Best Served Cold in Beyond Reality

Apr 11, 2014 mark monday rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy-modern

What is best served hot?

> Flesh
> Blood
> Slaughter
> Desire
> Revenge*

*also delicious served cold

Best Served Cold delivers all of the above in a warm-blooded fashion. this is a sweaty, fully engorged adventure novel that follows a diverse cast as they move through various locales on their own sort of anti-quest. although it spends much time examining the psychological make-up of its characters, is heavily reliant on the kinds of details usually found in military fantasy, and is not shy of graphic s What is best served hot?

> Flesh
> Blood
> Slaughter
> Desire
> Revenge*

*also delicious served cold

Best Served Cold delivers all of the above in a warm-blooded fashion. this is a sweaty, fully engorged adventure novel that follows a diverse cast as they move through various locales on their own sort of anti-quest. although it spends much time examining the psychological make-up of its characters, is heavily reliant on the kinds of details usually found in military fantasy, and is not shy of graphic sex and violence, it still lives and breathes all of the classic, instantly recognizable tropes of adventure fiction - to its credit. tropes are tropes for a reason: their familiarity creates an ideal framework on which to hang a narrative, characters, and themes that may play into or challenge those tropes, depending on the author's goals. this author wants to do both, and he succeeds. his book is complex and simplistic, old-fashioned and very modern.

synopsis: sibling mercenary leaders Monza and Benna Murcatto are betrayed by their employer during a meeting that ends in violence and murder. the six people in the room besides the Murcattos (plotters and bystanders alike) must now die, and so a colorful band of miscreants are assembled for just that purpose. thus the fun begins. don't let the title fool you into thinking that this is a book of cunning feints and subtle plots and diabolical machinations. far from it. its characters may be cold-blooded but Abercrombie serves his adventure yarn quite hot.

the author is well-known for his bleak world view and this novel is certainly more of the same. not a real hero to be found within these pages - although there are plenty of characters who are truly complicated. or at the very least, amusingly and/or sympathetically depicted. being forced to ride alongside such a cynical perspective could make for a depressing experience; fortunately, the author's cynicism is matched by his ability to make his characters consistently entertaining and often surprisingly funny. dark humor - but still humor! I appreciate that. although a 600+ page doorstopper, the book is far from a heavy one to read and is often an exciting, page-turning experience rather that one submerged in the sort of fatalism that makes me less than eager to read what will happen next. humor is the MVP in Best Served Cold (and after that would come Abercrombie's skill at writing cinematic action sequences).

unfortunately, there is a Least Valuable Player present and it is that incredibly aggravating flaw that seems to be prevalent across so much of modern fantasy and science fiction: REPETITION. ugh. it is so frustrating to see smart, talented authors like C.J. Cherryh, Patrick Rothfuss, Janny Wurts, George R.R. Martin, Jacqueline Carey, C.S. Friedman, Peter Hamilton, Connie Willis, and I'm sure many more, fall prey to the idea that their readers simply can't be trusted to remember traits integral to their characters, and so those traits and feelings are conveyed, via dialogue and thought processes, over and over and over, again and again and again and again and AGAIN. readers are not idiots who need to be repeatedly reminded about important details because their tiny little minds don't have the capacity to retain an important piece of information over the course of the book. repetition does not make the heart grow fonder; it make the mind grow numb.

but back to the compliments because despite that glaring flaw, I still loved reading this book.

so I'm a secretly sentimental sort of chap and despite my cynicism about people and life in general, I still believe that deep down most of us actually recognize the difference between good and evil, feel guilt about negative actions, and genuinely strive to be good - when that's possible. I doubt many people get off on their villainy. happily, Abercrombie shares my point of view - and only the most superficial read of his books would enable a person to come away thinking that the author writes everyone as a villain. assholes, yes; villains, no. like his First Law trilogy, Best Served Cold has protagonists who try to do good despite themselves and who do attempt - sometimes too late - to make up for regrettable actions. they regret things, they try to make amends, they see the need for change - even when they are also alienated or bloodthirsty or Machiavellian. I hate cheap positivity but I hate cheap nihilism even more. this novel has all the appeal of a dark, cynical adventure novel set in a bleak, war-torn landscape, but it still has a warmly beating human heart at its center. I wouldn't have loved it otherwise.

also, nice parallel between Monza and the prior books' Glokta. clearly this type resonates with the author. cynical cripples who are super deadly and of course terribly misunderstood. and beautiful - or at least once beautiful. poor Glokta! anyway, I could read more of this type. ...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Stephen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook, 6-star-books, award-nominee-british-fantasy, 2006-2010, signed-first-or-limited-edition, kings-of-badassia, multiple-award-nominee, fantasy, hardboiled-and-noir, all-time-favorites

6.0 stars. Another unbelievably good book by Joe Abercrombie. If you liked the First Law Series, you will like this. Given that the First Law series is on my list of "All Time Favorites" I think it is safe to assume, I loved this book. In addition to creating a superb story with a tight plot and, as always with his books, unforgettable characters, Abercrombie advances in subtle but very interesting ways the larger story arc of the "great battle" addressed in the First Law series. HIGHEST POSSIBL ...more

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Dec 24, 2016 Tani rated it liked it

Shelves: sff-2016, male-author, 2016-novels, dark-fantasy

Phew, finally finished. I struggled with this book sooo hard. Considering that I really loved the First Law trilogy, that was very sad for me. But there it is. I actually considered a two star rating quite seriously, and in my head, the three stars that I gave it are really a 2.5.

In retrospect, I think that my struggles with this book were inevitable. Revenge is not a theme that I'm fond of. In fact, I kind of think it goes against my nature pretty strongly. I cannot imagine myself ever trying Phew, finally finished. I struggled with this book sooo hard. Considering that I really loved the First Law trilogy, that was very sad for me. But there it is. I actually considered a two star rating quite seriously, and in my head, the three stars that I gave it are really a 2.5.

In retrospect, I think that my struggles with this book were inevitable. Revenge is not a theme that I'm fond of. In fact, I kind of think it goes against my nature pretty strongly. I cannot imagine myself ever trying to take the kind of revenge that this book centers on. Revenge is centered on the assumption that your loss is the most important thing in the world. More important than the losses that your revenge will inflict on others. And I don't think I have the egoism necessary to make that assumption. So, for me, this book was a failure. Every time another character set out to take revenge for whatever loss they had just suffered, I would roll my eyes a bit and sigh. Not exactly the response that I think was intended. (Although sometimes the writing did make me wonder if that wasn't exactly what Abercrombie wanted from me.) Either way, I didn't particularly enjoy having that reaction, thus my lukewarm response.

I will say, I appreciated Abercrombie's loyalty to his theme. Revenge is seriously what this is all about, and when looked at afterward, there are definitely some interesting lessons to be learned from the book. I tend to think that revenge always ends badly, and for the most part, Best Served Cold reinforces that. We see multiples characters decide that revenge is the only path for them - obviously Monza, but also Shivers, Morveer, Shenkt, Cosca... And yet they each get a slightly different result from their endeavors.

I also liked the unreliability of public perceptions, which was probably the secondary theme here. We start the book thinking that Monza is nothing but a heartless bitch who's done terrible things. We end the book knowing that this is true, but also knowing that there are depths and circumstances that aren't readily apparent unless you really know her history. I liked that, and I'm really glad that she got the ending that she did. I did like her by the end, but it was a long time coming, and I remain disappointed in her, more at her lack of action at times than anything. She is a very human character, to say the least.

I guess another big theme was the subjectiveness of love. It's clear that Monza loved her brother and that she shaped her life around making his better. And yet, from everything we see, it's clear that Benna was a reprehensible human being who probably deserved what happened to him as much as anyone can deserve that kind of thing. I think it was masterfully portrayed, but that it also made it that much harder for me to enjoy the book, because it was so clear to me that Benna wasn't worthy of such an extravagant revenge.

I think that one thing I really wish the book would have addressed is (view spoiler)

Clearly, Best Served Cold gave me a lot of food for thought. I just wish I could have enjoyed it more than I did. ...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Brian rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book was set down repeatedly, and took a long time to pick back up each time it had been set aside. It's a grim read with characters who are not likable; it is hard to know for whom I should be rooting, and I think that's part of the point of the book. No-one is perfect, all people have shades and nuances, foibles, and hangups which define them. I found the two characters most enjoyable to be Cosca and Friendly, a kind of comic/straight-man combination which was the main source of levity. S ...more

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Jun 18, 2010 Sandi marked it as couldn-t-finish · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, audiobooks

I'm moving this audio book to my unfinished shelf. I don't know if I'll go back. The narration is pretty bad and I'm not liking the story enough to get around it. Maybe I'll read it in print sometime. ...more

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Sep 11, 2009 Jeffrey rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009, fantasy

I see the appeal of this book, but the murders of the various plotters and the main characters do not appeal. This was a book, in my mind that could have been saved by being just one murder less.

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