The Sword and Laser discussion

Boy I I was not Expecting this Outcome. All I will say is that there are big mind benders in this final book of this awesome trilogy.

Ditto for me. I read the last couple of chapters with a cloud of WTF over my head, and then that last scene. Phew.

At first I was really thrown off by it, but once it had time to settle, I found I really appreciated how Abercrombie pulled the rung out from under the classic epic fantasy ending. Definitely not an up ending, but a good one.

[Some spoilers:]
Really? Hmm... Did not do anything for me. At all. I felt the ending had no rime, reason or style to it. Not much surprise either. Bayaz is the most evil and/or self-righteous party in the world. It was hinted at multiple times in the book so to the end it's not "I thought you were a good guy and then THAT!!" and more of "I didn't know... now I do... oh well...". Logen... Again, no rime or reason where Bloody Nine comes from, what his strength and intentions are etc. No integration between the two personalities. Rest of the characters are even less consistent.
I have to give Abercrombie props for an interesting world (not too original but interesting and "with character") and pretty decent writing style (although not awesome).
... and a number of other complaints and issues with the books. I guess simple "nope, didn't like it" would suffice but I would like to here your guys thoughts on what you liked about it and what I missed?

In the end, I didn't love the series, but I appreciated that he was trying to turn the fantasy genre upside down a bit. The first book started with a classic cast: mystical wizard, spoiled rich kid who would become king, barbarian with a heart of gold, crazy woman slave turned warrior, good-hearted soldier, etc.

By the end of the second book, when the "quest to save the world" actually failed, I had a moment of "huh, he's doing something different then", and the last book confirmed that. To have the classic happy ending turned upside down was at least interesting.

I don't think it was done as smoothly or as smartly as it could have been, and his writing style began to irk (especially his use of repetitive catch-phrases and the redundancies in Glokta's scenes. I enjoyed the internal monologue a lot, but it often repeated what the prose had just told us.), but as a whole I didn't feel my reading time was wasted.

As for the Bloody-Nine persona, I think it wasn't done very well either. It was some type of overpowering berserker-mode-thing, I gathered, but if that was the case, then it felt too much like a whole other persona. Abercrombie could have come out and revealed it to be a demonic possession and it would not have been unbelievable. Again, I don't disagree that the writing was sloppy in many ways.

Still, I enjoyed the first two books quite a bit and I enjoyed the twist on the standard formula, even if I found the execution to be lack-luster.

Amy wrote: "
Still, I enjoyed the first two books quite a bit and I enjoyed the twist on the standard formula..."

I don't know... I finished the first book only because I felt I had to (and because the book has to be REALLY bad for me to stop reading it... I'm stupid that way). It had pretty much no action, it felt pretty much like ~ first 20 pages of more "standard" fantasy. Second book actually was pretty fun to read, with politics and backstabbing and what not. Twisty.

On breaking the formula... I felt that Game of Thrones broke formulas in some of the ways Abercrombie tried (you want happy ending? you picked up an oh-so-wrong book, pal!) but it is ... I guess the word is 'coherent'. I think there are rules even to breaking the rules, if you want your books to be "edible" :).

I felt like the end was a let down too. I enjoyed the first two books so much, but there wasn't enough of the things I liked in the last one. The best parts were about Luthar and his wife. I wish there had been more of that.

Say this for Halbot42. Say that he finished Book 3 with deeply conflicted feelings. While i respect the desire to upend traditional fantasy expectations i felt much too much was left out to give a satisfying conclusion. Yes, that makes it more true to life, but thats not why i read escapist fiction anyways. I also felt that Joe is setting up for another series and maybe wanted to save as many characters as possible. West is probably the most significant figure that he killed off. The radioactive nature of the seed felt less than orginal, although i really liked Ferros transformation. Im about 1/2 thru Best Served Cold, clearly joe likes vengeance, so i wouldnt bet against a Second Law trilogy. And ill buy it, just to see what happens to Logen.