Acquired Tastes: The Last Argument of Kings

My, my. Joe Abercrombie has done it again. Just when I thought that my post-summer reading list could not have been more enjoyable, once again, my patience with one of my favorite genres has paid off. The concluding book of The First Law trilogy could not have been more exhilaratingly, subversively, compulsively delightful. A tired old genre, populated either by the doddering remnants of formerly great writers, or sadly bereft of truly inspired creators, is suddenly fresh again. Last year, I wrote on this blog:

Pick it up. The darkly comic was never this...comic. Imagine Ricky Gervais doing Lord of the Rings and you just might have Before They Are Hanged.

But, to Abercrombie's credit, instead of coasting on his ability to craft absurdly funny situations dripping with dark wit (a rare enough talent as it is), he chose to pierce the veil of the wickedly funny to reveal the sad, interminable cost of war at the very heart of it. It is the fitful, beating heart of the survivor that raises this precious little trilogy from the entertaining diversion it was into the intelligent, and bravely humorous meditation on the men and women ruined by heroism that it grows up to be.


Photo Credits:

Picture of The Last Argument of Kings comes courtesy of Amazon UK.