A review by surdiablo
The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

adventurous dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Engrossing, exhilarating, and absolutely tragic. Abercrombie excels as usual at characterization, taking many side characters from the original trilogy, giving them distinct, compelling voices, and also adding new people to the cast who are just as interesting ( maybe not up to the level of BSC though ) within limited pages. I enjoyed
Gorst and Craw
POVs the most, the former being someone who I loathed and rooted for at the same time since he's just so well-written as this
delusional self-pitying, incel who also happens to be a courageous, invincible bulwark of the Union.
This book encapsulates everything about war, the best and worst of it, even the boredom aspect while managing to remain dark, reflective, and humorous. It hooked me from the very beginning regardless of the slow build-up, and most of the character POVs were intriguing enough. Even those I was not too fond of were fun to follow, and the POV switches were seamless. I don't have any serious complaints at all so if I had to nitpick, I would say we could have used more of
Dogman
maybe. The chapter called
Casualities
was a fantastic highlight, perhaps one of the best fantasy chapters I have ever read. The action sequences were gripping with palpable tension
( Day 3 duel had me on edge..)
, all the character arcs had fitting conclusions, and Joe's traditional anticlimactic moments weren't a bother for me at all. It can feel slow at times since the book consists of either talking or fighting in its entirety, so you may not like it as much as I did if you aren't a fan of either of those. I'm just glad to be back in this world again after a long hiatus, great to start 2024 with a 5-star read. 
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