The book starts strong, with sharp banter between two long-standing companions. Their relationship is unclear, but we know them to be highly skilled mercenaries. This offhand dialogue introduces keys to the main character’s behaviour through the rest of the book. After a brutal betrayal, the main protagonist, Monza Murcatto, turns from mercenary work to the single-minded goal of revenge. This book is the story of her journey.

Set in a medieval world of swords, battles, grinding poverty, and ostentatious wealth – it helps to think 11th century England – there is an active, ongoing war among the heads of various territories to become the ruler over all. Referred to by the inhabitants as the Years of Blood, it is clear that the acquisitive obsessions of the various dukes have created a 19-year-long, grinding, bloody, tedious, wasteful siege-state among the peoples.

The varied characters are introduced well, and their facets are revealed to us in measured and organic ways as they pursue their own objectives, both clear and hidden. Shivers, Morveer, Cosca, Vitari: each are recruited systematically by Monza as she moves relentlessly towards her objective. These compatriots are interesting and engaging; we want to know more about them and their goings on, and the novel is sufficiently well written that it had me rapidly turning the pages.

However. About half way through the book, it begins to be a bit of a slog. Things become repetitive: descriptions of battles, a person’s characteristics, catchphrases (“Mercy and cowardice are the same thing.”) These same phrases and sentences are repeated, and repeated, and…repeated.

For example, we have been with Monza through 70% of the book, learning more and more about her mercenary character (“the Butcher of Caprile”) and the many, many battles she has orchestrated and won, when we get the following phrase: “in her experience, and she had plenty, …”. Yes. We get it. She’s had a lot of experience. We’ve been reading about that experience, in detail, for the last 300 pages.

And speaking of detail, while the depiction of violence is necessary to evoke the times and to make the author’s point, it does eventually cross over into violence porn: paragraph after paragraph full of detailed depictions of gruesome acts: gory and excessive violence, gouging, maiming, dismemberment, disembowling, torture. Repetitive and unnecessary.

There is also a lot of somewhat gratuitous swearing that gets in the way of the storytelling. Though around since the late 15th century, “fuck” is generally perceived as a modern word. Used as noun, verb, adjective, including all compounds of the word, does not lend a medieval revenge tale any more authenticity. In fact, in most cases, its use was jarring and only served to break me out of the narrative flow.

Periodically there are attention-grabbing turns of phrase: sarcastic praise for a colleague, “a diamond in the shit”; an amusing collective noun, “a haggle of merchants”. Occasionally, there is sharp, energetic dialogue between the main characters that can easily be read as either forced jocularity or pathos. Highly enjoyable, it wasn’t enough to compensate for the long, tiresome stretches.

The book rallies in the last 120 pages. As the body count of Monza’s compatriots begins to climb, we are less and less certain of how things will end.

Given the heavy-handed messaging by the author against the stupidity of war, the pettiness of tyrants, and the betrayal of politics, we begin to realize that Monza will likely not achieve her goal, and may not live past the next chapter. It is here that the author makes several sharp observations about the malleable nature of people and the expediencies of politics.

Strong at the beginning, and strong at the end – the middle is soggy with repetition and tedious illustration of the book’s message. Judicious editing would have made the book one-third shorter, and made for a tighter, tenser novel. Possible candidate for airplane reading.
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Unrelieved grimness in the form of unsympathetic characters performing reprehensible acts for no purpose other than revenge or being hired to help with revenge. ( )

I failed to care about the motivations of any character. Perhaps that was the point, but it doesn't result in a good read ( )

This extremely cynical book (alongside the previous books in this world) is the closest thing I read to anti-militaristic "epic" fantasy. ( )

THis was a dark book but I loved it none the less. I know Martin is the standard bearer for the new epic fantasy boom but Abercrombie is a magician. I will read everything he writes. ( )