Rating: ****
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Epic, Lang:en
Summary
Springtime in Styria. And that means war.
There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless
Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the
squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled
the land white. While armies march, heads roll and cities
burn, and behind the scenes bankers, priests and older,
darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.
War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of
Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's
employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her
victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her
employer's taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left
for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning
hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.
Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard,
Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed
with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right
thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And
that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is
dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso
started...
Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge. Starred Review. Abercrombie returns to the blood-drenched
arena of the First Law trilogy (
The Blade Itself, etc.) with this skillfully crafted
and bleakly humorous sword and sorcery adventure. Duke Orso
imagines that he can become king by ending the civil wars
that have devastated Styria, but he errs by trying to kill
his overly popular general, mercenary Monza Murcatto.
Recovering from her massive injuries and mourning her
murdered brother, Monza vows vengeance on Orso and half a
dozen of his accomplices. Employing her own motley crew of
death dealers, Monza gets her revenge, but it's neither
simple nor satisfying; each target requires fresh strategy,
and each death has unexpected effects. Abercrombie is both
fiendishly inventive and solidly convincing, especially when
sprinkling his appallingly vivid combat scenes with humor so
dark that it's almost ultraviolet.
(Aug.)
"The battles are vivid and visceral, the action brutal,
the pace headlong, and Abercrombie piles the betrayals,
reversals, and plot twists one atop another to keep us
guessing how it will all come out. This is his best book
yet." --- George R.R. Martin
"Joe Abercrombie takes the grand tradition of high fantasy
literature and drags it down into the gutter, in the best
possible way. Monza is a beautiful mercenary who has sworn to
kill the seven men who tried to kill her. No elves, no wands
- just lots of down-and-dirty swordplay." --- *Time
"Abercrombie is both fiendishly inventive and solidly
convincing, especially when sprinkling his appallingly vivid
combat scenes with humor so dark that it's almost
ultraviolet." --- Publishers Weekly*
From Publishers Weekly
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