got to be realistic about things. They've probably never been more excited at these words of wisdom that have become synonymous with one of modern fantasy's most compelling characters than the beginning of Red Country.

Yes, he lives-- even after surviving a fall out a window and down a waterfall. His name does not appear in the entire 450+ pages, and likewise won't be found in this review (a commentary and firm answer that men *can* change, in the mind of this reviewer). He's been reborn as Lamb and now lives out his days in the Far Country, Abercrombie's version of the wild west in his Circle of the World.

When I heard that Abercrombie had written a Fantasy Western for the third novel of this second trilogy, I could have seen it going a couple of different ways. While Best Served Cold does have some salient points to make about the nature of revenge, it works best as a straight-up revenge thriller you enjoy for the buckets of blood. The Heroes, the middle book of the trilogy, was an exploration (maybe exposition is the better word) of war. I felt that the middle book tried to walk the line between something philosophical and something crunchy that appeals to fans of military fantasy and got a little stuck in the mud.

Red Country similarly tries to pull off a rollicking Western romp while also being a deconstruction of the American Western mythos but succeeds brilliantly.

Joe has ammo for all the Western platitudes and sets them up for a powerful takedown, and has a hoot of a time doing it.

Much like Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Country takes place near the death throes of Western expansion. The boom towns are all built and the gold mines are coughing up the last of their ore. Industry looms, as does the Union eying rebels that have fled to the dusty hills.

Experience enough westerns and you'll know all the hits. People looking for freedom, for new lives where they can bury their past, or make it rich and party like a 49er. But Abercrombie satisfies in how he picks apart these narratives.

Enter Temple, who has held (read:white-knuckled) seemingly every job under the sun, currently Jack Sparrow *touches earpiece* sorry Nicomo Cosca's lawyer. Temple flees his psychotic employer hoping to find freedom only to find that he's hardly equipped for it. Most people don't even know what to *do* with unadulterated freedom once they finally catch up to it. Many starve or get picked off in the wasteland-- and even more end up screaming for civilization to wrap them back up in their embrace.

It succeeds in all the ways you want a western to dazzle you. Some of Abercrombie's best set pieces are in this novel. His action scenes are consistently excellent and rise to levels of excitement not had since Last Argument of Kings. This might also be his slowest book (though there was a lot of downtime in The Heroes) and while some have said the interludes and moseying are no fun-- they're well at home in this cowboy epic.

Let's talk about the Lamb in the room.

Much has been made of this character over the span of the first trilogy. Is he good? Is he evil? Does being the only one who wants to try and do better matter in such a gnarly world?

Lamb has apparently not been up to much violence since becoming a changed man. But when violence finds him, he's faced with the same choice he's always had, and that's no choice at all. You've got to be realistic.

For as much as he's wanted to change, violence has always been required of him. He's repeatedly conscripted by Bayaz, the Northmen, and then his family. He says it's his nature, but his internal monologue suggests someone who is bone tired of all this.

Never more has it been clear that he has no control over himself once he reaches a frenzy-- which is a writing decision I admit I'm still not sure of at the end of the road. The Jekyll/Hyde dynamic has always been visible, but now it feels like its been *clarified*, and I don't honestly know which is more compelling-- the man who turns the reigns over to some beast to do his dirty work for the cost of reaping the shame afterward-- or a man with a talent for violence the size of his secret love for it. The debate is without end here, even as Lamb rides off into the sunset. A fitting sendoff for a beloved, complex character, one Abercrombie probably owes a whole heck of a lot to.

A ton of fun. Profound as well. Unquestionably the best standalone.

Highlights:
* The town of Crease is one of the series best locations. The opening description is some of the best, most vivid writing of Joe's career.
* Temple is maybe the biggest headfuck of a character to be placed in the hands of an author who excels at "will I or won't I?" games. You never really know what he'll do next, and it's thrilling.
* The best action of the series. Only thing that could rival it is holding ground in the High Places in LAoK.
* Get fucked, Cosca

Two quibbles:

1) I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable with portrayals of native-coded factions as savage antagonists. Even if much is made about how this is their land and everyone coming to rob and pillage them is the worst, including the protagonists-- It's still unsettling to use them as cannon fodder.
2) The final act has a bit of a tone shift that I think is somewhat odd. There are just.... a ton of one-liners out of nowhere. I think that there *is* a sort of tip of the hat going on as far as acknowledging the campy roots of spaghetti westerns but it was palpable, strange background noise in the last 70 pages or so.

Feel I should mention that I did not have a problem at all with the Dragon people, as some other readers did. Strange cults are very much in the Western Mythos food pyramid.

Yee Haw, pardner.