"HE WAS AS UGLY AS INCEST"...now that is funny!! Okay, so do not...DO NOT listen to those who call this a less than a stellar performance by the god-king of grit, Joe Abercrombie. This is not only a 541 page manual on the art of breezy, muck-dripping proseology, but it also sports an intricately layered and well designed plot, three dimensional characters that are just saturated with nuance and some powerful evocative statements on the “underpants loading horror” of war and the pain-burden b

“The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.” Continuing my recent Joe Abercrombie First Law binge with the second standalone story, The Heroes. But, do not be fooled by the title. There are no heroes, just in keeping with everything in this world to date. No glory. No winners. No heroes. As always, most of the characters are self-serving, calculating and traitorous figures with a variety of power, with the main goal being just to survive. But, despite t...

A great addition to the First Law universe, but ultimately not as good as the larger scope booksThe Heroes was a very good standalone book that shares many similarities to the First Law Trilogy, but doesn't quite hit the same "highs".The idea of writing a whole book about one battle over the course of three days felt somehow both refreshing and stale. I've never read a fantasy book that has such a limited scope before, which will good also made me hungry for the larger world and the grand scope

3rd read - this will always be my favourite First Law book. Gorst, Whirrun of Bligh, Bayaz' death-tubes. I love everything.Re-read - My favourite First Law standalone. Gorst is the king.***One of the best books I've ever read. Gorst is my new favourite character. FRTC.

22/25 (88%) 4.5 stars.“To work wood you need all manner of tools - chisels and saws, axes great and small, nails and hammers, awls and planes. To be a killer you just need two. A blade and the will.”Tomorrow afternoon I’ll start rewriting the battle sequence in the first draft of my current manuscript and then I’ll dedicate the entire book to Joe Abercrombie.Every single book I read by this man turns me more into a brainless, gushing Abercrombie sycophant. And I’m not ashamed at all. Best battle...

The Piles“Fuck this shit” grumbled Slicker Gutwruck as he wearily limped up the hill, bile tickling his tonsils. “I couldn't give an arse about war anymore,” he spat. How ironic that I'm so good at it he mused, as his rag-tag squad of soldiers showed off their cool moves on a group of unfortunate peons they got the drop on. There was Broody McBrooderson, master of the garotte; Slicker's second-in-command, Little Miss Sunshine, tougher than any man, and more than capable of commanding Serenity, e...

War, War never changes. The Heroes unflinchingly chronicles a 3 day battle between two warring nations. It's a story filled with visceral fighting, complex characters and constant danger and suspense. For me this is the best of Abercrombie's standalone novels and is on a par with his 'First Law trilogy'. Being a massive Abercrombie fan as I am the fact that this is my favourite of his works says a lot. The Heroes combines Abercrombie's dark fantasy with a war story and while the entire novel rev...

I’ve got a really great idea for a novel. Do you want to hear it? Okay, so here goes:Well I was thinking I could create a story in which everything relates back to the title. That way I could say the title over and over again. Wouldn’t that be fun? I mean I could write about heroes fighting at a place called the Heroes and then they could have a crisis about being heroes whilst worrying who has taken the Heroes and if enemy heroes are going to kill them. And then I could say heroes a few times m...

“The man is a monster. The worst I have ever seen, in fact, since I last looked in the mirror. The truth? I am rotting too. I am buried alive, and already rotting. If I was not such a coward I would kill myself, but I am, and so I must content myself with killing others in the hope that one day, if I can only wade deep enough in blood, I will come out clean.”Joe Abercrombie’s brain is huge and I love him, that’s it, that’s the review.

Nasty, Brutish, and ShortLife is nasty, brutish, and short in Abercrombie's First Law World. But perhaps that's just the Great Leveller talking as they say in the North. "Heroes" is the second of the so-called standalone novels following the initial trilogy, but one should still read these novels in order to get the full background and history that adds so much depth to the story. On the surface, "Heroes" is a simple war story, detailing three days as two armies face off separated by a river and...

I have a Booktube channel now! Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/petrikleo4.5/5 StarsThe Heroes depicted an unforgettable three days of intricate battles; Joe Abercrombie has once again proved himself to be my shining star in grimdark fantasy.For me, there’s simply no one that can write grimdark fantasy as good as Abercrombie. The Heroes has been claimed by many Abercrombie’s fans to be his best book so far, and although I disagree because in my opinion that crown still belongs to Last Arg...

The Heroes (First law world,#5) by Joe AbercrombieIt's lower quality in my opinion. I feel no real empathy with the characters. Although the book is set over a very short period, it seems to drag to its conclusion. However, the second half of the book was far better than the first. But the book was a disappointment. The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick. Disappointed

Forty-eight hours. So much can happen in such a short span of time in the middle of a war. This tale shifts between varying viewpoints, from soldiers to commanders to camp followers. There are no good guys and no bad guys. The reader will wind up caring about all of them, and knowing that not all of them can win, let alone survive. Highly recommended.

The plot can be described in a couple of sentences, literally. This is about a 3-day battle between the Union forces (civilized bureaucratic society) and Northern people (barbarians), and also about the events right before it and its aftermath. This is probably the most spoiler-free plot description I ever wrote, by the way. Joe Abercombie is the undisputed king when it comes to modern grimdark fantasy. Yes, I have read Malazan epic. Yes, I still stand by what I said in the beginning of the para...

This Review ✍️ Blog 📖 Twitter 🐦 Instagram 📷 Support me ☕ “Armour …’ mused Whirrun, licking a finger and scrubbing some speck of dirt from the pommel of his sword, ‘is part of a state of mind … in which you admit the possibility … of being hit.” I have to admit that after reading Best Served Cold my expectations kind of skyrocketed for this one and I ended up slightly disappointed. I have to agree with George R.R. Martin who said this was Abercrombie’s best book up to this point in the

Wow.This one has been on my To-Be-Read pile for a long time. In an effort to clean out some of my older books I finally got around to reading it.And now I'm not sure what took me so long! Heroes is a gritty book about a war between the Northmen and the Union, which takes place around a hill called the Heroes.It's a dark book, with rough characters and some pretty gorey deaths. Ambercrombie does a great job with his battle scenes, showing the confusion of war and the costs of being a hero.But wit...

The Heroes (First Law World #5), Joe AbercrombieThe Heroes focuses on a three-day battle set in the same world as the First Law trilogy, about seven years after events of the trilogy itself. Union commander Lord Marshal Kroy leads the Union forces against the much smaller Northern army led by Black Dow. The story features many characters seen in previous First Law novels like Bremer dan Gorst, Lord Marshal Kroy, and the Dogman.The Heroes first published January 2011. They say Black Dow's killed

600 pages for only 3 days of battle and more grittiness, dark humor, blood and guts than in any other First law book and that is saying something.There isn't much else to say just Abercrombie at his best.

I was eager to put my eyes on “The Heroes”, because I was still high from Best Served Cold and I didn’t read Mr. Abercrombie’s book for some time. The fact is that “The Heroes” decreased my fangirlism a little bit. But let’s start from the tasty bits. Joe Abercrombie always has smth tasty in his books. “The Heroes” is a military fantasy novel, which offered me a rather unique and interesting glimpse into war and warriors who are annoyed with fighting a war.I always love to find the so called Abe...

‘Unhappy the land thatis in need of heroes’Bertolt Brecht. From all Abercrombie's books that I've read, this book is by far my favourite, its a military fantasy with a dash of politics, this book is in five parts, Before the battle, day one to three of battles then after the battle, the whole book is filled with gruesome explicit battle, it was awesome, the detailing is what I love most. Do not even get me started on the characters, almost all of them are morally ambiguous, I can count on one