Customer Reviews

The Heroes

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Heroes embodies everything I like about the fantasy genre right now.

I was an English major once upon a time, and used to read plenty of serious literature. But as I've grown older, I have less patience for that kind of fiction. Writers of genre fiction, and fantasy in particular, haven't forgotten that great books are ultimately about great storytelling. It's about putting interesting characters in tight spots and seeing what happens. Everything else is secondary.

And The Heroes is a bloody great story. It's tightly focused on a single battle over a three-day period. The action is well done, but it's mainly the very flawed characters making good and bad decisions in desperate situations that make the story so entertaining. Each chapter has a point-of-view character, and the tone and style change, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, as the story shifts between them. (The dialog and language of the northmen is just one example, and Abercrombie deliberately draws some humor out of this.) Each chapter reads like a well-honed short story, with a mini story arc for that particular character. I found each of the points of view interesting and entertaining -- there wasn't a single chapter where I found myself skimming to get to the next good bit, because every page is a pleasure.

There is a theme here (war sucks), but it's not heavy handed and adds some emotional depth to the story. I even had a tear in my eye at one point. But mostly the book struck me as honest, funny, touching, and vastly entertaining.

SOME VERY SMALL SPOILERS BELOW -

The book - Set in the world of the First Law Trilogy and Best Served Cold. Familiar faces return but have relatively small parts. The return cast includes: Calder, Scale, Black Dow, Shivers, Gorst, Bayaz, and a few others. Gorst it turns out, is one hell of a character. Trying to redeem himself after an incident in Styria involving the King, his blood-lust rivals that of some of my old favorite characters.

When I first read "The First Law Trilogy," I was completely blown away. This author has reinvented the Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre. Gone is the stereotypical "young sissy, in small town is attacked by unknown forces, distant uncle who raised him is killed, sissy inherits great magical powers/artifact/ability from said uncle, sissy becomes an ultra-mega bad ass at everything, raises army of do-gooders who don't ever die and eventually defeat the super duper evil army of trolls, orcs, and plum smugglers."

We all know the routine, and Mr. Abercrombie finally broke the tedious traditional fantasy outline. I'm not sure if he's the first to do this, but I hope he's not the last.

"The Heroes" is a great novel. Being set only over the course of three days is not as big an issue as some reviewers are making it out to be, as a lot of what has happened between novels is explained. Though I didn't care much for the outcome of the North, I still highly recommend this novel, even to those who have never read an Abercrombie Novel.

Of course reading the first four books that are set in this world will greatly improve your appreciation for this amazing story.

I know everyone will hate me for saying this but I do miss, with a fierce passion, Logen Ninefingers/The Bloody-Nine.

Joe Abercrombie now has a contractual obligation to produce four new books set in the First Law world. One book will be a stand-alone like this and BSC, while the other will be a trilogy. I can only hope that my favorite character makes an appearance in these upcoming novels.

The bottom line - Excellent book set in a amazing world that is populated by characters with depth.

There's no need to go into the premise of the book, which both other reviews and the solicitation material already describes. "The Heroes" follows Abercrombie's previous titles chronologically, so for any potential readers reading this, as no doubt other reviewers have stated, start with "The Blade Itself" and work your way here. You'll be glad you did, assuming you like what you read. In the event you don't like what you read, I imagine you'll be quite displeased. But like it or not, it's good stuff. And it's gotten better.

The essentials, for purpose of review and questions of potential readers:

- Abercrombie has made steady progress as a writer. His writing is more technically sound and is overall tighter. Words are worth more. His voice and the voices of his characters have become more sure. His ability to juggle multiple characters and an increasingly-numbered cast has likewise improved.

- "The Heroes" displays Abercrombie's improved ability to weave character arcs. While this has not been necessarily suspect, it was a slight problem in the initial trilogy, in which many, many characters came through as flat, and only a handful of characters had arcs and growth to speak of. This was less of a problem in "Best Served Cold," due to improvement as an author and his shift to a very tight cast of characters, and indeed, BSC had some brilliant character work and character arcs to show for. With "The Heroes," we find Abercrombie juggling a huge cast and keeping up with most all of them, whether major, mostly-minor, or minor-minor POV characters, and they all have character arcs, fleshed out from start to finish. While some of his peripheral characters remain flat characters, used to flavor a particular scene through previous mention of who they are, Abercrombie has raised some of them to three-dimensional status, with wants and small character arcs of their own, despite our never getting inside their heads. This is a vast improvement over "The First Law."

- Abercrombie is sticking with the same direction he's been going in. Previous readers will recognize why the situation is as it is. And previous readers will see as the story progresses certain similarities to how Abercrombie's previous stories have progressed. I don't intend that to mean him following the same gameplan of story construction, but rather the overarching happenings in the world. But no worries: Abercrombie is continuing the forward direction he started at the end of "The First Law" and continued with in "Best Served Cold." He continues to build and progress his world setting with this second stand-alone novel.

Of course, everyone's subjective thoughts will be different. Subjectively, I'm not sure I enjoy Abercrombie's return to using a first-person italicized thought-process for one of his major characters. While I felt it worked fine with Glokta in the trilogy (and don't currently remember if it was present in BSC), I didn't think it worked very well in this novel. But that is, again, a subjective, and therefore moot, point. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.

Overall, looking at the novel objectively per the points above, it's Abercrombie's best work to date. It's a unique read, with a fitting structure to it, and does its predecessors proud.

Give us another, Joe.

With the The Blade Itself (The First Law: Book One), the first novel in his First Law Trilogy, Joe Abercrombie emerged as a breath of fresh air in fantasy literature. No, that's not right. The truth is, Abercrombie emerged as a highly realistic shot of cold air, reeking of mud, blood and human waste. He's the darkest fantasy writer.

In the First Law Trilogy, there weren't many heroes, and to the extent there were, they didn't last long. As one protagonist repeatedly observed, "Nobody gets what they deserve." In the Trilogy, only the torturer had anything like a happy ending. Abercrombie isn't kind to his characters.

And so we come to The Heroes, the fifth novel set in the Circle of World, set 8-10 years after the events of the First Law Trilogy. Black Dow is the Leader of the Northmen, having stolen the kingship from the equally brutal Bloody Nine. There is a war between the Northmen and their former allies, the Union. Like all of the conflicts in the Circle of the World, there are other agendas, other would-be puppetmasters behind everything that is going on. In fact, The Heroes is about a great battle where neither side is particularly competent or aligned with the angels.

Of course, there are good reasons why in each case. There are cowards, traitors, manipulators and venal liars on both sides. The First of the Magi has no particular desire to see the Union be too strong. Or ruled by competent, honest men. And the Named Men of the North, while heroes every one, are not well-armed, well-led or particularly apt as soldiers.

Abercrombie is gifted at characterization. It's a strength that has improved with each novel. He writes from the shifting point of view of different characters (I think I counted fifteen), and the voice, motives, desires and feel of each character is very different. He writes equally strong, equally venal men and women. But Abercrombie is not as gifted at plot. The First Law trilogy was well-plotted, especially the first and third books. Best Served Cold was a much more pedestrian plot: a revenge novel.

And in The Heroes Abercrombie's plotting skills are weaker still. Partly, it's because he over-indulged in point-of-view characters. Too many viewpoints diffuse the force of such plot as there is. Indeed, some of them disappear from the story without explanation. Partly, the book feels forced, as if he didn't have time to refine it as much as he would have liked. And partly because it is very hard to generate a meaningful plot about what is a pretty meaningless battle. So what you are left with is a 500 page vignette on the folly and nihilism of war, brutally told.

I do give credit to Abercrombie for building, novel by novel, a credible, interesting world. There is a sense that the series of novels is building to a final confrontation. As you watch one irredeemably arrogant character after another go to a nasty, ugly death, you can't help but feel that something similar will happen to the most consistently arrogant, ugly character of them all: the First of the Magi.

But nobody gets what they deserve.

If you are thinking about buying this book because it is the daily deal - - stop thinking and click that button. Although there are some characters in this book that appear in the earlier books, this is a stand alone book and you will not need any prior knowledge of the other books to enjoy it. Abercrombie is a gritty writer along the lines of George R. R. Martin. This is a war book that focuses on one battle so if you do not like violence then this might not be for you. If you enjoyed the second Lord Of the Ring movie or the Game of Thrones series on HBO then you will probably enjoy this book. If fantasy and science fiction is not your normal read but you are looking for a great new writer, at 1.99 it is worth checking out because Abercrombie is not just a great fantasy writer but a great writer period. In fact calling these books "fantasy" is a little misleading since the main thinG that is fantasy about them is the fact that they are set in a different world and like another reviewer stated this book has more in common with Braveheart than Lord of the Rings or other fantasy books. Also, like GRR Martin, Abercrombie tells his story going back and forth between different point of view characters and those characters are never all good or all bad but instead are beautifully drawn full characters which is the writer's greatest strength. Great writer. Great book. GREAT DEAL!!

Abercrombie has carved out quite the niche for himself as a brutally bleak writer in a genre that is becoming increasingly bleak, and increasingly brutal. He does not steer from that niche with "The Heroes."

Following directly on the heels of "The First Law" trilogy and "Best Served Cold", Abercrombie once again pits the forces of the Union, led by the ruthless First of the Magi, Bayaz, against the anarchic forces of the North, led by the ruthless and unpredictable Black Dow, allied with a mysterious and powerful sorceress beholden to the Prophet.

What follows is more of what we've come to expect from Joe Abercrombie: the action is fast paced and brutal, the characters are entertaining and complex, and on the whole, it is an extremely fun read that grabs readers from the beginning and never lets go.

I do, however, have some concerns. Abercrombie seems to lack focus in this volume, which might have manifested as a lack of confidence in his main POV characters to carry the load of a single protracted battle. Though the inside flap seems to suggest that there are only three point-of-view characters, there are, in fact, at least ten recurring ones. The count is closer to seventeen with the addition of one-off POVs that dominate some of the longer battle scenes. While it's nice to get to know Spear Carrier Number 3, who has a brother back home and would really like to get back his tent to finish off that blood sausage, the inclusion of his motivations and desires in what amounts to a less than three page addition to the book doesn't really add up to much. Multiply that by seven, and you have almost the entire first day of battle, played out by less-than-minor characters whose impact is completely frivolous. While I must allow that the pointlessness of it all may have been the intent, it simply didn't resonate with me, and I felt that it watered down the other characters, and took away page time that could have been spent to better effect in other areas.

Furthermore, there is Abercrombie's insistence to paint a large swath of incompetence over characters who are not worthy enough to shoulder a point-of-view. The Union seems to be fairly crippled by it, despite the fact that the Union has been continuously at war for decades and has yet to be overthrown (Abercrombie enthusiasts, I don't doubt, will simply point at Bayaz as the main reason behind their survival). On top of the incompetence, Abercrombie consistently represents some of the tertiary characters as muppets; not a single line of dialogue is uttered with these characters without bombastic gesticulation. While it is certainly not as bad as it is in "The First Law", there are some otherwise complex and interesting characters that do fall into this trap in "The Heroes." Black Dow, for one. He's lost his menace and replaced it with cliched action-movie villainy.

The pace, while admirably fast for a weighty book containing a single battle, there are times where the fleetness of it simply gets in the way of good storytelling. This has something to do with the needlessly numerous POV characters, but has more to with a lack of patience for any one character's shoes. The longest continuous point-of-view section is at the very beginning of the book, and after that, no single POV section can be longer than five pages on the outside. I simply couldn't get immersed in a single section before I was booted out again.

Happily, The North got a bit more of a focus this go-round, with characters who shockingly have lives outside of constant battle. This is still under-represented, and I'm still not convinced that The North (whose denizens are Northmen and whose language is Northern) functions outside the page. What I mean is this: Abercrombie has not yet developed that gift for effortless detail that would elevate his world into something that is undeniably plausible. While his eye for the complexities, absurdities, and ironies of war (and of society as a whole) come across loud and clear, he still hasn't quite developed the nuts and bolts craftsmanship that he hinted at in "Best Served Cold." The North ain't Styria, folks, it has as much depth as your back yard.

On the whole, I would heartily recommend "The Heroes" to a fan of Joe Abercrombie. This book continues making strides toward what I have to imagine will be the climactic confrontation of Abercrombie's world, while at the same time introducing many more memorable characters and making baby steps toward logical plausibility.

Worth the purchase? Definitely. Worth the read? Absolutely. But if this is Joe Abercrombie's best effort yet, he's still a long sight from reigning king of sword and sorcery.

3/5

Warriors meet. Arrows fly. Swords slice. Axes chop. People die. That's just how it is. Sign of the times, I reckon.

The Heroes is a stand-alone book in Joe Abercrombie's First Law Series. You'll enjoy the book more if you've read the First Law Trilogy, but it is not necessary.
(But you should.)

Story:
This isn't your typical war story with good guys and bad guys. Instead, the story is told from the perspectives of the leaders and footmen on both sides of the battle. Both sides have their flaws as well as their strenghs.

Union Soldiers from the south march to the northern border to claim a strategic landmark called The Heroes. The Heroes are a circle of giant stone slabs standing at attention atop a steep hill. Barbaric mercenaries from the north occupy The Heroes and will fight to the death to defend them. The battle lasts three unpleasant days and nobody will ever be the same.

World:
Joe Abercrombie's world is gritty and realistic. The world is muddy. The weather is terrible. Magic is powerful, but scarce. Leadership is incompetent. Battles are vicious. Men are very, very flawed. This book focuses on the border between the northern highlanders and the southern union. The lands in the north are unforgiving and the men are hardened by the constant struggle to survive. The climate in the south is much more moderate, allowing a civilization with abundant resources to thrive. The Union troops are equipped with superior armor and advanced military tactics, while the Northmen are tough, blood thirsty, and bold. However, both sides are full of incompetents, cowards, traitors, lunatics, and heroes.

Characters:
There are a lot of characters in this book. Keeping track of them all is a challenge. Luckily, there is a character list with descriptions at the front of the book. You can refer back to this if you ever get confused. The first 90 pages are dedicated to character development. They're all gritty and a bit psychotic, but very human at the same time. These definitely aren't the heroes from fairy tales. Nobody is valiant or honorable. They're just people trying desperately to survive in a bad situation.

Writing Style:
Joe Abercrombie sets the scene and the mood with short declarative sentences and 'to the point' dialogue. You get a good sense of the character's motivations and you start liking them... all of them are likeable in some way... or dislikeable in other ways. You really start to feel like you know them. The battles are the most gritty, chaotic, and exciting that you'll ever read. If I had to compare them to a film, I'd say, "Remember the first time you saw, `Saving Private Ryan.' Pure Chaos!" You feel every slash of the sword and feel pain for every death.

The story structure is interesting, too. There really isn't a long drawn out quest or an Act I, Act II, Act III. There is just character development, a battle, and reflection. It's refreshing! Although, 90 pages of character introductions is a bit overwhelming.

Also, the short descriptions help the pacing of the book, but there are quite a few parts that are hard to visualize. I had to re-read a few pages now and then so I could envision the scenes. But there are some character driven scenes in the book that remind me of classic literature or the movie `True Grit.' You'll definitely remember parts of this book months after you've read it.

Action:
There are battles, duels, assassins, more battles, tactics, and battles. These battles are gritty, gory, and violent. Heads roll, limbs fall, torsos are hacked, and many die horrific deaths in the mud. This book also takes the battles one step further. Most of all, the action is not without consequences. Characters lose their limbs, their lives, and their humanity. At the end of each day in the story, they show a map and where the north and south forces are placed. Black Dow is here, General Jaelenhorn is here, etc... It's a great way to show progression.

Maturity: Adult or Late Teen
Violence, Gore, Language, Sex... This is not for kids... or anyone who is idealistic about life.

Overall:
This book is Gritty, Exciting, Entertaining, and Dark. It has memorable yet sinister characters and visceral battles. What it lacks in pacing and description, it makes up for in style and action. If you love fantasy battles, then this book is for you.

Buy it if you love violence.
Buy it if you love shady characters.
Buy it if you enjoyed the First Law Trilogy.
Buy it if this 'story structure' sounds appealing.
Buy it if you like stories told from different perspectives.
Avoid it if you like your heroes to be virtuous.
Avoid it if you like verbose descriptions.
Avoid it if you don't like the idea of a 400 page battle.
Avoid it if you need to follow one main character through a story.
Avoid it if your fantasy needs to have elves and dragons. This book has more in common with Braveheart than Lord of the Rings.

If you enjoyed this book, check out the Blackhearts Omnibus set in the Warhammer Universe, The Black Company by Glen Cook, or Legend, Winter Warriors, The Lion of Macedon, and Waylander by David Gemmell. They all feature real men in violent battles.

I haven't (yet) read the first trilogy; I picked this up off the new releases shelf and was hooked by the first few pages. Burned through the book in a couple of late-nighters.

I had a lot of fun reading it, some laugh out loud moments even, and I generally liked the story and the characters. However, the big take-away for me was the feeling that this author might be a worthy successor for David Gemmel, whose gritty writing style I've missed since he passed away. The visceral action, hard-bitten & gritty characters, and fast tempo definitely resonated along the same lines for me.

I'm going to pick up the author's earlier books and Ill definitely be keeping an eye out for his next one.

The war between the Union and the North culminates in a three-day battle among two small villages, bogs, and barley fields. The high ground is a saddled hilltop ringed by ancient standing stones called the Heroes. The ruthless fighting prowess of Black Dow, the new king of the North, is pitted against Lord Marshal Kroy, the commander of the southern King's army. The Heroes reads more like historical fiction than fantasy. In true Joe Abercrombie fashion, it's a grim tale told by an array of intensely colorful and intriguing characters.

Joe Abercrombie is to fantasy books what Clint Eastwood was to Western movies; he's taken the genre to a whole new level of bad@$$.

From beginning to end, reading about medieval warfare cannot get any more real than it is in The Heroes. This book is sure to give readers the instinctive urge to duck a swinging battle-axe or dodge a spear thrust. As always, Abercrombie is a master of dialogue that ranges from hysterical to profound. While reading The Heroes, the pages (the e-pages, in my case) disappeared and I achieved the Holy Grail of bookworms: the complete mental transportation from reality into the imaginary world. If action is not your thing, worry not.

This is a war story that takes place in the same world as Joe Abercrombie's other books: The First Law Trilogy and Best Served Cold. Take a gander at the "Order of Battle" -- the character list, which is cleverly placed at the beginning of the book instead of the end. Bayaz, Bremer dan Gorst, Black Dow, and The Dogman return from The First Law Trilogy. We also see some of Curnden Craw's "dozen." Named Men like the woman warrior called Wonderful and Whirrun of Bligh introduced in "The Fool Job," Abercrombie's short in Swords and Dark Magic, are more than enough for established Abercrombie fans. For newcomers, how could you not be enticed by names like Rurgen and Younger (who are described as "faithful servants, one old ... one younger"), Corporal Tunny, Caul Shivers, Pale-as-Snow, and Stranger-Come-Knocking? (Notice anything, veteran fantasy readers? Those names are all easily pronounced, making the story flow much better than many other fantasy stories where the author insists on bogging the reader down with words almost humanly impossible to utter.)

As in Abercrombie's other books, the reader is often drawn to the most despicable of scoundrels like "Prince" Calder, whose clever wit gets him both into and out of trouble, or the standard-bearer Corporal Tunny, a con-artist who is proud that, despite his long-service, he's managed to rise no further in rank. There is also the politically ambitious Finree dan Brock. In a male dominated society, she strategically designs her husband's rise to power despite his own lack of ambition. My favorites are always Abercrombie's warrior-heroes, like Whirrun of Bligh, a.k.a. Cracknut. Each time Whirrun carries the Father of Swords into battle he wears fewer clothes. Col. Gorst is a master swordsman plagued with a high feminine voice. Gorst is angry at everyone, including himself most of all, and can only find joy in mortal combat. Those are only a handful of sensational but believable characters that bring this gritty story to life.

Joe Abercrombie's writing is both fresh and edgy. He has that deep understanding of the human psyche and society that only the very best writers possess. The only other fantasy author that so grandly wrote such gray tales was the late master, David Gemmell.

I had such a good time reading Abercrombie's latest story that I didn't want it to end. If I read just one more new fantasy book in 2011 that's two-thirds as good as The Heroes, I will consider it an outstanding year for the genre.

Last August I ordered The Blade Itself on a whim. For years I have kept strictly to science fiction having given up the fantasy genre for stagnant and unimaginative. Half way into reading The Blade Itself I went ahead and ordered the next two books in the First Law Trilogy as well as Abercrombie's standalone novel Best Served Cold. Abercrombie introduced me to a fresh fantasy world where the heroes aren't so heroic and the legends aren't quite so legendary. The Blade Itself brought me back to the genre that started my reading passion in the first place. I loved the First Law Trilogy and went on a week long reading binge to tackle it. Afterward I read Best Served Cold and was not nearly as pleased. Best Served Cold was much like its dark predecessor but even darker yet, featuring rather unlikable characters on a less interesting continent. Regardless of my feelings toward Abercrombie's first stand alone effort there was never a doubt that I would be purchasing his next entry in the series.

The Heroes is ,at its heart, a very pure representation of the Sword and Sorcery sub-genre of fantasy that has gotten a resurgence in popularity as of late. Where as epic fantasy focuses on large scale struggles between the treacherous powers of evil and the unflinching forces of good, sword and sorcery is more about individual struggles and moral ambiguity. The Heroes is about a three day battle for a rather worthless valley between the savage Northmen and the civilized Union. Abercrombie highlights the horrors of war commonly overlooked in most fantasy novels that instead prefer to glorify combat and bloodshed. Abercrombie can paint a picture of warfare that is gritty and solemn and unflinchingly realistic. There are military blunders on both sides of the conflict, bravery as well as cowardice, honor as well as back-stabbing. A more accurate depiction of battle in fantasy you are unlikely to find.

Though Abercrombie can write gripping action sequences his strongest point is the characters he populates the world with. The main characters of the First Law Trilogy were deeply flawed characters, villains to a greater or lesser degree, living in a world where doing the right thing can get you killed and the wrong thing can - well, also get you killed. Though these characters weren't always honorable (nor even mostly honorable) they were tragic heroes. The greatest testament to Abercrombie's ability was the character known as Logen Ninefingers aka the Bloody Nine. Somehow he took a bloodthirsty murderous thug and created a sympathetic man tired of his own legend. My greatest complaint about Best Served Cold is how much weaker the character development was. The standalone novel offered an assortment of characters but none of them were as endearing as the Bloody Nine. Though The Heroes does not match up to the First Law Trilogy in terms of characterization it is a major improvement over Best Served Cold. Abercrombie introduces new faces as well as brings back some familiar faces. Probably my favorite perspective during the course of the battle would be Bremmer dan Gorst, a disgraced member of the King's Guard. Because of an unusually high voice most of Gorst's dialogue is internalized resulting in some of the most humorous parts of the novel. Other characters include Calder, a clever schemer and son of the now deceased King of North, and Curden Craw a straight-edge warrior from the old days. The perspectives truly propel this novel along, a novel that could easily be bogged down with repetitive violence and flat characters.

I've seen some complaints that The Heroes doesn't advance the universe that Abercrombie has built but I believe this couldn't be further from the truth. There are some major power shifts and conditions elsewhere in the world are brought into focus. A certain Magus conducts an experiment on the battlefield that I'm sure will have repercussions in future works. This story doesn't strike me as an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the franchise, Abercrombie could have achieved that with much less effort. On a small note I have to commend the wonderful map of the Valley of Osrung and the troop displacement maps featured at each segment. This is a great read, a true example of sword and sorcery fantasy that adds to Joe Abercrombie's growing repertoire.