A review by brigantes
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

5.0

This was so good it genuinely has me thinking I ought to go back and downgrade the trilogy. A tighter, more structured plot with the same excellent attention to character as before, both bringing new life to a few from the original trilogy and also introducing some new fascinatingly compelling... bastards. Although a story about a betrayed protagonist who gathers a rag-tag crew to exact revenge on those who cast her down might not exactly be the most groundbreaking plot, JA pulls it off with incredibly enjoyable, entertaining style and still throws in a few twists that left me reeling. Styria is an interesting new setting (which was hinted at but hardly explored in the earlier books) that brought to mind medieval Italian city-states, which is a fun departure from Miserable Northern Europe Fantasy. I understand the three companion novels are something of a loose trilogy themselves so all I can say is: onwards!