Last Argument of Kings

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1. 

   Colin P. Lindsey @ 7:11 pm

   Alright, I’ll confess: I loved this trilogy and I enjoyed the third installment every bit as much as the first two. This is an unconvential fantasy epic that stands typical fantasy stereotypes on their heads and I had a blast reading it and would unhesitatingly recommend the entire series. This is fantasy with dirt under the fingernails and pus festering under ragged scabs though. Sure, you have your traditional cast of characters…barbarian warrior, old wizard, handsome young captain, and a fearless warrioress, etc. but Abercrombie takes these archetypal characters and gives them deep character flaws, dodgy pasts, and poor attitudes. They must face hard circumstances in a complicated and morally ambiguous world. His books are complex and extremely well-plotted, the characterization superb, the dialogue excellent, and the writing is involving and keeps you riveted to your seat. Even though this finale ran over 600 pages I managed to bang it out in a day, partially because it is so deliciously readable but equally because I simply couldn’t put it down until I finished it.

   The Last Argument of Kings is a grand finale too. Abercrombie satisfactorily ties up most all of the major plot points but there is enough ambiguity at the end that additional books would not necessarily be precluded. Personally, I would have preferred a tighter, less ambiguous ending but I wouldn’t be surprised if elements of the ending weren’t driven by the editor/publisher. I’ll forgive Abercrombie for it and, I confess!, I still loved the book and think it is a wonderful five star read.

   I’d hazard a guess though that there will be some readers who may not like how this series ended…because it isn’t necessarily pretty and it certainly isn’t a fairy tale ending. Unlike those tidier fantasy stories, Abercrombie doesn’t forget that battlefield corpses don’t just magically disappear and besieged cities aren’t magically made whole at the end of the day. His is a dirty, gritty world every bit as nasty as medieval Europe and the story and the endings reflect this adherence to realism. As Logen Nine-Fingers often says, you have to be realistic. Abercrombie definitely is realistic and the story reflects it. Wounds come at the price of disfigurement and death, people will do awful things to accomplish their goals, and people aren’t charitably motivated. The weak get squashed, soldiers get maimed, the powerful do horrendous evil to hang onto their power and the more things change, the more they stay the same. You have to be realistic about these things dear reader, and that realism is what sets this trilogy apart and makes it such a great read.

   The first two novels present enough character development that a reader could hope that the books would end on a high note in a Tolkienesque fashion, but they also provided plenty of clues that there could be a grim ending indeed. I won’t give away any of the plot and ruin your enjoyment, but I will say that this book did not disappoint me, was just as compelling a read as the first two, and the story gets the ending that fits it even if it may not be exactly what most readers expect. It is the ending the story deserves though.
   

   
2. 

   N. C. Smith @ 9:46 pm

   It was with much excitement that I opened the box that months ago I had pre-ordered and had rapid-shipped from the UK.

   As with the first two books, Last Argument of Kings has superb cover-art. It’s a very dashing trilogy displayed on your bookshelf appropriately.

   But to the story:

   In the first two installments, in particular the first, action took a back seat to characterization. You can check out my critiques of both those books if you like. Some of the most interesting and original-yet-archetypical characters in fantasy were made flesh and earned high-praise for me for that feat.

   In Last Argument of Kings, action definitively steps to the fore. All of the plot-lines that were set up like dominoes in the first two books are tipped, and before you know it you’re swept up in a tide of the little black bricks like Mel Brooks’ entrance in the computer-animated ‘Robots’. From climax to climax, Mr. Abercrombie charges you through exciting conclusions to every plot and sub-plot introduced before-hand.

   This is a difficult review to write because, even more than usual, I would be loathe to give away even the slightst hint of what happens, but most of those characters from the first books that you felt needed some comeuppance get it in this book. But Joe Abercrombie isn’t sentimental, and by the end of this book it will be plain that some of those that got a comeuppance didn’t deserve it as much as others or as much as you might have thought they did, and those that deserved good certainly don’t get it, and many of those that you used to want good things for you’ll find you no longer do.

   The character Sand Dan Glokta has a saying not quite as ubiquitous as Logen’s “You have to be Practical”, but far more descriptive of Last Argument of Kings: “Nobody gets what they deserve.”

   In a manner of speaking, no character gets justice in this book. None of the character arcs end in a way that conventional fantasy norms indicate they should but are nevertheless ended with integrity. In a way, this is a masterful feat. I took JK Rowlings unsentimental killing of characters like the owl Hedwig or the house-elf Dobby for ungraceful, gratuitous acts included in the story simply to showcase her unsentimentality. I perceived none of that artless hackery here. The story concludes as it should, consistent with the world Joe Abercrombie established in the first book.

   True – not everything is perfectly graceful. Some of the surprises that are inevitable in any tale – characters thought gone turning up in new guises, etc. – seemed a little forced, but these are small concerns. As a work of art, Mr. Abercrombie stayed true to his original vision.

   Ironically, this is as much a source of dissatisfaction for me as a reader as a source of admiration for Mr. Abercrombie as a writer. These are great books. This is great writing. These are amazingly whole characters. What a flipping depressing way to end a great tale though – I get enough dissatisfaction about how things turn out by reading the news. It’s not that everything ends badly for every character, but I would have loved to end the tale with a swelling of joyous emotion for just one of these perfectly crafted characters receiving a truly wondrous reward for all of the sacrifice they endured through the three books.

   No such luck. Joe’s broader message is really that all the struggles we endure, as the struggles of characters like Dogman, Colonel West, Sand Dan Glokta, or Jezal dan Luthar, mean essentially nothing at the end of the day, at the end of the struggle, at the end of their lives. We endure the futile struggle and are not rewarded.

   Joe chose to not be kind to his characters. As the god that divines their fate, he implies our own fates are as forsaken. So depressing. I could hope he’d write a spinoff of one of the surviving characters that ends in showers of good fortune, but by then that would seem a cheap device. The moment has passed to lift the reader’s heart with inspiration, or to at least lift one of these characters out of the mud and gore of a miserable world.

   I think this series is a work of literary art – all too rare in my favorite genre. But like watching a great but basically bleak cinematic drama, I only watch it once. Or like driving through South Dakota in the wintertime – I recognize the majesty of all that flat land, but am eager to be done with it. My ultimate position is that I think Mr. Abercrombie got carried away with his own cynicism and left on the table what might have been a great opportunity to inspire and uplift – and ultimately what might have been an unforgettable tale is instead one merely superbly crafted.

   
3. 

   G. Deych @ 11:15 pm

   What can I say – Joe Abercrombie is a good author, who wrote a very well plotted, well characterized trilogy of low fantasy. Yet readers like me, who enjoy characters who we can cheer for, will not find this book a treat. By the end of the third book, nearly all of the major characters are revealed in turn as cowards, amoral tyrants , psychopathic murderers or self-loathing monsters. A phrase “banality of evil” came to mind many a time as I was finishing the third volume. As I read on, I found less and less to enjoy in spectacle of characters with some pretensions to goodness or morality being ground down and destroyed in turn, so much so that the last 50 pages I ended up mostly scanning. All in all, I find that the third book has spoiled whatever enjoyment I had from the other two.

   
4. 

   MSB @ 1:56 am

   When you come away from a book feeling disappointed in pretty much every character – minor and major alike, and outright wishing death upon several of them, it’s hard not to feel disappointed in the book itself.

   It left me wondering whether good writing was enough, or if something actually has to happen in the story itself. Ultimately, nothing changed for any of the characters. If you want to know what they are like at the end of book 3, look no further than the first half of book 1. We’re left with the same characters doing the same things, just to different people.

   The perverse cynicism is so unrealistic and forced that I felt a near-overwhelming compulsion to fly to the U.K., have beautiful women drag Mr. Abercrombie to a pretty garden with singing birds and bright sunlight, and force him to take antidepressants until he breaks down under the torture and lets himself smile for a moment.

   **** Spoilers ****

   Glokta’s ending was probably the best of the bunch, but still disappointing. He ends up in the same profession, doing things that he hates for a master that he hates for reasons that he hates, and gets to babysit someone he hates for added… err, hate.

   Ferro becomes an extra superhuman woman bent on vengeance. That’s different because she started out as just a superhuman (notice the missing ‘extra’) woman bent on vengeance.

   Logen kills one too many of his own friends, flip-flops between being sure he can be good and sure he can’t, and really doesn’t do much more than spectate. Even in his big fight, West and friends win the battle for him. He’s just a leaf swept along by the wind, and I can look out my window to see that. The character didn’t even contribute many hilarious observations like in past books.

   Jezal. Bah, where to start? The “noble with redeemable value” turns out to have none.

   Bayaz ends up being every bit the bastard I suspected he was. Every “villain” in the series has the moral high ground over Bayaz, and this is the guy who ends up getting everything he wants.

   If there is a message or theme to this series, it’s this: only bastards accomplish anything, no one can better themselves, you only hurt yourself when you do good things, and everything you love is a lie.

   Take Glokta and his relationship with his Practicals. He was good to them, every one. There seemed to be mutual respect and affection. So, of course, Frost betrays him for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Severard, who had plenty of money to buy a home, somehow gets himself in debt while he’s at sea (how is that even possible?) and decides that the best course of action is to betray his greatest and steadiest source of cash. Vitari just glares at everyone a few times and leaves. Joy?

   West is another example. Possibly the only character who changed at all in the series. He rescues a woman from a lifetime of cruelty, forced labor, and later from rape, and is rewarded with her choosing another man and then promptly dying. He finds his courage, leads armies, and ends up having an entire building fall on him. Abercrombie goes so far as to tease us with the possibility that West might *only* end up with serious, life-altering injuries and psychological trauma. For an entire page or so, it is suggested that he might mend his relationship with his sister and start a romance with a pretty girl, but HA… don’t be silly, he ends up suffering an agonizing death as his entire body literally falls apart.

   Good lord, enough is enough. The cynicism is outright forced on readers from every single direction the author can think of, whether it makes sense or not.

   I understand the concept of questionable pasts, character flaws, all that. But I think you need to look towards Jaime and Tyrion from the Song of Ice and Fire series to see how it should be done. Those two can both be ruthless, conniving bastards, and have serious character flaws, but there’s still *something* there which lets you understand and/or cheer for them. And they change. For both better and worse, they change.

   Ultimately, memorable characters or not, nothing happened in this series. Glokta is still doing terrible things he has no interest in doing for masters who don’t tell him why. Jezal is still a naive coward. Ferro is still all about vengeance. Logen is still the Bloody Nine. And in case the author doesn’t make it painfully clear, you can’t change either.

   
5. 

   Mark Pawlyszyn @ 2:39 am

   This is not a happy book. The first two had their dark moments, but they also had their moments that made me chuckle. The first two had more hope. The first two, though occasionally violent, were tinged with excitement, while this one tends more towards a harsher reality and bleakness. It is, in fact, almost unpleasant, like being invited to dinner and then sitting through an evening while your hosts spitefully snipe at each other and talk of divorce.

   However, even with all of that, it is still a very well-written book. It will appeal to lovers of gritty fantasy and fans of sagas such as A Song Of Ice And Fire. Indeed, Joe’s writing in no way suffers for the comparison; it is as good as GRRM’s at his best. At least in my opinion.

   A quick point to those who like to know these things: the first few chapters feature two sex scenes of a fairly graphic nature. There’s another one towards the very end of the book as well. Again, these are more along the lines of what GRRM might write than what you would find from a more romantically-inclined author.

   There is a lot of grimness to this story, but much of it is quite realistic. In fact, the machinations of power and politics illustrated in these pages certainly reflect my understanding of the way our world works, and some aspects of the plot remind me of world events of the last decade. But don’t think that it is a bare-faced allegory; perhaps I’m reading more in to it than I should. It is definitely a very interesting and original tale in its own right.

   As I said though, there is a dark undercurrent in this book. It’s like the emails I write to friends when I’m feeling down; though I try not to bring them down there’s a distinct lack of positivity in what I write and there’s an air of frustrated despair. The book seems to get progressively more gloomy as it goes, because it starts with a fairly similar tone to the first couple of books. I wonder if Joe changed his outlook on life as this was written or whether he always had things planned this way. Some of the plot revelations towards the end of the book and some of the characters seemed to shift a bit from how I remember them from the previous books. I will have to go back through the first couple some time to see if there are actual discrepancies or whether they were consistent but I just saw them in a different light then.

   The ending is not very satisfying to me. Even taking into account the shift in tone, I still felt like it was a setup for another novel, rather than properly tying up the loose ends of the trilogy. I wouldn’t say it was a weak ending, necessarily, nor even one of those disorganised info dumps that finally reveal how the butler did it in the parlor with the candlestick. I’d just say that I had hoped for more, for an ending that would make me feel good. Maybe that’s what it lacked: feel-good moments. In fact, there isn’t just a dearth of feel-good moments; they have been ruthlessly expunged from existence.

   Not that the book is really dark, per se; it’s cynical. I can’t really say more than that without giving too much of the story away. And, besides, I’m beginning to repeat myself. There is still some hope and light, but just a very little. Not really enough to make me smile, but a more realistic measure considering the circumstances of the characters. A sort of governmental subsistence of hope, rather than a rich outpouring. Hope on welfare.

   I most enjoy books with positive vibes. This book undoubtedly fails to meet that measure and yet I can unreservedly recommend it. It is remarkably well written, mostly not predictable–and that is coming from someone who finds nearly all novels easily predictable–and honest in its depiction of how people act in real life.

   I give it four stars. After all, you have to be realistic.