Tag: grimdark

Daniel Polansky, March’s End (2023)

On By Ola GIn books, NetGalley, Ola, reviews21 Comments

Author: Daniel Polansky

Title: March’s End

Format: e-book

Pages: ???

Series: –

What review would be better to start the month of March with than a review of March’s End? Polansky’s new book offers his trademark blend of gritty realism and fantastic flights of fancy. It’s casually cruel, in love with the melody of its own language, melancholy and tender at times, but mostly, and always – beautifully, clinically detached.

Polansky is sharp. All sharp edges, short witty remarks, quick, astute observations. I do wonder if he fences; those books of his that I have read certainly remind me of fencing – finding the opponent’s weak spot and lunging, without hesitation or remorse. There is certain urgency in his writing, a particular blend of ruthlessness and vulnerability that demands to be read. I enjoy it; it is rather unique in our times of effusive wordy diarrhoea, of sickly sweetness and hand-holding, back-patting cosiness and hidden feelings of authorial superiority. Yup, Polanski is none of those things, thank goodness. His unique second-person-perspective narrative in The Seventh Perfection made that book one of my favourites of 2020, but March’s End is closer in theme and mood to the novella The Builders. 

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Joe Abercrombie, The Wisdom of Crowds (2021)

On By Ola GIn books, fiction, Ola, reviews51 Comments

Author: Joe Abercrombie

Title: The Wisdom of Crowds

Format: paperback

Pages: 520

Series: The Age of Madness #3

I know that times are tough. Pandemic, a looming economic crisis, people do what they can to make ends meet, churning out books like there’s no tomorrow, with less than usual regard for logic or excellence. It’s hard, and I understand, and Abercrombie is certainly not the first one to fall into this trap. But that knowledge doesn’t lessen the disappointment much. For this is the first First Law World book that unequivocally sucked for me. 

My disappointment is twofold, and I’ll try my best to separate the technical, rather more objective one from the bitterly personal ;). 

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Joe Abercrombie, The Trouble with Peace (2020)

On By Ola GIn books, Ola, reviews62 Comments

Author: Joe Abercrombie

Title: The Trouble with Peace

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 506

Series: The Age of Madness #2

The Trouble with Peace is the second installment in Abercrombie newest trilogy, The Age of Madness – playing out approximately two decades after The First Law trilogy in the Circle of the World. I’ve read the first installment, A Little Hatred, back in 2019 – but never gotten around to reviewing it. Suffice to say, it was pretty good: slicker and sharper and funnier than The First Law, with the added benefit of hosting a less likeable crew of protagonist – which, in Abercrombie’s books, is actually a real benefit, as most of them will most probably meet their gory, humiliating and depressing ends long before the trilogy’s conclusion. I rated A Little Hatred 8/10; and I’m happy to say The Trouble with Peace is even better.

The First Law trilogy was written with the ingenious leading thought of “What if Merlin was evil?” The Age of Madness continues to build up on it and I’m very encouraged by the signs of an equally pitiless Nimue in sight. But most importantly, with his Age of Madness series Joe Abercrombie seems to be stepping into Sir Terry Pratchett’s shoes – if (and that’s a big if) Pratchett were cynical to the core, ruthless, and constantly angry. Sure, at the moment these shoes are still way too big, and at times clearly uncomfortable, but I’m pretty certain Abercrombie will grow up to fit them quite well.

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Joe Abercrombie, Red Country (2012)

On By reenchantmentoftheworldIn books, Ola, Piotrek, reviews, Two-shot36 Comments

red-country

Author: Joe Abercrombie

Title: Red Country

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 451

Series: First Law World #6

Abercrombie’s Red Country is in many aspects a continuation of the First Law Trilogy, the review of which was incidentally one of our first Two-shots. After all, Logen Ninefingers, known in the North as Bloody-Nine, is one of the main protagonists of this bloody fantasy western. And if that comes as a spoiler… Well, it’s on the back of the freaking cover, so we don’t count it as a spoiler – though probably some of the book characters would disagree 😀

In many other aspects, however, it’s as standalone as Abercrombie’s novels go: it takes place in a fundamentally different part of the First Law world, on the very frontier of the Western continent, Far Country. This part of the world is no more peaceful than Angland or Styria: torn by gold fever, hostile encounters with elusive aboriginal people called Ghosts, and inhabited by the shattered dreams of people who ran away from their past, hoping for a new opening, Far Country only seems serene from far away. But its biggest selling point, especially for the Lamb, was the pronounced lack of Bayaz.

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R. Scott Bakker, The Thousandfold Thought (2006)

On By Ola GIn books, Ola, reviews3 Comments

Thousandfold_Thought

Long time, no see – vacation time is not inductive to writing, but gives lots of opportunities to read, even in the middle of an Internet-less wilderness :). I usually leave the thickest books for my vacation time, as only then I might be sure of reading them in full, and in reasonable time. For the summertime I also leave those books which I wouldn’t have read any other time – vacation makes me more bullshit-tolerant 😉

And that’s why one of my summer readings this year was the final installment in Bakker’s acclaimed trilogy The Prince of Nothing. I know, I have said before I won’t be reading The Thousandfold Thought anytime soon, too irritated with previous installments to care; while The Darkness That Comes Before was still readable, The Warrior Prophet was just awful. But I like to finish things, and that gutted carcass left on my metaphorical porch, to use the imagery borrowed from Bakker, begged to be cleaned up and buried for good.

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