Hello and welcome to another episode of Is This Just Fantasy, I'm your host, Geordie Bailey.
And I'm his friend who would go to the end of the Earth to avenge him, Duncan Nicoll.
And as long as you don't actually know, I was about to snappily respond to that with a nice bit of witticism,
but it just occurred to me that it would be literally five seconds into the episode before I levelled a spoiler at our audience, so maybe I won't quite go that far.
I think that's a good idea, Geordie. So, Geordie, what are we doing here today?
Well, Duncan, we are a book club. You and I, every other week we get together and we discuss, rate and review a fantasy novel, and this week we're reading Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie.
That's right, my pick this week. I'm very excited to dive into this one, Geordie. And there's a lot of...
And a very good choice, Duncan. Well done.
I think there's so much to say, not only about this book, but the author and the series it sits into. But before we dive into that, Geordie, have you been reading anything else these last two weeks?
That's funny you should ask that, Duncan. It's been a weird one. It's been a weird one for me. So, I currently have three audible credits.
I have not been doing a lot of reading outside what I need to for this particular episode.
Part of that is because I read a physical version of the book this time. For once, I didn't read the fantasy novel. I didn't read the audiobook because I got this one for Christmas.
So in that time, I haven't been doing a lot of other reading. And it's only very, very recently, in the past week, that I've dabbled in some quite odd reading choices.
I actually made Duncan do a little guessing game before we started, doing a sort of yes, no, 20 questions.
And it took him a very long time to narrow down to me reading Outbound Flight, because it's a Star Wars novel, and that's quite out of character for me.
I'd like to point out, I actually picked up that it was a Star Wars novel quite quickly. It was the narrowing down from that to finish.
I was like, well, what would Geordie want to play this game about? And I very quickly was like, is it some trashy fantasy that you'd be a little bit embarrassed to read?
He was like, yes. I was like, OK, I've got it. Is it Star Wars? I'm really happy to hear that, though. I'm a massive Star Wars fan.
I've read a lot of both Legends and Canon. I believe this is your second foray?
That's right. That's right. To my shame, the first one was for the podcast. It was against my will. This one, I succumbed. I went to the dark side. I did it all by myself.
And are you enjoying it? I mean, Timothy Zorn, the author of Outbound Flight, is kind of very highly regarded as one of the best of the Star Wars expanded universe writers.
Yeah, it's a mixed bag. It's a mixed bag in terms of like prose delivering the story. It's really good for what it is.
It's, like, clearly Timothy Zahn is a skilled writer. There are some weird choices in terms of pacing. I feel like a lot of potential has been missed.
It's basically like, you know, this tense standoff at the edge of known space between an unknown alien species and a force of Jedi Republic sailors. I don't know what they call astronauts in Star Wars.
But it's kind of a letdown because almost the entire book is the set up to the standoff. The standoff itself is very short.
And now in the denouement and it's all wrapped up quite quickly, the fine detail is good, but the big picture is pretty bad.
It really, funny enough, I keep thinking this should be Abaddon's Gate, the third Expanse book, because the set up is quite similar.
It's like a super tense standoff and people on either side need to like understand each other. But instead, everything just kind of explodes and it's a bit disappointing.
I have had now my first encounter with the famous Thrawn and he's a well written character. I can see why he left such an impact on the Star Wars fandom.
He's one of the very few old legend characters that have made their way not only to new canon, but actually to live action. And that has just been the weight of his popularity. He's a really well written character.
The one other thing that I've picked up, which I have not read yet because I purchased it today, is the new Conan comic.
Oh, this is exciting. I'm actually like, my heart kind of went a little bit, beat a little bit faster there. I haven't got this yet.
I have read the first, I read the three comic book day issue and issue one. I haven't quite got around to picking up the first tray paperback.
That's funny. That means I'm going to finish it before you Duncan.
I can't stand this. This is not how it works. Oh, Geordie, this is exciting. It's a really exciting time for Conan at the moment.
You might not be aware of this Geordie, but they finally released the cover art for the next Conan novel to come out.
It's Conan and the City of the Dead and it looks absolutely beautiful. It's coming out kind of June, July time.
And this is a like officially licensed one. It's not yet a public domain release.
No, this is officially licensed. This is our little bit here. She's written by a guy called John C. Hocking.
He's wrote a Conan novel long time ago in, I think, the late 90s, if not early 2000s.
And he actually apparently at the time was started writing a sequel and then the license changed and it sort of didn't make it publication.
He put it on the shelf. So when the new publisher suddenly went, oh, we want to start releasing books again, he apparently basically dusted off his own manuscript, went, all right, couple of edits.
Here you go. So very exciting. Yeah, that doesn't happen very often.
That's the sort of thing that tends to happen when like an author blows up big time and they're like, well, I had this release I couldn't sell before.
Would you like to try that? And that's how you get, what was it, Project Artemis releasing like six months after The Martian.
Weirdly enough, it's actually kind of happened twice in Conan. I think the very comic that you've brought by Jim Zub, he was writing for Marvel on Conan when they lost the license.
So I don't think they've gone as far as saying, oh, yeah, I was going to sell this to Marvel, but I can't imagine that he had this sort of on the cards and then moved to the new publisher.
It's like, hi, I've got an already written Conan script. It's not like Conan's going to radically change just because he's from a new publishing company.
I think it's a happy time. This is a very positive year for the character. We've had a drought.
I'm glad to hear it for you for the big time Conan fans. I'm a small time Conan fan. But Duncan, have you been reading anything entertaining this week?
Yes, and I won't dwell on it too much because I did mention it previously. So you guys cast your mind back to the very first episode of the year when we were talking about King Caul.
I said that I got a book for Christmas called Till Death Do Us Bard and I said I hadn't finished it then, but I kind of gave a very quick first thoughts on the novel.
And then I realized having finished it quite a while ago, even now, I never kind of gave a follow up saying, you know, if I still recommend it.
So I thought I'd just kind of quickly slide that in now and say, yes, I do recommend it. It's written by I believe it's her name's Rose back.
Really fun book. It's sold as a combination of Kings of the Wild and Legends and Lattes. I think it fulfils that brief.
That is the book that is directly being sold to Geordie. You know, say like, OK, Geordie's top two fantasy novels from the past two years, slap them together.
It's really good. The premise of the book is that we have a sort of retired adventurer couple, a gay couple. It's sort of the standard warrior archetype with the standard bard archetype.
And one day the bard, he goes missing and the warrior sets out on a quest to find his missing husband.
And he's aided by a necromancer and the resurrected ghost of his dead wife, ex-wife. And it's a really fun dynamic.
I will have to say it does the Legends and Lattes aspect, I think, a lot better than it does the Kings of the Wild aspect.
I think when it's just focusing on the character work and the interactions and sort of the exploration of these really kind of deep and complex character dynamics, their backstory and how their relationships work and what's a healthy relationship.
And, you know, when you rush into things, when you just feel the love, what's a reasonable sacrifice to expect someone to make for you. That works incredibly well.
I think when it tries to be a more straight up fantasy, like when it's trying to just throw down and show you an action scene, it definitely tapers off.
Like the climax action scene almost boarded into either farcical or there were just moments where I was just straight up like, I don't know what's going on.
I don't know where people are standing anymore. Like things are just too chaotic.
That's interesting. Having read the prequel to Legends of Lattes now, a book does some book shops and bone dust.
That book also steps away from the completely chill, wholesome Legends and Lattes into like actual fight scenes happening.
But I still think they're pretty well written fight scenes. So that's worth bearing in mind as a comparison.
I think it's those little things, just not to go on too long, but it's just little moments where there'll be a scene of dialogue.
And I just lost track of who was saying what lines. And I'm like, oh, that's just a little bit of neating up here needs doing.
Or going back to that action scene. It's just a scene where a character starts talking to another character.
And I'm like, wait, I thought you were like 40 feet away. Are you shouting or you're just saying your line on the page?
So are you just saying this quietly? Like those little details, which I think you pick up on sometimes when you read a bit where it's not quite there, even if the core and the heart is really well done.
Speaking of books, which are wholesome, good fun, shall we talk about Best Served Cold?
Absolutely, Geordie. So I would love to give a little intro to this.
Best Served Cold is the fourth published work by Joe Abercrombie in his First Law universe.
It starts out as a trilogy and has grown since then. So Geordie, what have you heard of Joe Abercrombie before reading this book?
Now, that's a good question. I think that Joe Abercrombie to me had a strong reputation just from R/fantasy, where a lot of people recommended his works.
To me, the impression I had before going into this book that it was quite gritty, grounded fantasy with a lot of panache. And it's definitely delivered on that.
I could never quite tell to what extent you were saying like, yeah, this is legitimately a really good writer.
And now I know Joe Abercrombie is legitimately a very good writer.
He certainly is. He often gets put in the same sentences as writers like George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rufus and Mark Lawrence.
In terms of just writing style, I think he's my favourite. I think the way he writes, I actually put above those other three.
I would definitely put him above Mark Lawrence. I think he's a bit too different from George R.R. Martin to make a fair comparison in like a nuanced sort of way.
It is telling to me that George R.R. Martin is all over this book, not in terms of like style, but in terms of he's on the front cover.
Yes, he.
Hang on, I've got to brush off my George R.R. Martin impression.
Joe Abercrombie is terrific. I can't remember what George R.R. Martin sounds like. He has this very New England accent.
The first quote on the inside page is a lengthy review from Joe Abercrombie.
I mentioned this on a post that you put up on Instagram after Christmas.
But speaking earlier of saying that the Kings of the Wyld mix of legend and lattes is the perfect review for Geordie, this is the second best perfect summary to entice Geordie.
Joe Abercrombie's best serve code is a bloody and relentless epic of vengeance and obsession in the grand tradition. A kind of splatter punk sword and sorcery counter Monte Cristo. Dumas by way of Moorcock.
Holy shit, did that sell it to me.
I hope that lived up to the expectations because there is a lot riding on Joe Abercrombie since his first book came out.
I think in like 2006, he has just been hitting kind of a claim after a claim.
The only thing that really surprised me about Joe Abercrombie is that whenever a new book comes out, people legitimately seem to get around and go, oh my God, this is the best one yet.
Like, FEML is in comparison to this.
And Duncan, have you read his original trilogy via the first lore books?
I have indeed. And this is something I really want to kind of explain to people. So earlier on this year, I read Murtagh, which is a continuation of the inheritance cycle from the first Aragon book in the first trilogy or saga quartet.
And then this was like a standalone continuation. And in the same tradition, that's how best served cold is struck sold, particularly from the publishers. This is a standalone, but it is a chronological continuation of the world and some of the characters.
But it is standalone. So what I really want to do is to repeat that experiment we did before, where I was the one in the dark and Geordi was the.
The veteran and now I'm the veteran. I have read the first law trilogy, The Blade Itself before they're hanged and the last argument of Kings and Geordi, you are fresh faced.
You might say that this is your long sought after and meticulously planned revenge.
Yes, I would. Although this is a if this is how revenge how I deliver revenge. I go, I'm going to get my revenge on this guy. I'm going to recommend to him the one of the best fantasy books I have read in the last 10 years.
Yeah, that'll show him. That'll show him. So Duncan, you said this is one of the best fantasy novels you read in the past 10 years.
So I think I will not disagree about it all. I think it's absolutely slapped. This is definitely in the upper echelons of the books we've read for the podcast so far.
I had a terrific time reading it. I'm so happy to hear this because I'll be honest with you, I actually got cold feet after I finished it.
I had this moment of like, will he there are bits that I worry that I would it would it undercut it?
Would it come out of nowhere if he hasn't read the prior books? Knowing that you still enjoyed it just puts my mind at ease.
Yeah, I do have some questions. But actually, I ended this book with more questions regarding whether it mattered.
I should know these things or not versus whether I thought it actually mattered.
So, for example, there's a character who's frequently mentioned this book as a very menacing exterior character called the Cripple.
That's the only way he's referred to. And I kind of assumed that this was like a background feature.
Like, this is a character who's always nebulous and in the shadows.
And then I read like the blurb to the Sword of Truth. And I think I think he might be the protagonist of the first book. Am I wrong?
So he is one of the principal point of view characters of the entirety of the original trilogy.
Which was really surprising.
Oh, it is amazing to have a main character who regularly sits on the other side of the interrogation and torture desk is thrilling.
And to be inside someone's mind who has to make some very hard and like decisions to sort of for the greater good style character, he is incredibly interesting.
His name is Sandan Glocka for the record, and he is one of the best characters.
I wish he was in this book like properly.
And the other thing which surprised me upon reading the blurb of that book.
And this is great because I literally read the blurb of that book after finishing this one.
Did you say the Sword of Truth? You mean The Blade Itself?
I mean The Blade Itself.
The Sword of Truth is a very different book to The Blade Itself.
Yes, I think you can appreciate why I would make that mistake.
Did you know where The Blade Itself got its namesake from? The title?
No, I don't.
It's actually a quote from the Odyssey. I thought you would know as a great fan.
It's “the blade itself incites to deeds of violence.” Just a little trivia. I love it.
Are all of the books taken from like eponymous quotes?
Because this one is the last part is accompanied by the original quotage of “revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Yes, they are. So one of my favourites is actually the second book, which is Before They Are Hanged.
It's the name of the book and it's the end of the quote.
“We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.”
I like that. That's good.
And then finally, I can't imagine where The Heroes come from. That feels a teeny bit nebulous.
That one is. On the wiki page, each one is like the quote and the person and the heroes.
It just goes, this is an in-universe quote made by this character. I was like, aww, corny, a little cheap.
The last argument of Kings isn't even like part of a quote.
Apparently it was what was inscribed on Louis the 14th's cannons. Amazing work.
So I read the blurb of The Blade Itself and I realized that Caul Shivers was not, as I assumed, the protagonist of those books.
And I think his worst enemy is. Yep. Because the first one, this is the Bloody Nine.
And I've seen that character referred to on subreddits, but I'd also seen like Logen Nine Fingers mentioned and I hadn't put together that they were the same character.
They are Logen Nine Fingers. The Bloody Nine is the less than flatter. I guess I say less than flattering.
I think he's probably quite chuffed that people gave him that name.
And Geordie, do you want to guess who the other because you stumbled on.
So those are two of the like protagonists from the main series.
Do you know who the third one is who you do meet in this book?
I, to be honest, Duncan, that was the character who stood out to me the least upon, you know, reading that blurb because I didn't place him.
But there was something familiar about it. There was something familiar.
It's like a master duellist to something. Is that how he's described?
I do you know what, Geordie, I feel like I'm not going to tell you. So when you do read the First Law trilogy, you get that one last surprise.
Because this character is in this book, but like the cripple and the Bloody Nine, he is never referred to by his actual name.
So you get the surprise of the role he then goes on to fulfil.
Interesting. That's very interesting.
Let's crack on into the book itself. Ha ha. And actually talk about this particular one.
So George R.R. Martin was kind enough to refer to this as Dumas meets Moorcock.
And I can see why he would say that if he's never read The Count of Monte Cristo, because it is a roaring rampage of revenge.
I think a more apt comparison would be Kill Bill, much more apt than The Count of Monte Cristo.
I what Kill Bill meets Moorcock.
Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, fantasy version of Kill Bill or even Dishonoured.
I mean, it's a very kind of established set up.
You know, I don't think this is winning massive points on originality in some respects.
Absolutely not.
This is a story which has an inciting incident within the very first chapter.
And then our main character gets a list of seven names.
And what we actually have is quite an interesting structure for such a large fantasy book, because it almost works as almost independent arcs with their own set up complications and climaxes for each of the seven names on that list.
New locations, literally broken into seven parts.
This novel where we go, OK, we're here, we're hunting that person, there's incident, something climax, they die onto the next. Spoiler, a lot of them end up dead.
And much like some of those, you know, revenge stories, it's actually got like assembling the crew.
You know, it puts together a team. It's not just Monza, our main character.
What's the name? Actually, the funny thing is that it's one of those situations where I'm not reading the audiobook.
So I kind of I read the name, but I don't really actually put into my head.
It's Murcatto.
Monza Murcatto.
Murcatto.
So it's her putting together her team of like her bruises, her sneaky people, her poisoners, her.
What was what was what was Viseron's role? Torturer?
Is that her thing?
I would say she is a professional torturer.
So, yes, but she doesn't do it that much.
She doesn't. She kind of acts just like another bruiser in this.
Yeah.
Oh, well.
In this, implying that she's in a previous book.
Um, a, a, a, a, a, a spoiler warning.
Well, this is what happens when when you do a Murtagh and you jump in at this point of the story.
She did seriously confuse me in one particular part of the story, but I want to get into that way later.
But I want to talk really about, you know, so you have a team and you and what I really enjoy about this book
and some of the things that really just snap, makes it pop, is that Joe Abercrombie is so good at dialogue.
Just characters have these snappy witty conversations that tell you so much about the characters,
the way they think about each other and the way in which they they might think one way about a character
and the way in which they actually talk don't line up.
And this book is constantly changing POVs.
And the way in which people have this, this inner picture of themselves
and how it is completely different when viewed through other people's eyes is so astute and so fantastic.
It's, it's hard. It's, it minks all other multi-person POVs, which I come across in books so often,
look so mediocre by comparison.
I don't think I've ever heard you go on a train of such compliments, but I fully agree.
I love the fact that we get all these characters, and despite the fact they've all kind of come to the same place in life,
they've all been hired on to murder people.
They all have such different, almost life values in their approach to their work.
And it plays off each other. And it gets, I'm going to say, most philosophical at points without the characters overdoing it.
You can look at it and go, oh my god, what does this say about them and their lives?
But they are still completely driven by their sort of in-universe motivations.
So an interesting thing about this book. So Duncan, correct me if I'm wrong.
The character of Viseryn, I don't think she's ever a perspective character.
I think I'm right in saying so, right?
Yes, I do believe so.
Okay, so I feel confident in saying this, that aside from one exception,
there is a point at every point in this story where I'm reading a particular character's perspective,
and I think to myself, this is my favourite character.
Even characters I don't like, who I thoroughly dislike, I'm like,
this is the best written character in this book, and I can't wait for the next chapter to come along.
I think this when I'm reading a Shivers chapter.
I think this when I'm reading a Friendly chapter, a Cosca chapter, a Morveer chapter.
Probably not a Monza chapter, to be honest, but she still has some good chapters.
Do you know, I don't know if I, oh, would I go that far?
I really did enjoy the character of Morveer.
His chapters were things that I really looked forward to,
mostly because I loved the play off his internal confidence, both, and his internal insecurities,
and how he always projects them differently.
I suppose I really enjoyed the Cosca, particularly having, I like a really boastful character,
someone who's just trying to ride the wave of confidence.
I think by the end of the book, what was interesting for me is, same thing you said,
Monza, who is the closest to the main character we have, they're the one driving the events of the plot,
did sort of tick down the list a bit for me.
In terms of enjoyability, I'm not quite sure what it was,
if whether or not I sort of saw their character arc maybe a little bit more clearly than some of the others.
I was like, I'm pretty confident where you're going.
Plus, some of the, I don't know, reveals for their character.
There's a particular point with this character where something gets revealed.
Shivers gets a reveal.
And I was sat there like, yeah, well, I've known that for the last 300 pages,
so did you want me to have an emotional response?
I know exactly what you're referring to,
and I think we will break down all the spoilers at a certain point in the episode,
but I think we should maintain it for now because this is such an emphatic, yes, go read this book,
but by all means, hear more about it so you can get extra excited, sort of episode.
Let's hold off on what we really meant for now.
And at a certain point, we'll have a completely open conversation about this.
I will say that I think the reason why we both feel that Monza is a bit undeveloped as a perspective character,
not necessarily as a main character,
is the fact that her arc is quite different to the other characters,
in that she doesn't really change.
It's really our perspective on her which needs to change throughout the book.
So she doesn't really need to undergo any transformation for a story to occur,
because, I guess this is at risk of being a spoiler, but I think it's good enough.
You sort of realize throughout the book is that, just as we've said,
all these characters have a different perception of themselves to our perception of them,
or other characters' perception of them,
Monza is perceived by others throughout the book as being this ruthless, evil monster
who has ordered massacres and abominable war crimes to take place.
And you enjoy her chapters because, you know, she's this badass, fight and punch him, kick and kill him hero,
except for one character, the character of Cosca,
who knows deep down that Monza is not this monstrous killer,
that she might want the world to think she is, but deep down she's just not that evil,
and she's not capable of acting that evil.
And I don't know if that sort of makes it, if it's undercut because the characters themselves aren't learning as much of a lesson.
They do have a lesson to learn, but it's not like an internal lesson,
it's actually they then have their perspective changed on yet another character,
and that forms the arc.
And I just feel like it's not as satisfying.
And I want to say, this is a very small detail, this is tiny,
because when I went, that arc's not so satisfying,
about seven others are ending really satisfactorily at the same time.
So it's not something to really draw up.
Cosca and Shiver's arc in the book is really fascinating
because Cosca, you watch, like, make actual changes,
and he starts off being this complete blowhard who it's impossible to respect.
But by the end of the book, you fucking love him,
and it's this almost, this fatalistic shrug,
you mean like, yeah, no one ever really changes, I guess.
Like, you had an arc, and you slid right back to where you were before the story even began.
And that counterpoints then with a character like Shiver's,
so not going into too much detail, but a character like Shiver's,
he starts off on this sort of more moral quest,
and you think, okay, he's trying to better himself,
and you go, oh no, he's going to slip back.
And it generally surprised me, because where I would think in an archetypical fantasy series,
that sort of arc would go, it doesn't.
And it generally kept me guessing, not in terms of what maybe his actions,
some of his actions are like, oh yeah, I see where he's going to do,
but in terms of his overall character development, I had no idea
where at the end of this book, his world perspective would be.
This book is endlessly surprising.
It just is one of the few books I've read in the course of this podcast
where I genuinely didn't know how it was going to end to any stretch of the imagination.
Like, it just kept janking back and forth, and like, oh man, I can't believe this is happening.
Oh, this book's taken a really different direction.
Whoa, wait, hang on, is the ending not going to be what I thought it was?
And yeah, so right to the last page, completely being jerked around from place to place in a good way,
in a way that wasn't like disorientating.
I always had my bearings, but I was always, never knew it was coming around the next curve.
It's this great bit of writing where everything I feel is justified, makes sense for the world,
and it got to an ending where the word satisfaction springs to mind, you know,
if maybe a little bit sobering, but I just felt like the emotional kind of denouement of it all
was just right, perfectly delivered.
I was like, that is the best ending you could have written, and I didn't even know that's what I wanted.
Yeah, I mean, he just really, just really delivers.
Duncan, I kind of feel like we've done the best we can without getting into spoilers,
but I think from this point on, the spoiling warnings, it's blap, blap, blap, the light is flashing.
We seriously recommend this book.
It is gory as hell, but it's not that debilitating.
The funny thing is, it is like a grimdark book, but it's not grimdark in like a thumbs down way.
It's a well-written grimdark book, which is, up to this point in my life, had basically been an oxymoron.
Would you say it's fair to say that this is about, because it's sort of about grimdark,
they're like, you know, it's hopelessness and there's, you know, it's endless strife.
And what I really like about this book is that, yeah, it's a grimdark world, you know,
and the grimdark really think of it as hopelessness, it's an endless cycle of violence.
But what kind of gives it that upward lift is the fact that the characters, they're not like,
oh, there's hope and we can stop the violence one day.
It's that they're like, yeah, we are in a grimdark world.
We can make fun of that.
We can, you know, we can achieve something, or we can get pleasure out of all of this chaos
if we just kind of play our cards right.
At least some of the characters, Cosca has that attitude of, yep, endless war.
Accept it, make the best of it.
And I really enjoy that in a character.
That's his thing, talking to Friendly, at one point in the book, he's like,
you've just got to ride the wave, and it is chaotic and it is upsetting,
but what else are you going to do? That's life.
And it's so bizarre that it's such a depressing message,
but it actually feels appropriate for the characters, and it feels like a satisfactory ending.
I know that it is followed by two other books, and that they are actual sequels
in which the world progresses, but it's one of those weird situations where I'm like,
kind of hope the characters don't show up again, because if I see you on page,
it means something bad's happened to you.
That's definitely a feeling that I have.
I know, so as we mentioned, we're a First Law universe, you've got the initial trilogy,
three standalones, and then a follow-up trilogy,
and I'm so excited to see how does this world actually close out?
Will it close out, or will it keep that same message of
the cycle of violence just keeps going, guys?
Accept it.
Okay, well we're on the other side of a spoiler barrier, so let's have a slightly more detailed chat
about what actually goes on in this story.
Righteeo, Geordie saw this book.
Yeah.
Monza gets betrayed, her brother gets killed, she gets thrown down a mountain.
I really like the early parts of this book where before it's even about getting the gang together,
and Monza's crawl back to her revenge plot is so grisly and dark,
but in a way where it's fucking cool, you know?
It's sort of a feeling she's crawling out of her grave to get her revenge.
It's really interesting. I really enjoyed, say enjoyed,
I like the description of this person's road to recovery,
so I think it gives sufficient weight, and there's a really interesting point
particularly around, I don't think they named the drug, I think they just called it smoke.
Husk.
You can fill in husk. You can fill in whatever you like it is.
It makes you feel relief, it's pain relief.
And I like the fact that you really, I, Lansworth, which is the initial reaction of,
oh, people are on husk, you know, it's not the way I want to go,
and then she's like, no, the pain's too much, sorry, actually, I need this to get through,
and to begin my recovery, but I like the fact that as the story goes on,
we see her relationship kind of play off, and it's like, sometimes it is that bad,
but I'm going to focus to, you know, use this to start me on my road of recovery,
but when things ease off, I will try and ease off, and I thought that was a really nice detail.
Yeah, I think it really speaks to a lot of what makes, you know,
a lot of the drama in the story work is that there are always consequences.
Like from the moment Monza takes her first puff of this narcotic,
she is now on the pathways being hooked on it,
and she really doesn't have a chance to ever get off that train.
By the end of this book, she's still addicted to husk,
and there's almost an acceptance that she's never going to be able to get off of it,
because it's fucking hard, and she has no actual way to properly do so.
You know, like Cosca's alcoholism throughout the book, it's presented in a similar way,
where he's forced by Monza to get off alcohol, to get clean,
because he needs him to be clean, but eventually even he falls off the wagon again,
in like, in such a bizarre and darkly humorous way, and it's kind of fucking amazing.
Like, I should be completely like, oh no, please don't do it,
when he like caves into his addiction again,
but it's this moment of me like, beaming wide and shrugging my shoulders being like,
that's life baby, what are you going to do?
Just a little clout to that. This is a great moment.
This is how I read it, where he ultimately gets off the drink,
to stick it to one person who says that he can't,
and the moment that bloke's dead he goes, well he's dead now, I don't need to stick it to him.
Back on the bottle.
Exactly, I'm back off the wagon. I love it. What a...
These are just a little great moments though,
so you got that kind of setup when she first takes a husk, another great moment that I love,
because what that moment does, and it's what the next one I'm going to talk about does as well,
it makes these characters make these traditionally seen as bad life choices seem reasonable,
really understandable. I'm like, yeah, you're in so much pain and suffering, take a bit of husk,
it's going to help you, you know, get through this and start trying to, on your road to recovery.
Like another scene really early on, we get a flashback to when Monza is a young child with her brother Benna,
and on a farm, she gives a description of how her nails are cracked, she goes out every day,
trying to dig up the weeds, till the soil, and then one day some roving bandits come through and burn it all.
Disaster, oh no. And like all that hard work, months and months, and I can't even, you know,
all I've got to show for it, a couple of silver, and then a little later they go on a revenge raid
against the people that attacked them. And this is a wonderful scene where in like two sentences,
to show you just how quick it is, she kills these two men, and in their pockets there's like 50 silvers.
She's like, well, what can I do? I can spend my whole life tilling the soil,
and potentially have it all ruined anyway, or I can get 10 times that for 30 seconds work.
Absolutely, it's fantastic. The way in which it shows like the descent is just like this easy, gentle step,
and that same descent underlines almost every course of action that takes place in this book,
especially Shiver's betrayal. This book is always about the pressure of loyalty against betrayal.
Every character in the book is betrayed at some point, or betrays someone at some point.
Except for Friendly. Friendly is steadfast to the very last, because he believes in law and order above all things.
And there's this brilliance in the way in which it's like you're supposed to respect loyalty above all.
Normally in a book like this, you should want your main characters to the very last, you know,
stand by their principles, stand by the people they've sworn to protect.
But the very first thing that happens in this book is a betrayal. And after that, the gloves are off.
It's a free for all. Everyone's free to meet their betrayals.
And the same way in which it's oh so natural for Cosca to start drinking again,
it's oh so natural for Monza to start using drugs, it's oh so natural for Shivers to slowly descend down into madness and hatred.
OK, let's talk about Caul Shivers.
I love this character and I loved him so much because he was such a small character in the previous books.
He is a footnote. And to be honest, he mostly exists so that the Bloody Nine can make a point about like,
we've got to break the cycle, you know, we've got to not be vengeful.
And I'm not going to lie, even in that scene, I'm like, yes, this is the guy who's potentially losing the fight.
But what have you, Shivers takes the message.
And I'm not going to lie, this is where reading the previous books, it almost hurt because you leave Shivers going off into the sunset to be a better man.
And to know that this is now what happened next to him is kind of heartbreaking.
But at the same time, nothing seems unearned.
So at the start of this book, Shivers shows up, he wants to be an honest man, do an honest day's work.
And he discovers that's really hard when you're a foreigner in a foreign land.
And in taking the first opportunity afforded to him, where he's given the chance to earn riches beyond his wildest dreams,
again, that's another moment of like, yeah, of course, that just makes sense.
When he gets dragged off his like path to be a good man by impossible riches being thrust in his face.
Yeah, of course he'd make that choice. And then every other choice that follows on after that just makes sense.
Geordie, can I ask you a question? Because by the time we got near the end of this book, I really, I started out, I was in Shivers corner.
More than Monza, I was like, yeah, Shivers, I want him to be like my protag.
I'm going to follow this guy. I'm sticking with him. Shivers is my man.
By the end of this book, I was kind of like, oh, someone's going to kill him.
So my answer to this is a bit tainted because I accidentally got spoiled a bit for this book.
I was reading once again, getting another shout out in this in this episode, R/fantasy, reading the fantasy subreddit.
There are people talking about what's the best one on one do in a novel you've ever read.
And one of the most uprated one was Friendly versus Shivers.
And I got read that halfway through this book when everyone was still just best pals.
And so I went, OK, so one of them is going to betray the team and there's going to be a showdown.
So it goes for a while. I thought I was going to be friendly.
I figured he'd just be given alternate orders and he just follow orders to the end.
And Shivers would be the very last person on Monza's side.
I was proved quite wrong there because friendly is the exact opposite.
He is loyal to the last and Shivers is the great betrayer.
But fucking hell, is that a good fight?
So beautifully written. Now we talk about in many books what makes a good fight scene.
And, Geordie, it's sort of hard.
I often argue that what makes a really good fight scene is less about the trading of blows or the descriptions of violence
and more about the showing that the characters are thinking and it's the planning and it's a fake letter.
Whack right. What makes it good?
This, to me, just had this beautiful blend of everything.
And by the way, all the fight scenes in this book, I think are really darn good.
This is just the exemplary of everything else it contains.
And there are things in this book, it's the little descriptions that gets me, that really put me in the scene.
It's just the way there are scenes when Shivers has a shield.
OK, whatever. Those people in fantasy have a shield.
But how often do you hear about some guy getting bashed on the chin with like the metal rim of that shield that's holding it together
and the shock that goes through the body and how they lose sight of it.
It's just every physical detail of what these characters are going through is there.
It's been used in interesting ways.
There's a great scene where they're in a kitchen and they're moving about the space
and they move through the environment using items and it's developing the fight.
I was just going through the book and I accidentally found the perfect description for this.
So here we go. This is Shivers and Friendly.
They smash their way through the kitchens, both doing their level worse to kill each other.
Shivers hadn't planned on this, but his blood was boiling now.
Friendly was in his fucking way and had to be got out of it.
Simple as that. It had become a point of pride.
Shivers was better armed. He had to reach, he had to shield.
But Friendly was slippery as an eel and patient as winter.
Backing off, dropping away, forcing nothing, giving no openings.
All he had was his cleaver, but Shivers knew he'd killed enough men with that alone
and didn't plan on adding his name to the list.
It's the balance. You throw out the profanity, you know, the word fuck's in there.
Yet at the same time you've got a beautiful bit of metaphor of slippery as an oil, patient as winter.
It's like it goes from raw and hard to poetic and beautiful and back again.
It actually defies the needs. Often when I read something like Glen Cook,
Glen Cook, love him, dark fantasy writer, black company books.
But I often say that reading his battle scenes is like reading like two pages of poetry
and at the end you find out who won.
And then you compare that to say Bernard Cornwell.
You know, short sentences, stab, twist, move.
Oh, absolutely. When he says that, he just, he, it's because his characters are so often in first person.
It's like, it's really, really simple.
I mean, I was in the shield wall and he bashed against me and I shoved back and I stabbed at him.
And I stabbed him again and again and again.
And that's how he writes fight scenes. And it's so effective.
And then I'm going to go out to that other my long love.
You know, Conan says Conan, he's pantherous.
Well, you know, friendly as night panther, he's as slippery as an oil.
You get a very different feel for him.
And I actually feel like Abercrombie manages to take all those dynamics and beautifully kind of meld them together.
I agree. Totally agree.
I got really excited talking about that. Fucking sick.
Yeah. Shivers descent makes total sense.
It was a bummer that it happened, but when it was happening, I was like, I guess it just makes sense.
And I was really pleased by the end of it where like Mons makes this big decision and I'm like, I'm not going to continue the cycle.
And it amuses me the idea that that might even be passed down from, you know, the Bloody Nine.
And that might even be like a dark reflection of Shivers being let go.
And he's just this mad rabid dog being set forth upon the world.
It kind of makes Shivers almost seem pitiful.
Yeah, 100% he's pitiful.
He's the one who at the very start of the novel, he's trying to do better.
And yet all the other characters, and I'm going to be honest with you, Mons and the Bloody Nine on paper are a lot more horrific.
Like in terms of scale, a lot more people die.
Yet they're the ones that can cling to trying to do better.
Whereas Shivers, who in this world is a tiny player.
He's not a player, he's a pawn on that chessboard.
And that's quite complimentary probably.
And the fact that he can't kind of rise above it.
Well, that's what happens, you know, sometimes if you've got to be rich and powerful enough to be able to make those big decisions.
You know, Mons by the end of this book has the security of wealth and station and like political power.
That was never afforded to hardly any of the other characters of the series.
Not on the slightest and I think it really shows there's a scene in this book.
And Geordie, I really want to hear, while we're talking about Shivers, I want to bring this up.
Because we've read another book that had a torture scene.
And the night and day between that book and this one is quite incredible.
And also it relates to Shivers’ arc.
There's a scene in this book where Shivers and Mons are captured.
Shivers is tortured and he gets his eye taken out.
Geordie, do you remember when we read, what was it called, The Demon in Silver?
Oh, vaguely. Yeah, I remember it.
There's a torture scene in that and I hated it.
Because it had this horrible, like, I don't know what to describe it, like dominatrix style character.
Femme Fatale kind of comes into it in like leather and spikes.
And it's so over the top that it becomes just disconnected.
It always read like, gosh, what are you trying to do?
What are you wanting me to feel? This is not nice.
This book has a torture scene and it is beautifully done because it seems, again, I don't know.
Never been in a medieval torture chamber.
I don't plan to, really, really hope not ever.
But it seems so grounded because what it does, it has the torturers be so every day.
Yeah, they're like, oh, whatever. This is just like my job.
I don't really care about what I'm doing.
I might as well just be in a shovelling coal for all that matters to me.
And this isn't new for Joe Abercrombie.
He does have this sort of characterization of torturers in his other books.
It meant things hit me hard in here, not because that they were so uncaring,
but then actually the horrific things about Duntour characters were kind of so pointless.
Yeah, absolutely. That's the fatalism of torture.
We know with dramatic license that this is going to be an ineffectual scene
because we know that the torturers don't know who these people are.
They have the wrong end of a stick.
Monza deliberately lies to them to act as though they are guilty
because that's what you do when threatened with torture. You'll just say anything.
So we understand the fruitlessness of it. It's pointless.
And it's such a sad scene for Shivers because like I said, he's such a small character
and he says it's something where he's like, this should have happened to you addressing Monza.
It happens twice in that scene as he's about to be burned.
He says, don't do it to me, do it to her, which is very similar to 1984
in the torture scene in that.
And I felt so bad for him in that moment because, yeah, don't do it to him.
He's just, like, a hired body.
And that scene, you know, it's pitiful because both of these characters lose all of their stature
and all their grace. You know, Monza is this general who's led armies
and has like overcome tremendous victories.
And she, like Shivers, is rendered pitiful in this scene.
Like at the end of it, when she's freed, she just breaks down and she's sobbing
because you can't be this cool, collected character who in every other page of this book
is pretty badass.
It really makes the dread of that scene real that these characters can't keep it together.
It's this kind of humanising element where you just go,
so you peek behind the mask of all their facades in this scene.
And then because of that, then, I feel like going forward, it made me go,
no matter what Monza is saying, I felt the person behind Monza more
because we'd sort of seen it, the mask come off.
And you know that even as she's seen this being out, I was then kind of in the back of my head
more aware of the fact that, yeah, she's saying this, but she's probably feeling this.
You know, I was more in touch with the Monza behind it.
This scene gives us to know the characters more in a very tough way.
It is kind of more chilling because it's more grounded.
And it serves a plot point because, as we said, she is tortured in this scene.
He loses an eye in gruesome description.
And then that drives, through kind of no fault of his own, his further downfall in this book.
This scene is followed shortly after by one of my favourite scenes in this whole book.
And there's a lot of my favourite scenes in this whole book,
but I absolutely love the fight against Ganmark and his soldiers.
This is amazing. So Ganmark is one of the seven on Monza's list.
And they have a plan. They're going to draw him into the palace, drop the portcullis,
and it's going to be a small four on five on, you know, eleven fight. Even the odds.
I think it's seven versus twenty two. So even then it's not good odds.
This is the closest it came to like a boss fight, like in a video game.
This is how you do it.
This felt like just normal fantasy novel.
But we still get some really great character moments.
We get certain characters, you know, lash out in different ways.
You know, I like the fact that, like, Cosca, you know, he shows very quickly, you know,
he will stab someone in the back.
This scene with Cosca is so good.
Duncan, you're right, because every single character who's involved in this fight scene,
I mentioned how the characters, their perspectives are different,
but also like the way in which they think about fighting is different.
So in this scene, this is Shivers fighting post-torture, and we see this dramatic change.
You know, previously, like in particular, there's like this time we had a one on one duel,
and he was fighting someone he didn't kind of didn't want to fight, and he held back for ages.
And then later on, he swung at someone he missed, and he killed an innocent woman,
and he felt horrible about it throughout the rest of the chapter.
But he's had this radical transformation, where now he just is so full of hate and violence,
and he just wants to dish it out against the whole world.
And then you compare that to Cosca, who is almost having this, like,
Mr. Magoo slapstick Jackie Chan fight, where like he's blundering his way into victory,
and he's winning through trickery, but he's doing it like a really smart, collected way.
It's so entertaining.
It's, and it kind of, it's really interesting, because there's a point where I was actually a bit scared
because Cosca's having that fight, and particularly the way Ganmark dies.
I was like, oh, have you tipped your hat on Tone? Have we jumped the shark?
Did you have that same fear in this scene?
No, because it felt like I was being given a reward.
I had made it through all the dark misery, and then I got to a moment that could be so cliché
and found in almost any bog-standard, even down to like YA fantasy novel,
where Monza is outmatched, she's wounded, and then her mentor, you know,
her guiding mentor shows up to fight alongside her against the big boss.
And I just was like, oh, I deserve this. Yes, I deserve this nice sugary treat.
I completely agree with you, Geordie.
It's like Joab Konvict, he's managing you as a reader.
He's managing the audience. He's like, I'm going to go, when I go to the extreme dark,
I'm going to give you something a bit more playful afterwards.
It's still going to be action. It's still going to be for the plot.
You know, it's not like a side comic relief moment.
It's like, no, this is the scene, but I'm going to lighten the tone in the violence,
because you, the reader, need it.
I think that's called doming.
I didn't know it was a thing. Doming.
Ask your mum. Am I missing something?
Yes, you are missing something. I'm being very funny right now.
I'll go to you. I hope people listening are laughing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So I think following on from this particular,
like, section of the book is probably, like, the biggest twistiest,
turviest part. It was so twisty-turvy that I was convinced I was being
fucked with, like it was, like, a dream or something.
But Cosca in this fight ends up getting stabbed, like, through the belly,
and he lays dying, and he has this moment of, you know, sending Mons off,
and it feels like, you know, the death of the mentor, you know,
the very, very standard part of a fantasy journey.
And then, like, two parts later, he shows up again.
Cosca's return actually made me laugh out loud.
It was glorious. For a number of reasons.
Number one, because it didn't actually feel cheap, because his explanation,
I was like, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense.
So when Cosca gets stabbed through the stomach, we leave him with a sad,
sombre scene, the tone's there, you know, the clouds are coming over,
they have to leave him. He's like, leave me. Run. Be safe.
And then later, he comes back and he goes, oh yeah, well, I was in the
enemy uniform at the time, wasn't I?
That's... it's fantastic. Yeah, he was in the enemy uniform,
and that's such a clever, apt explanation. Like, yeah, yeah, that does make some sense.
Still a bit bullshit, but it makes some sense.
What I really want to know is, did Cosca, as he lay dying, had he already got that
out of the back of his head, he's like, no, if you bugger off now,
then they won't think I'm involved.
No, no, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I think he truly gave himself over.
And that's why he's so... I think what's so wonderful about his actions
later on in the story is that he has completely paid himself back
to Monza in every way. He owes her nothing.
You know, she betrayed him, and in return, he saved her life.
He gave his life for her. And so when they meet up again,
when he's like, well, I'm taking over the Thousand Swords,
you're not having it, it was mine to begin with,
you're like, holy shit, yeah, again, completely justified action.
But then later, when he's like, completely on her side again,
and he once again completely sidewinds me by changing sides of last minute,
I genuinely tip back my head and laughed when someone came storming up to him
and said, you've been paid so much for this by Duke Orso,
why are you fighting? And he says, well, because the other guy
paid me not to fight. It was amazing. I loved it so much.
There's so much extra context there of like, yes,
Cosca was the old leader of the mercenaries, Monza betrayed him.
I love that, the fact that Monza is a betrayer herself.
What a great thing to point to have in this story,
that she's not above the very actions that she's engaging against.
And to have Cosca come back, there's a great line from Cosca, by the way,
because Cosca, he takes physical revenge on all the people
that were part of betraying him, like Monza.
You know, every man that who betrayed him, he ends up killing,
but he doesn't kill Monza. And there's a fantastic line
where people like, why not her?
A man can forgive all manner of faults in beautiful women,
then ugly men he finds beyond sufferance.
And that's really something about this.
I love how understated it is, the fact that Cosca genuinely loves Monza.
And it's only right at the very end of the book that he lays out to her,
like, I love you because you're not actually evil.
You like us to think you are, but you actually care about,
you know, our soldiers. And I don't give a fuck about our soldiers.
The fact that you do, and you still do, even now, that's fantastic.
Because it's a sort of truth which you kind of already seen in Monza.
You know that she kind of has a conscience, even though she's been on this roaring rampage of revenge.
But again, and we keep coming back to this, it's the way in which
every character's action in this book feels justified.
Including, and this is fucking great, right to the end.
Duke Orso's like, I'm the main villain, I'm the bad guy,
and my actions were completely justified, because as we've been slowly peeling back through this book,
your brother, Benna, fucking sucked.
It is incredible. The entire point of this book is Monza says,
you betrayed me for no reason, just for your own like, vanity and fear of my success.
You threw me down a mountainside. And at the very end, it's revealed,
oh no, her twin brother was actually planning to stab him in the back.
Yeah, and all throughout the book, we've been given the breadcrumbs.
Like, to begin with, there's this wonderful moment, right at the start,
where you as a reader don't know that Benna is her brother,
because the way they talk to each other, they're clearly lovers.
And so when later, she's like, he killed my brother,
I even thought, is she lying to this character?
Because I've seen her perspective, so I know he's not her brother,
because they were flirting and stuff.
And then later, you confirm that it is her brother, and you go,
oh, well that's gross, but I'm already on her side,
so I guess I'm just going to keep going with this.
But it's at the parts in the story, because it's never explicitly said,
it's only implied by characters who know, and Shivers who doesn't know.
Doesn't know? So he just gets confused.
But as each different part of the story, like literal part one, part two, part three, part four, etc.
They go to different locations, they kill different people,
at the start of each section, we get more of the Murcatto family history.
We see their rise to power, and their descent, and in particular, Benna's descent,
who initially begins as much more the innocent.
Monza's the one who goes out and starts killing people initially,
she just drags her little brother along.
But in time, he's the fucked up backstabber, he's the one who's doing all sorts of shady shit.
The worst things that Monza is accused of.
The butcher of, what is it, Caprile?
The butcher of Caprile, the Serpent of Talin.
She's the Serpent of Talin, but she's not the Butcher of Caprile, that's her brother.
But she takes the blame upon herself, she lets it be a part of her legend.
And the betrayal which also feared came from Benna, not from her.
She's paid for the sins of her brother.
And this had a really good bail, because I don't think this is spelt out in text.
But then as I was reading it, I kept thinking, well, what is this relationship?
Is this a story that Monza started out and she was the killer,
and maybe she started projecting this image, and maybe Benna just didn't care enough to see through that,
maybe he got a bit drunk on the Kool-Aid of, yeah, we've got to be this merciless killers.
Was that always in him?
You know, in their relationship, was it actually evenly standard,
or was Benna, was he the master manipulator?
I don't know.
Yeah, and the information's conveyed in an interesting way,
because the fact that Benna is the piece of shit is never in Monza's perspective, ever.
She loves her brother, and obviously too much so.
Again, gross.
But it's other characters who say your brother was a piece of work,
your brother was the real snake of the family.
And it's laid out, it's such a surprise when people say that, you're like, whoa, really?
Like, I didn't get that impression at all. What's going on here?
It makes you think, it makes you start to look between the lines and what people say about the characters.
And even at the end, it's not like Monza has this realisation, she sort of does to an extent,
but even then when she realised it, by the end of the day, I think there's still an element of,
oh, why can you let it be, oh, you foolish one, oh, why, blah, blah, blah.
Not, oh dear God, he was an asshole the whole way.
No, I don't agree.
No, do you?
No, I think that in the final moment where she's confronted by Duke Orso,
and she lays it all out, she says to herself, I would have done the same thing in his shoes.
And I think in that moment, she just lays Benna to rest, like she puts him behind her.
And in the moment where she just stabs Duke Orso, I'll get onto one more thing about this in a moment,
I don't think it's, at that point, there is still revenge in it, yes, but it's mostly just out of like,
he has to get out of my way. I've done so much for, I can't let him live. It's impossible.
Even though I know that killing him is no longer justified, I just can't afford to let him live.
This ain't no longer justified, like he is still a tyrant who's attempting to take over the kingdom.
And then she becomes the tyrant in his place.
And the wheel keeps on spinning.
I will say one thing, I did think it was a teeny bit too much for Duke Orso to get stabbed and then go,
oh, was that it? I guess I was expecting something more, and then dying, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Don't you think you're cute, Joe Abercrombie, come on, you were doing so great up till now,
but that was just a teeny bit too much for me.
I think if it's not so Joe Abercrombie had to write, I think if it was more of in sort of the author's narration,
sort of, you know, and with a quiet sigh, his eyes closing, slinked to the floor,
like the same point would have been made.
I don't know, I mean, I don't think that quite gets what the author wanted across,
which was like, haha, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
I bet you were expecting something really dramatic at this point,
where it suddenly changed course or she'd forgive him or something.
But no, she just killed him.
I think, I just don't think there's a way to do that sort of like wink, wink, nudge, nudge,
without it feeling like a big wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Maybe some people really like that. I just personally didn't.
I think it lends into those moments where we do have a bit more playfulness and just tone.
Going back to the Ganmark fight talked about earlier and a really great scene,
which we haven't really spoken about, which at the time I was like,
this was like the climax to the book.
This is incredible scene is the brothel burning down and the chaos that pursuits.
Like that scene as well had this moment of almost, I'm not going to say sketchiness,
but slapstick maybe seems a bit unfair where the chaos almost gets a little bit more,
I'm going to say parts of the Caribbean-y rather than Game of Thrones-y in its throwdown.
Oh, you're saying OK.
I'm struggling to stretch my mind back.
Is it just because like its dramatic irony in a way that Cosca's like hiring a bunch of people
and you as a reader go, these people are not competent enough to do this job.
And then later they are not competent enough to do this job and they fuck everything up.
Yes, I think that is. It's that comedy of errors.
It's like everything is going wrong, but in this perfectly kind of like spelt out way you'd expect
because the people are clearly not competent to do the tasks they've been given
or the stupid things that the worst possible thing that could happen when Monza is in,
you know, she's waiting to assassinate the Prince Arlo.
I think his name was.
I quite liked that little twist because that was like, oh, man, what are you going to do at this point?
When the king of the foreign kingdom walks in, she's like, oh dear.
And we have that really nice, really quick moment with the foreign king.
Just like, yeah, I just kind of got dragged along here.
Don't get a lot home. How are you?
What do we do?
I liked that scene well enough because it's a great little twist.
You know the plan is going to go wrong in some way. How does it go wrong?
And it goes wrong in a way that is so spectacular, but in which you get to see the characters react to
in quite a clever, assured way.
It's kind of like what we were actually talking about in a recent episode
where we were talking about masterminds and about how it's more satisfying to see plans go wrong
and then they adapt to it.
And that exact thing happens here.
Monza is a clever character who comes up with good plans most of the time.
And normally they work, but like this one starts to go wrong.
But you watch her adapt to it and like manage to like stay the course just long enough to accomplish her mission
in the midst of everything being fucked up.
And really nice writing. I love that in this chapter we get really lots of very quick POV jumps.
So everything is being escalated with each character in turn.
And we'll flash away from a character and come back to them and there will just be more chaos.
And you're like, how can this go more wrong? And inevitably it does.
Really nice momentum in that scene.
We've spoken a lot about stuff we really, really liked in this book
because there's so much stuff to really enjoy in this book.
But I do have two things and I think now is an appropriate juncture to bring them up.
Which I do kind of have a bit of a problem with.
The first one is I'm going to bring this up because of the King of Union being mentioned.
Now this book has like pretty good politics in that it does have a really, really good sense that the world is wide and big.
And there's a lot of external forces at play that don't really have anything to do with our main characters.
And that feels real. It feels like tangible. You can reach out and touch it.
It's also really hard to keep track of.
Maybe this is just a problem because I'm Murtahging right now.
I'm jumping in at book four, not book one.
But I don't know what the fuck Union is or the Gurkha Empire.
And I really struggled to know where they were when they were talking about Talins and Osprey and Saprio maybe?
Caprio, Bolletta, Serpania?
Do you know what? Absolutely fair enough.
Because what this book does, at least my physical copy and presume yours,
is that it doesn't actually have one neatly uniform map at any point.
All you get is that on each, when it says like part three, you'll get sort of this behind the text as well, like a splattering of a map.
Yeah, that's like opaque and covered by text by Niccolo Machiavelli.
And you're like, well, thanks, but that's, do you know what, functionally doing nothing for me.
So much to the point that I did not notice that was there until you told me that, Duncan.
In terms of what I've been using for a map when I really needed to, I have been looking at the front and back cover because mine has this.
I don't know if you have the same version as me.
Mine has the sword that's covered in blood and stuff.
And there is a map on it, but it's covered by best served cold by Joe Abercrombie and like coins and swords and big blood splatters.
So it's not that helpful in terms of working out where the fuck stuff is.
No, I had the exact same copy and it was beautiful that the maps actually wrapped around the full all sides of the book.
Turn the book over and back.
It is something, no, I definitely noticed and I felt it quite a lot more because the other standalone, The Heroes, and I've already read that one does a really good job because that's like takes around a single battle.
And at each part, yeah, we'll say like part two, but then you'll get a two-page spread of the entire battle map with like actual this character's here, this character's here.
That's cool. That's on it.
And they're like, this is really helpful.
And I think this book could have the same thing.
Like, obviously, this one, maybe you wouldn't have to say, you know, the characters here.
But actually that maybe that would be nice at points to be like, yeah, these guys have moved here.
These guys are still here, so you know, relative distance as well.
For the most part, I'm mostly in the camp of you don't need a fancy map to enjoy a fantasy novel and fancy map is not always necessary to tell a good story.
And I'm fine with there not being a map.
I want to make that clear.
I'm just saying that I kind of did struggle a lot of points to remember the names of all these different cities and to know whether something was a country or a city.
I sort of worked out by myself.
And I guess that's to the strength of the book that like Styria is the continent and not in particular country.
But I wasn't certain about that to begin with.
And this also extends to political figures like there's a certain point where there's a parade and they throw tons of political figures at you.
And I'm like, oh, man, do I need to be taking notes right now?
Because I know some of these people are important and some of them do turn out to be important.
So I was kind of a bit flustered by that.
I think it's it does a nice job of not being too critical to the overall book.
One of my main things about maps we talked about this when we did Murtaugh is the idea of what I need to know is are you traveling a long way?
Is it a week away, a day away?
Like, what does it matter?
And this book does just enough in text where I go, OK, you've been traveling for a good couple of nights or there's enough distance between the two places that some stories going to happen in between.
I would somewhat disagree with that because that's completely ties to my next point, which is actually a strong suit, which for some reason it should be a strong suit.
But for some reason it isn't.
We mentioned before how this book is kind of episodic.
Like it's about individual instances.
Like it's like I mentioned, it's kind of like Dishonoured because it's missions.
We have a mission to assassinate this person and now we have a mission to assassinate this person.
And the kind of it just kind of at certain points just get teleported from location to location.
Sometimes you see him ride a horse.
Sometimes you see him on a boat.
But at the beginning of the book in particular, it's just OK, we're in this city.
We've done our mission.
And now we're in this city.
And I liked how abrupt and fast it was because like, yeah, let's just get on with it.
Let's just keep going.
But the weird thing is, Duncan, it took me a long time to read this book.
Like this book is really exciting and engaging.
And I've been talking for like an over an hour about how much I enjoyed it.
But I've been reading this since Christmas and I just finished it.
And it's the middle of February.
I mean, I have to agree.
This took me a weirdly long time to finish, too.
I think it probably for the same reason is the fact that each part is actually so nicely episodic
and has such a nice, like genuine climax.
Like that brothel scene, I was like, this could be the climax of a book.
Like, this is brilliant.
That I end up being like, cool, finished.
I'll pick up again in two to three days.
I think I've told this on a podcast before, but it's just like when I was reading,
previously mentioned this episode, the third Expanse book, Abaddon's Gate.
And there was some point where I finished a chapter and I literally what leant back in my chair,
wiped my brow and went, man, the climax of this book is way more intense than a previous one.
And when I stopped the audiobook and I realized I was a third of the way in.
It's almost a weird back of his complaint.
It's like, yeah, it's just so bad.
Like every chapter feels like the climax of a novel.
Oh, can't handle it.
Yeah, that's my other complaint, except for the one I just remembered.
And the reason I just remembered it is that it feels so distant from the rest of the book.
Duncan, who the fuck is Shenkt?
Yeah, so in this extremely grounded book where none of the characters believe in magic,
so much so you could almost argue it's not even a fantasy novel,
it just happens to be a historical fiction novel set in a country which doesn't exist.
There's just a Superman walking around punching holes in people's heads.
Now, this is something I, this is the character that made me get nervous and go, oh, dear God,
is this going to throw Geordie off?
So Shenkt is this superpowered being who gets hired by Orzo to hunt Monza for the majority of the novel.
Now, at one point, he takes a woman's leg to eat later.
Yeah, that was weird.
And he can punch his way through shields and all his fight scenes are,
Shenkt gives them an opportunity to surrender and then inserts his pinky into the base of their spine
and throw them in the air.
So is he a vampire?
Shenkt? Okay, so I'm going to ask you, Geordie, what?
He's called a Flesh-Hee to at one point, I think.
Yeah, so what's the idea that you have with Shenkt?
And then I will give you a bit of the lore background.
So in one part of the book, Morveer, who's a great believer in science, he's a Poisoner,
has an argument with Shivers where Shivers believes in magic and he says he's seen magic.
And they say, oh, well, this guy's a backwards barbarian.
You know, he's a superstitious idiot.
But my understanding is that magic absolutely exists in this world.
It's just subtle and people are developing enough that they kind of don't really believe in it.
But it's very real and very out there.
And I guess Shenkt and Ishri, another character, you know, they are extremely rare wizards.
And you just so happen to get access to this magical Superman magic if you eat human flesh.
I mean, in short, yeah, you've absolutely nailed it.
That is what it is.
So they're called Eaters in general by sort of the, I don't know if they're actually fed in the universe,
but that's the phantom you get them.
And yeah, if you consume human flesh, if you become a cannibal, you break the First Law.
“Don't be a cannibal.”
And you get some superpowers in the turn, you get some trade-offs, which are kind of subtle,
exactly what they're meant to be.
I don't really know at this point, having read the five books in the series.
And what sort of use of these characters is that they are shown to be the ultimate agents of the ultimate powers that sit behind the world.
I'm going to give you some subtle stories.
But one of the really cool things that we get in the first trilogy that we see here is that in the first trilogy,
it's very much established that these are the evil beings.
They're cannibals.
They're the ultimate villains.
They're like the ringwraiths that our characters are going to go up against.
And what's the one thing that really gets revealed is the fact that actually, actually everyone's using them.
You know, the air quotes heroes, they have a couple of these guys because they're just so powerful, why wouldn't you?
And Shenkt's is a great example. And we don't really get this in the first trilogy of actually, yeah, there's some freelancers out there as well.
It's not it's not like they're just exclusive to the dark side.
They are just, you know, you don't have to be evil, air quotes again, to be a cannibal superhuman.
You can have your own agenda. So can anyone do this?
Can you just pick up someone's leg and eat it and gain superpowers?
No, it's inferred and I don't know, it's kept a bit behind some mystique.
I think I believe the idea is you are made this and then you have to eat people to sort of sustain it.
But I'm not going to lie, it's both my mind's a bit wobbly in the midst of time and it's kept quite vague as well in text.
OK, maybe we'll find out in Red Country.
Oh, if we read it, Geordie, I mean, oh, wait, no, you get to pick.
I do get to pick.
So it's kept and I think, yeah, that was one of the things I was most worried about because they do come very out left field.
And to be honest, they're quite left field in the first books.
Like I said, magic is kept to this very backward step.
It's definitely there, but it's not something that the average person is ever going to have any contact with.
But then some of the man eaters, there's another kind of world building element that's in the first trilogy.
And it's in this book. I really want to get your kind of fresh perspective on it.
Geordie, what do you think about the balance between the Gorkish Empire?
I believe it's pronounced and the Bank of Valint & Balk.
Yeah, I noticed part way through the book, you know, a certain point you're like, OK, so it's come to understand that this is the actual power struggle that's going on.
Like also doesn't matter. He's just an instrument of Valint & Balk.
But it barely seems to matter because like Monza doesn't actually care about Valint & Balk.
Not really. It's just this nebulous power.
My interpretation of it that this was a sort of like very cynical.
You know, the forces of capital itself is really what's fighting here.
It's about the two sources of gold in the world like need to actually vibe the domination.
So, you know, it's like oil companies like being the real reason for like the war in the Middle East, for example.
Beyond that, I guess I didn't really think about it that much until the absolute very end when I found out that they were employing super soldiers.
But by then I was so like I was so wrapped up in the story that I was like, OK, fuck.
So there's just a lot more going on. But, yeah, it sort of felt almost too big.
It was like, yeah, this is going on beyond the scope of what these characters can even conceive of because it's so big, because, yeah, mega corporations.
I think you've hit the nail so beautifully and squarely on the head there.
That is sort of where the institutes lie. And in the first series, it's the same thing.
And you can read it to the real world. You know, you've got the forces of the capitalist society
versus obviously the Gorkish Empire. They follow a particular profit.
So that could you see the face of the fact that they both are the two providing the gold coinage is actually a really nice way to look at it.
And I really think it's like it's there, but it is it's in the far background.
And I'm glad to hear that not knowing a bit more about the fluff around it doesn't diminish anything.
And I actually think it lends into that ultimate message of what Cosca is all about.
He's like, this is a chaotic, violent world.
The forces at play are so utterly beyond the individual level and the individual's motivations of revenge and loyalty that it just doesn't matter.
Yeah. At the end of the book, after she's achieved her mission, emissaries from both the Gorkish Empire and Valint & Balk both show up to say,
listen, we don't care about your roaring rampage revenge.
I'm sorry, it's all very awesome to make a great book. Are you going to be on our side? That's really what matters to us.
At the end of the day, we literally don't even care that in one of such a great scene of a book,
you're set up to think that Morveer has found the perfect way to poison one person by noticing that he has a habit of licking his finger
and touching the corner of a book to turn the page.
And then you discover that he has poisoned the books in all the books in the bank.
So dozens and dozens of people are poisoned. It's such a great bait and switch.
Anyway, that awesome scene, we don't care about that. You can murder as many of our people as you like as long as you're on our side.
I love the fact that even at the end, we've basically mentioned Morveer again, and he is barely talked about him.
He was such an awesome character in this book, and his apprentice has not even been name dropped.
That's a tragedy, really, because Day is fun and their confrontation is really fantastic.
And again, the way characters think about each other, the way in which Morveer, his only soft spot is for Day.
She's the only person he likes. And then when she dies, he's on one hand, he's immediately, oh, what have I done? I feel so sad.
And then he's confronted by the grim reality of her death when her relaxing body urinates itself and he's disgusted by her and he kicks her corpse.
And then he feels bad about it again. And then later down the line, he's undone by the fact that he is not as smart as you think he is because his assistant isn't there to help him anymore.
And she was really the person propelling him to be so excellent in the first place. It's fantastic. God Almighty, it's fantastic.
Just so many, every single character, I think is an absolute knock out the park.
I said the only one that I think runs a little short is the group's torturer who doesn't do a lot of torture. I've forgotten their name now.
Vittier? Viserine. Is Viserine married to Shenkt? Yes. What the fuck? That was so weird.
That was so out of nowhere. What the hell was going on? I've read four other books in this series that also came out of nowhere for me.
And I was like, what a mad way to do this reveal. Yeah, that was crazy. That was crazy.
It kind of goes to show. And I think that element, although it seems to come out of nowhere for the novel, I think it works because it doesn't have that much impact on the plot.
What it works really well at is then giving you a lovely impression that there is a wider world going outside Monza's quest for revenge.
The world, this, it gives you a brilliant feeling that this world was not created so Monza could have her revenge quest story.
This is a fully functioning world and we just so happen to be following Monza in this book.
I still think it's a little too far, but yes, by and large, I agree.
I agree that, you know, it goes to show that the world is big and wide and overflowing with unfolding stories like the heroes in Red Country.
Because Duncan, now is the time and a part of the podcast where we decide what we're going to read next.
We had a terrific time reading this book and honestly talking about it has made me so excited and so jubilant and the thing that's come across in the way I've talked about it.
I've actually knocked it up my list in terms of like the book novels she's talked about because I just have nothing but good things to say about it.
I've mentioned that the two things I didn't like and they're kind of like minor points.
So if I ask you the question to close out this podcast, do you recommend this book and who to? How do you reckon you approach that?
I would recommend this book to all fans of fantasy who have a strong stomach.
I think the comparisons to say George R. R. Mon are appropriate in that it's of a similar, you know, R18 rating to his stuff.
There is violence. There's also like, it's weird that like this book does contain like sexual violence and references sexual violence.
But actually for how dark and bloody it is, it's much more tasteful than the way George R. R. Martin does it.
So kudos to Joe Abercrombie.
I quite agree. I quite agree. It never revels in it.
You know, it's more where the violence it definitely revels in it and has fun with it.
So it's just shown us that this is part of the world, but we're not going to dwell here for too much.
Oh, actually, I got to say one more thing.
I'm not going to say anything like the scenes are unnecessary because I think they are necessary for the telling of the story.
But Joe Abercrombie's way of writing sex scenes is the least sexy thing I've ever read.
They were horrible, uncomfortable to read, even worse than the torture scene.
Yes, there's a... the best way I can describe this, and he actually does this in the second book, Before They Are Hanged.
His sex scenes reads like the experience of… imagine you're in, like, a student uni halls and you're hearing someone else have sex on the other side of the wall.
That's how they made me feel.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Even like your attractive housemate who you'd love to ask out, just like your stranger who you've seen, you know, wash their dishes a couple of times.
You're listening to them have sex.
Again, it's almost in the mundanity.
It kind of adds an element of like, arch-realism, I could argue.
And I don't think he's trying to make it sound sexy.
I'm on that make-up. It's not like he's fainting to do something.
I agree.
He's making an intentional choice.
It's deeply unpleasant and it's worth mentioning since we're talking about knocks against a book.
And also we're comparing to George Armand, who also writes very unappealing sex scenes.
I wanted to ask you a question about who you think does write appealing ones, but actually I don't want the answer.
So let's...
There's lots of smutty, smutty sex scenes out there.
We haven't even gone to Jennifer L. Armentrout.
I'm sure we will one day.
But would it be today?
I'm sure we shall.
Geordie, I recommend this book to everyone.
I even recommend this book to people who haven't read the first trilogy.
Now, I know that's not the most popular opinion.
I think what I would say to lots of people, and I hope you have supported this and held up with good evidence,
you can read Best Served Cold first.
And I think if you're the type of person who gets maybe a little bit worrisome about like, diving into a whole trilogy or a big series,
and like you'd rather have a standalone, then go for this book first.
Absolutely fine.
If you feel like you know that you're going to be in for the long haul, then I would probably say start with The Blade Itself.
But I would say The Blade Itself, in my opinion, is nowhere near as good a book as Best Served Cold.
So it's this kind of trade-off of like, read a weaker book, but if you know you're going to keep reading, and you're the type of person who would, sure.
But if you're worried that you might be put off, or if you start being The Blade Itself and you're like, oh, I don't know about this, please go and pick up Best Served Cold.
There are people out there like that.
So often on, again, I can't believe I'm mentioning it so much, R/Fantasy, the big fantasy subreddit.
People are like, yeah, I didn't really enjoy the book up till book four, but it got good after that.
I'm like, what the fuck? How do you have so much time on your hands? Why are you reading so many books you don't like?
It's like, yeah, you know, the first, you know, Stormfront fucking sucks.
But when you get to book five of the Dresden Files, then it really picks up.
This is something that I've had, and it's true for all media, when people seem to expect that I need to put in so much work to enjoy something.
I'm like, guys, I do work at work.
Like, if a TV show doesn't get good till season four, then if I can't jump in at season four, I'm not watching it.
I like this is the hard part of being a Star Trek fan, Duncan and a Bojack Horseman fan.
Because you're like, listen, season two is really, really great.
And it just gets better every single season.
But season one, there's some rough bits, rough, rough bits.
All I can say is, at least with Next Generation, you can start watching in season five and it doesn't matter one iota.
Duncan. It's time.
It's time for the big decision. We've talked about our recommendations for it.
We've talked about whether you should read it or not. We talked about whether you should read the previous trilogy or not.
I'm still interested to know whether you should read The Heroes first or later, but perhaps we'll discover that another time on our podcast.
Because now it's my turn, Duncan.
There is a sequel to this book, and I am very eager to read The Heroes.
But not next time.
I do really want to read The Heroes because I've wanted to read it since you first just told me the gimmick behind that book.
I asked for these books for Christmas so I could read The Heroes and I didn't realize that it was a sequel.
I thought it was a standalone.
So I was like, oh, well, I got to read this first.
But the next episode is, by my reckoning, the 50th fantasy novel we will have read for the podcast.
It is not our 50th episode.
We've done much more than that.
And it's not even our 50th book because one, we lost a book in our like third episode.
And two, the one we did last time turned out not to be a fantasy story.
So I refuse to include it in the list.
But by my reckoning, we've done 50 fantasy novels at this point.
Well, 49, but next time we'll be 50.
You're thinking something big?
You're thinking something glorious?
You're thinking something iconic?
It's definitely iconic.
And it's filling in an important gap in my fantasy repertoire.
I genuinely don't know what this is going to be, people.
Actually, do you know what this pause is now? I'm like, right, come on.
Just tell me.
All right.
I will come on.
The book we will be reading next time, at long last in my case, is The Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb.
Yeah, no, since season one, I've been saying I should read this.
It's season three.
It's time to jump in.
And I'm going to read it.
I've never read the Farseer trilogy.
The only experience of it I have is that once I played a game of Dungeons and Dragons where one of my other players very nakedly was playing Fitzchivalry Farseer.
So all I know about that character comes from another person at my D&D table trying very hard to be Fitzchivalry Farseer.
The only thing that annoys me is that I gave my copy of that book away to charity several years ago.
And also, I genuinely, for some reason, Geordie, before you said that, I thought you were going to say Name of the Wind.
I don't know why. That was for... I had a guess. That's where I was going to go.
That would have been totally legit.
That would also have been a gap.
But I feel this one is a slightly more significant gap to the history of fantasy.
And that's what this podcast is all about, after all.
Absolutely. And it will be an absolute pleasure for me to revisit this book and to hear your thoughts about it for the first time.
Well, I'm certainly looking forward to it.
The one thing I'm not looking forward to is the fact that this book on Spotify is 17 hours long, and Spotify gives you 15 hours of a book for free per month.
So which means I could listen to this book for free if it was just two hours shorter.
Can you, like, just crank up your speed? Does that count?
I don't know. Surely that can't work. That's insane if it's true. It can't work like that.
I want you to go and give it a go. I will probably go and dig out...
I don't want to listen to a book at, like, the wrong speed to listen to it at.
And I strongly believe there is a wrong speed to listen to books.
Well...
But I guess we'll find out.
I will tell you now.
Also, Duncan, if I have to pay, pay money to listen to the last two hours of a book, I will be steamed.
I can't wait to find out how you're going to end up reading this book, Geordie.
I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it. But I also really want to hear, firstly, the thoughts of people listening to this episode.
If you've enjoyed this episode of the It's Just Fantasy podcast, please give us a like.
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And while you're at it, why not pop over to our Instagram, Is This Just Fantasy Podcasts, where you can follow us there.
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Including a little snapshot of my last holiday, where I was reading, reading this very book.
Reading Best Served Cold, In the Cold.
In the cold, up a mountain.
I'll probably get some holiday snaps as well. I'm off on holiday soon. Looking forward to it.
And now I know what book I'm taking with me.
If you can find it in time.
All right, Geordie. It's been an absolute pleasure.
I've been your host, Geordie Bailey.
I've been your host, Duncan Nicoll. Till next time.
Bye bye.
Bye.