Reviews with content warning for Racism - Before They Are Hanged

Huge improvement over Book 1, for me.

I flirted with rating this 4.5 stars, actually, and up until maybe 300-350 pages in, maybe I would have. Unfortunately, that's the point where the tension peaked overall for the book, so I have a similar problem with Book 2 as I did with Book 1, which is that I think the pacing is not great. Again, it was a lot better this time, and overall this book maintained tension pretty well throughout, but if the actual climax of the book doesn't beat the midpoint for action and tension, that's a problem for me. I understand this is more or less a consequence of having 3 separate plotlines in this book and needing to cover a certain amount of ground before Book 3 starts, but it's still something I personally find frustrating.

One other gripe I have is that the characters, while not necessarily shallow, sort of seem defined by like one (1) thing from their past. Except for maybe Logen, the characters don't often reflect on anything from the past in their POV chapters, and if they do, it's basically the same damn thing every time. Jezal has older brothers he feels competitive with, but they don't have names or specific memories attached to them. Glokta was a famed warrior before he was tortured and made a cripple as a POW, but he only ever thinks about that in general terms. With Ferro, we more or less only get her backstory when other characters make her talk about it, otherwise she just think about how she wants vengeance on the Gurkish for making her a slave, with nothing about that experience described in any detail.

Again, I won't say the characters are shallow, overall. For the most part, they have complex motives and feelings, and there's character growth, too. So maybe it's just a personal preference that's not being met here, but the fact that the character histories are so bare-bones just feels like some missing depth. This is also how I feel about Abercrombie's world-building, for what it's worth. I think he does a much better job on that score than in Book 1, but it still seems a bit surface-level. It kind of feels like he's trying to cover so much ground in terms of having multiple character threads and plotlines that will hopefully converge in Book 3, that he doesn't have the time to actually flesh out the world beyond what's absolutely necessary for the story. It's functional, but it doesn't make me feel immersed in the world the way I like in a fantasy setting.

However, I did rate this 4 stars, so let's talk about what I liked: first of all, as I wrote earlier, this book does a great job of maintaining quite a high level of tension throughout. Although it does dip somewhat towards the back third, there's still a lot going on that's intriguing, surprising, and overall gets you invested in the action. Whereas I felt like Book 1 spent a long time lingering on boring and unimportant shit, all the events in this book felt relevant and important to forward the plot or develop the characters/world-building.

I also really loved the character dynamics. Seeing a couple of different POV's from the first book collide and now working together in the sequel was honestly just really fun, and I liked to see how they bounced off each other. There were three separate plot lines in this book: one with Logen, Ferro, and Jezal following Bayaz across the Old Empire to retrieve a magical MacGuffin, one with West and Dogman & co colliding as the army of Northmen march on Angland, and one of Glokta in the South trying to hold the city of Dagoska against seemingly impossible odds as a Gurkish army beseiged it. Of the three, I probably liked the first the most, I guess because it seemed like the most important to the brewing fight against Khalul and his Eaters that appears to be the larger conflict of the trilogy, but also because I just enjoyed the mix of personalities. However, I actually liked the other plotlines overall as well (a huge improvement over Book 1, where I pretty much only liked following Logen's POV). The North/Angland war plotline did the best job of actually building towards a big climax at the end, with an entertaining dynamic from the clash of cultures as West began to work with our crew of Northmen.

The Glokta storyline was somewhat more frustrating for me. I was really invested in his political intrigues in Dagoska and seeing him prepare for a siege, but that plotline peaked at the midpoint of the story.

I understand removing him to Adua was important set-up for the third story, but it leaves his storyline weirdly in the lurch, so I would have preferred him spending most of the book in Dagoska, with maybe a single chapter near the end in Adua as a cliffhanger for future events.

As it is, there's something unsatisfying to me about the arc of his plotline, and while I can see that it's establishing some important elements for the finale, it does feel odd how isolated his character is from the rest of the POV characters and action.

But overall, a really strong second entry for a fantasy trilogy, that does a great job of bringing elements from the first book together, challenging our MC's in exciting and interesting situations, and ramping up the tension for the series' conclusion.

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strawberrypinch's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

4.75

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marthadude's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This is a great second entry in this trilogy. It builds on the foundations of the first novel and leaves a lot of interesting loose ends for the next book to hopefully wrap up. Abercrombie’s character work is fantastic. I do have a gripe with the way the female characters are written. Only one of them feels fleshed out and the rest seem more like objects for the male characters to gain more characterization. I wish they just had more to do.

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btrz7's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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taglharp's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

4 bloody stars, and no mistake.

From a structural point of view, middle books in trilogies are always hard to judge for me. Not much experience analyzing them as I do with beginnings. The better they are in the elements I favor, the harder I know how to review them. This one is no different.

But. Say one thing for Abercrombie, say that he does not let you down when it comes to characters. Bastards they might be, bastard roles they might play, and yet no matter how vile... they fucking grow on you. If you were ever attached to any characters you met in the first book, well. I have both good and bad news for you in this one.

(And though I do have some qualms about certain choices in the narrative, they're few compared to the good.)

NGEL, don't think I'll be able to keep myself from jumping on the Last Argument of Kings ASAP.

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shadereads's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny tense slow-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

4.5

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