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A review by truthlessofcanada
The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
medium-paced
4.5
So I was kinda worried about this, I loved the trilogy, but I .......well I didn't love Best Served Cold. Fortunately Best Served Cold looks like a blip on the radar of Abercrombie, because he is back in form. Also he arguably was always in form, since it seems like I am one of the 5 people in the world who didn't like Best Served Cold.
I would highly recommend reading The First Law Trilogy, and Best Served Cold before this book, especially the trilogy. I know this could technically be read as a stand alone book, but that doesn't mean it should be read as a stand alone book. Also the trilogy is amazing, and well, most people think Best Served Cold is great to. So if you haven't read those then put this book down.
So do you like battles? do you like everything being terrible? do you hate Bayaz?
If you said yes to all of those, then I have a book for you.
The Heroes is about a battle. It is a battle that takes place over 3 days, and we follow 6 main PoV characters. There are 2 choices Joe made for this book that I think are pretty unique, fit his writing well, and very few fantasy authors could execute this well
So let's talk about the most unique choice, and it is a choice that really fits the theme of this world. There are a lot of fantasy battles, and in most of them the winner of the battle is pretty damm important. Battles are fought for revenge, to save a loved one, to save thousands of lives,or in many cases the winner or loser of a battle can determine the fate of the world. In The Heroes they are fighting over a hill. Nobody really cares about the hill, in fact the winner is probably gonna leave the hill after they take it anyway. Joe Abercrombie hits a homerun here, because most battles fought throughout history were not for the fate of the world. France and England fought an uncountable amount of battles throughout the middle ages, France is still France, England is still England. The Somme is one of the bloodiest battles in history, and it led to the allies advancing 6000 yards. A million casualties across both sides, to advance the length of a medium sized golf course. This is not a story about who wins the battle, it is a story of how the battle affects the people caught in it.
The second bold choice Joe makes here is that none of the PoV characters are leaders of either army. This kind of fits with the first choice. Because it the leaders aren't what matters, because the result isn't what matters. Throughout this book I didn't really care who won the battle, and I don't think i'm supposed to, thousands of lives are subject to pain, injury, sickness, and death, and the result doesn't even matter. So because of that the people leading the armies aren't the most important characters in this story, the people affected by those choices are.
So I have talked about theme a lot more in this book then I normally do, but hey time to get to the normal stuff.
So our 6 PoV characters. Basically they are great. I think Gorst is the fan favorite, personally I like Calder, and Finree even more. I really love all the different perspectives shown of the same battle. It isn't all scared young soldiers, and it isn't all veterans. It is a mix, so you get to see all the perspectives. Joe is still among the masters of giving each character a unique voice, and unlike in Best Served Cold where I thought he over did it and each characters monologue became very repetitive, in this book the PoVs were distinct, but never repetitive. I think this is probably the best character development I have seen from Abercrombie, because in the trilogy his characters are fascinating, but a lot of them don't really change a lot, in this book every character is touched in a different way by the war, and every reaction feels so human, and believable. I also think Joe does a better job of making sure the non PoV characters have their own personality, I think he has never being as strong at characterizing his non PoV characters, and they still aren't nearly on the same level as his PoV characters, but they are better then in his previous books.
So far this review has been pretty much all positive, that being said while this is a very good book, I do have some issue with it.
Here is the first one, and it sounds like a super minor nitpick, but if you haven't read it you are probably underestimating how prevalent this is.
YES I GET IT THERE ARE NO HEROES!
When it came to referencing the title of this book Joe forget everything he knows about being subtle, or nuanced. Every single damm character uses the word heroes ironically constantly. It is like they know they are in a book called "The Heroes". If you take a drink everytime the word Heroes is used ironically you will die of alcohol poisoning. before you get to day 2 of the battle. This may seem like a really minor nitpick for those who haven't read the book, but it came up multiple times per chapter, and it got very annoying very quickly.
Unfortunately the pacing of this book suffers a bit from the format, I don't think Joe could really do anything about it, it isn't bad, it is just a bit inconsistent.
Ok, back to positive things
The ending. This is my favorite ending to an Abercrombie book, it just fits perfectly with the story he was telling. Obviously I can't talk about it a lot, because spoilers, but it's great.
Last but not least I am going to mention combat, I am less of a fan of Abercrombie combat then most, I like that it really maintains a consistent tone, and it definitely is unique, but sometimes I find he falls into blow by blow. That being said it seems like most people love his combat, so you can probably ignore this.
Also I am going to mention that this book is quite grimdark, if you don't like grimdark fantasy then you probably won't like this book no matter how good it is. Personally i'm not the biggest grimdark fan, which is probably why this is a 4 star book for me.
I am going to end with a nitpick, maybe people won't get this far, which is good, because most people don't care about this.
Joe tries to make everything as realistic as possible, and Joe YOU CAN'T CUT THROUGH CHAINMAIL LIKE THAT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw3lcgIAwLk
This video has a guy hitting a stationary target that can't move backwards as hard as he can with a historically accurate axe. IT DOES NO DAMAGE TO THE MAIL. Ya the person who got hit would have broken ribs, but I repeat YOU CANNOT CUT THROUGH CHAINMAIL IN NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES.
Chainmail is incredibly effective armor, in this book someone cuts through chainmail and cuts someones arm off, then cuts through chainmail again on the other side. I don't care how strong Gorst is, that is not happening. stop it.
This would bother me less in a book that wasn't trying to be as realistic as possible.
Anyway most people probably don't care about that, I do.
8.3
I would highly recommend reading The First Law Trilogy, and Best Served Cold before this book, especially the trilogy. I know this could technically be read as a stand alone book, but that doesn't mean it should be read as a stand alone book. Also the trilogy is amazing, and well, most people think Best Served Cold is great to. So if you haven't read those then put this book down.
So do you like battles? do you like everything being terrible? do you hate Bayaz?
If you said yes to all of those, then I have a book for you.
The Heroes is about a battle. It is a battle that takes place over 3 days, and we follow 6 main PoV characters. There are 2 choices Joe made for this book that I think are pretty unique, fit his writing well, and very few fantasy authors could execute this well
So let's talk about the most unique choice, and it is a choice that really fits the theme of this world. There are a lot of fantasy battles, and in most of them the winner of the battle is pretty damm important. Battles are fought for revenge, to save a loved one, to save thousands of lives,or in many cases the winner or loser of a battle can determine the fate of the world. In The Heroes they are fighting over a hill. Nobody really cares about the hill, in fact the winner is probably gonna leave the hill after they take it anyway. Joe Abercrombie hits a homerun here, because most battles fought throughout history were not for the fate of the world. France and England fought an uncountable amount of battles throughout the middle ages, France is still France, England is still England. The Somme is one of the bloodiest battles in history, and it led to the allies advancing 6000 yards. A million casualties across both sides, to advance the length of a medium sized golf course. This is not a story about who wins the battle, it is a story of how the battle affects the people caught in it.
The second bold choice Joe makes here is that none of the PoV characters are leaders of either army. This kind of fits with the first choice. Because it the leaders aren't what matters, because the result isn't what matters. Throughout this book I didn't really care who won the battle, and I don't think i'm supposed to, thousands of lives are subject to pain, injury, sickness, and death, and the result doesn't even matter. So because of that the people leading the armies aren't the most important characters in this story, the people affected by those choices are.
So I have talked about theme a lot more in this book then I normally do, but hey time to get to the normal stuff.
So our 6 PoV characters. Basically they are great. I think Gorst is the fan favorite, personally I like Calder, and Finree even more. I really love all the different perspectives shown of the same battle. It isn't all scared young soldiers, and it isn't all veterans. It is a mix, so you get to see all the perspectives. Joe is still among the masters of giving each character a unique voice, and unlike in Best Served Cold where I thought he over did it and each characters monologue became very repetitive, in this book the PoVs were distinct, but never repetitive. I think this is probably the best character development I have seen from Abercrombie, because in the trilogy his characters are fascinating, but a lot of them don't really change a lot, in this book every character is touched in a different way by the war, and every reaction feels so human, and believable. I also think Joe does a better job of making sure the non PoV characters have their own personality, I think he has never being as strong at characterizing his non PoV characters, and they still aren't nearly on the same level as his PoV characters, but they are better then in his previous books.
So far this review has been pretty much all positive, that being said while this is a very good book, I do have some issue with it.
Here is the first one, and it sounds like a super minor nitpick, but if you haven't read it you are probably underestimating how prevalent this is.
YES I GET IT THERE ARE NO HEROES!
When it came to referencing the title of this book Joe forget everything he knows about being subtle, or nuanced. Every single damm character uses the word heroes ironically constantly. It is like they know they are in a book called "The Heroes". If you take a drink everytime the word Heroes is used ironically you will die of alcohol poisoning. before you get to day 2 of the battle. This may seem like a really minor nitpick for those who haven't read the book, but it came up multiple times per chapter, and it got very annoying very quickly.
Unfortunately the pacing of this book suffers a bit from the format, I don't think Joe could really do anything about it, it isn't bad, it is just a bit inconsistent.
Ok, back to positive things
The ending. This is my favorite ending to an Abercrombie book, it just fits perfectly with the story he was telling. Obviously I can't talk about it a lot, because spoilers, but it's great.
Last but not least I am going to mention combat, I am less of a fan of Abercrombie combat then most, I like that it really maintains a consistent tone, and it definitely is unique, but sometimes I find he falls into blow by blow. That being said it seems like most people love his combat, so you can probably ignore this.
Also I am going to mention that this book is quite grimdark, if you don't like grimdark fantasy then you probably won't like this book no matter how good it is. Personally i'm not the biggest grimdark fan, which is probably why this is a 4 star book for me.
I am going to end with a nitpick, maybe people won't get this far, which is good, because most people don't care about this.
Joe tries to make everything as realistic as possible, and Joe YOU CAN'T CUT THROUGH CHAINMAIL LIKE THAT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw3lcgIAwLk
This video has a guy hitting a stationary target that can't move backwards as hard as he can with a historically accurate axe. IT DOES NO DAMAGE TO THE MAIL. Ya the person who got hit would have broken ribs, but I repeat YOU CANNOT CUT THROUGH CHAINMAIL IN NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES.
Chainmail is incredibly effective armor, in this book someone cuts through chainmail and cuts someones arm off, then cuts through chainmail again on the other side. I don't care how strong Gorst is, that is not happening. stop it.
This would bother me less in a book that wasn't trying to be as realistic as possible.
Anyway most people probably don't care about that, I do.
8.3