In my opinion, this book is the best of the series. If you enjoyed the first two books of the Shattered Sea trilogy even moderately, I think you will be delighted with this stunning conclusion.

Half a War begins with the narrative of young princess Skara of Throvenland. After witnessing her homeland put to the torch and her grandfather the king and his minister viciously murdered by Bright Yilling - a ruthless warrior of the High King's army - she narrowly escapes death with the help of the old pirate Blue Jenner. Together they flee to neighboring Gettland and seek refuge with Queen Laithlin, King Uthil, Father Yarvi, and many other characters we met in the previous two books. As Gettland and Vansterland still struggle to look beyond their long-standing wars with each other and try to forge a very shaky alliance against the High King's armies, Princess Skara finds that she may be the glue that can bring them together....if only she can overcome her fears, find her own voice, and become the leader she was destined to be for Throvenland and her people.

We also follow fearless young warrior Raith - a proud, reckless killer and King Grom-gil-Gorm's sword bearer, as he is forced to confront the terrible ghosts of his past and make difficult decisions that may ultimately change the course of his life.

And then there is Koll, the young master wood carver and Father Yarvi's apprentice to the Ministry, who must try to look beyond what others expect from him and decide what it is he really wants - love or the ministry - and how he can change the world no matter which decision he makes.

Through these three narratives, the big picture of the inevitable war with the High King and Grandmother Wexen is told and finally comes to a head. And all hell breaks loose. If you think you know what's coming and if you think you know who the real enemies are, think again. Everything is NOT as it seems. And that's one of the reasons I think this is the best book of the three. Abercrombie spins this tale with superb skill and all of the pieces finally come neatly together, but perhaps not how you might think they will.

As always, Abercrombie is the master of some of the greatest, bloodiest battle scenes you'll ever read, and this book is no exception even though it's YA. These battles will play out in your mind like they would on a big screen as you're reading them, which makes for some bloody great reading if you're heavily into action.

Great narratives, solid, interesting characters, superb writing, a fantastic plot, and rich storytelling made this one of the best books I've read this year. A brilliant ending to a great series! Highly recommend.

This is an interesting book to review. First, the good stuff:
Abercrombie is a fantastic writer who describes scenes, emotions, battles, etc all extremely well. I would rank him in the top 5 fantasy writers of all time that I am familiar with (Tolkien, Martin, Rothfuss, Staveley being the other 4)
He writes extremely human characters, not archetypes
His books are not super predictable
He has an extremely realistic, gritty feel for fantasy
He doesn't take forever to finish his series, he has 2 solid series out that are totally complete
I would give the first 2 books in the series 5 stars
For point of reference I would give The First Law Trilogy - his other series - 5 stars

Here are some things you may not like depending on your taste:
This is an incredibly low magic world. The only magic thing is that a few birds can speak and that really has no part in the story, I think he was going to do something with that in book one and then never developed it.
Because the characters are incredibly human like and not archetypes, at least to me that makes it hard to like or hate them, they kind of are what they are. I don't aspire to be like them and I don't look up to them and personally in fantasy I look for that.
Good and evil is extremely blurred. Something like Star Wars or Harry Potter has very clear good and evil, Game of Thrones is pretty clear, but in this it is all about perspective. There might be one character you can say is truly 'good' in the whole story and she isn't introduced until book 3.

And here is what really pissed me off: SPOILER ALERT

There are guns in the story. Not just one gun, not some old arquebus that fires an inaccurate shot once a day, I mean M-16's and grenade launchers. To his credit he does just about as good a job as one could do including them and describing them and the horrors they can inflict, but personally I don't pick up sword and sorcery novels and read through 700 pages of knights fighting with sword and shield to have main characters ultimately blown away by an M16.

My advice to the author. Don't be afraid of an archetype here and there. They are overplayed by B level writers, in the hands of someone as skilled as you a classic storyline could become truly brilliant. Give me a character I can admire who fights evil and does good in an interesting way, throw in a bit of magic, and let's keep it medieval and not post nuclear. Would it be so bad to have a story hailed as "The Next Lord of the Rings?"

Sure … if you read the first two installments you’re in for the 3rd.

The third is good until the very end. In fact, it was headed to "Great!".

Then, suddenly ... within a chapter, the story collapses. The author completely corrupts 3 volume theme of ‘good’ vs ‘evil’. Did the publishers time run out for this 3rd installment? Turn principal characters from 'good' into 'bad' after 3 books? Destroy them in the last few pages? Certainly ends the book fast.

The trilogy makes absolutely no sense in the whole. Most beastly bad ending ever from among the genre’s top writers.

Of no social value. Deceit and fraud is the strength of the ‘heroes’? You gotta be kidding me. No lessons to be learned here. It's just wrong.