Review: LAST ARGUMENT OF KINGS

Last Argmuent Of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
Book 3 of the First Law Trilogy

Genre: epic fantasy

About Last Argmuent Of Kings:

Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him – but it’s going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the King of the Northmen still stands firm, and there’s only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy: it’s time for the Bloody-Nine to come home.

With too many masters and too little time, Superior Glokta is fighting a different kind of war. A secret struggle in which no-one is safe, and no-one can be trusted. As his days with a sword are far behind him, it’s fortunate that he’s deadly with his remaining weapons: blackmail, threats, and torture.

Jezal dan Luthar has decided that winning glory is too painful an undertaking, and turned his back on soldering for a simple life with the woman he loves. But love can be painful too – and glory has a nasty habit of creeping up on a man when he least expects it.

The King of the Union lies on his deathbed, the peasants revolt, and the nobles scramble to steal his crown. No-one believes that the shadow of war is about to fall across the heart of the Union. Only the First of the Magi can save the world – but there are risks. There is no risk more terrible, than to break the First Law...

Source: Info in the About Last Argmuent Of Kings was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6237768-last-argument-of-kings on 16/04/2011.

My Thoughts:

The author's "voice" feel and read smooth. The world building and character development is masterful. The character development is so good that they feel like old friends at this point. And then the ending broke my heart! It is "not really" a “happily-ever-after” (HEA). Those characters that the author is so good at creating? Some of them did not have a HEA. But on the other side of the coin, maybe I got so heartbroken because the author is so good at weaving the story that I felt it deeply. Gotta give the author a lot of kudos for that! It gives you pause to wonder though if some of the “good guys” might not really be good and some of the “bad guys” might not really be bad. The whole trilogy is just a long sad tale where I couldn't find much of a meaning to the heros' struggles. Is it even a fight of good versus evil? So at the end of it, what were all their struggles for? All their trials? All their hardships? For what? The answers to those questions were not very satisfying to me as a reader. I also find the writing style using multiple threads to be slow going, annoying and feels discordant to read. So despite the masterful author’s “voice”, I don’t think I would be buying anymore work by this author.

When I read this book about a few months ago, Adele's song, Someone Like You, just released and keeps replaying on the radio. Now, every time I hear it, my heart breaks all over again for Logen! I think those who have read this trilogy and hears this song might understand what I meant... of missed chances... regrets and mistakes are memories we make...

Final Say:

Joe Abercrombie has a very compelling author's voice, I just wish he'd improve on his writing style and endings.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story Telling Quality = 5
World Building = 5
Character Development = 5
Plot = 3.5
Pace = 2.5
Story Itself = 2.5
Writing Style = 1.5
Ending = 2

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries


Other Books In This Series: