June 2013
30 posts
A brilliant idea!
7:23 AM - “I love reading. I love writing, too. Hey, I know! I should write a book! Yeah, I’m gonna write a book. It’ll be awesome!”
7:23 PM - “Wait, how do you write a book? I don’t know where to begin. This is hard. Nevermind.”
GRRM vs Joe Abercrombie
An excerpt from something I typed up on Reddit:
I’ve tried other series like Malazan, Black Company, Mistborn, Dark Tower, etc and I’ve never really gotten into them. I don’t read much fantasy, I’m just really not a huge fan of it. In fact, the only fantasy writers I read are GRRM and Joe Abercrombie. I adore both of them.
You definitely won’t be disappointed with Abercrombie. The scale is far, far smaller than anything GRRM writes, but they key similarity is the depth of characterization. Logen Ninefingers is easily my favorite fictional character ever. He’s so well-rounded and can go in a matter of minutes from lovable to absolutely detestable. It also helps that he’s involved in a handful of the most bad ass, unbelievably tense and awe-inspiring action sequences in fantasy. These begin with the climax of the first book, and I won’t elaborate at all because they’re infinitely more hard-hitting when you don’t expect them. Suffice it to say that more than once there’s a fight he’s involved in that’s so well-written it made made put the book down and smile to myself and chuckle because it was simply so fucking bad ass. I can’t really specify much else without giving it away. But you’ll know them when you see them. They alone made the trilogy worth reading for me.
I love GRRM, and ASOIAF is probably my favorite series of fiction ever. But I really can’t gush enough about Abercrombie. His characters are amazing, his writing is so quotable. The only drawback I’ll mention is that his novels are very, very bleak. More bleak than GRRM, sometimes gratingly so. He kills off some very likeable characters and leaves others to suffer in horribly awful circumstances. But honestly; the trip there is so worthwhile.
The First Law trilogy is solid; especially the second novel. The first can drag on a bit and most people are very put off by the way the trilogy ends. But the stand-alone novels are where he really shines. All three were fantastic, self-contained genre-bending arcs that get better as you progress through them. I’m very excited for his future work. He’s young for a writer and he’s only going to get better.
TL;DR
Pros: Incredible characterization, superbly quotable prose, great stand alone novels (Best Served Cold / The Heroes / Red Country), Logen fucking Ninefingers.
Cons: Grating bleakness, first novel starts slowly (The Blade Itself), disappointing conclusion to the trilogy (Last Argument of Kings).
