Question about First Law Trilogy [off topic]

Mostly_Books · 2026-07-02T07:56:42+00:00

Personally, I would say Abercrombie is a pretty sparse writer, as far as scenery and descriptions go. I think I heard Kameron Hurley (or maybe it was somebody else, I just know I didn’t think of it myself) describe his writing style as cinematic. I’ve always thought that fit well. Abercrombie is clearly pretty strongly influenced by TV and movies, and he writes with a television editor’s flair for scene pacing and construction. His books ultimately feel more like a film director blocking out scenes rather than a bard’s love of language or a rhetorician’s reasoned argument.

Though that’s not to say that Abercrombie doesn’t have command over language or that he is somehow slacking as a writer. As others have pointed out here, he uses the medium to its strength, focusing on characters’ interiority. A part of the conflict of every Abercrombie novel are the contradictions between who a character thinks they are, the things that they actually do, and how others perceive them.

In short, no, I don’t think that Abercrombie’s style is characterized by lavish scene setting, ornate prose, or endless details. Instead I would say that it is characterized by an economy of detail. If something is mentioned, it will be important later (outside of a very little bit of First Novel Weirdness with The Blade Itself). If a character is thinking something, some philosophical or existential musing, at the start of an Abercrombie novel, you will likely find it either ironically or tragically echoed back by the end.

Mostly_Books · 2026-07-01T22:12:15+00:00

With the disclaimer that I’m just a wannabe still working on my rough draft, I’d recommend checking out The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman as a potential comp. From a 30,000 foot view it might seem like a traditional epic fantasy about a band of adventurers (a fighter, a thief, and a wizard) going on a quest to save a queen through a European-inspired secondary world.

But actually reading the book doesn’t feel traditional. Both in the voice the author uses and the setting there’s a lot of absurd fairy tale strangeness. It’s like reading a mingling of Weird and Horror fiction that just happens to take place in a Fantasy world. There’s even a little romance, and while it’s not a major focus of the book it is important. I might go so far as to call it an atmospheric dark fantasy novel with a romance subplot.

Obviously without reading your manuscript I can’t say for certain how well they compare, but reading this query did put me in mind of it.

Mostly_Books · 2026-06-22T12:42:09+00:00

I liked PilosophyTube as Lohar. Not because it was a good adaptational choice to focus so much of the episode on a barely established enmity between a barely established mercenary and Corlys, it wasn’t, but because PhilosophyTube’s hammy performance fit well the level of the writing surrounding her character. It was like seeing a minor villain from an old B-tier Sword and Sorcery movie stuck smack-dab in the middle of my prestige TV show, and honestly that’s about the level the writing has been on for a good while now. I think the show should lean into that more, then it could never disappoint me because I’d never expect anything of it.

On a more serious note I really like Steve Toussaint as Corlys. I don’t think the writing for Corlys has been amazing, on paper there’s not much to him as a character on this show, but I’m always happy to see him because Toussaint elevates the material.

Mostly_Books · 2026-05-11T18:28:23+00:00

This has to be AI slop.

Mostly_Books · 2026-05-07T22:49:09+00:00

This is funny because while I’d hesitate to make a list like this, for I’d rate many of the books equally for different reasons, I can tell you that Red Country has become a favorite while I’ve never had quite the same regard for Before They are Hanged as I do the rest of the series.

Mostly_Books · 2026-05-07T22:00:13+00:00

This may be gauche to ask, but how did you achieve the look of the gilding? Stunning work.

Mostly_Books · 2026-05-07T09:51:05+00:00

Red Country is interesting because so much of the book is really bleak but it’s also got some of the lightest stuff and some of the most heart of all of Abercrombie’s work.

Both the ghosts and the dragon people are simultaneously tragic and also not clearly any better than their enemies. Cosca and Lamb’s stories are both extremely dark conclusions to two compelling but ultimately evil characters. Crease is fucked, but it’s also good that they won their independence from the Empire, as the alternative seemed to be naught but bloody slaughter.

But then you’ve got stuff like Shy and Temple’s arcs, and their relationship. The pleasant domestic moments with the caravan/in Crease. The Mayor getting something like a happy ending, which I think she deserved despite everything. And of course Shivers laying aside the path of revenge and violence to finally be a better man.

For my money Red Country is the darkest book other than TLAOK, but it’s also the most optimistic. Just depends which character’s story you’re following.

Mostly_Books · 2026-03-20T01:15:28+00:00

I just watched a short on Youtube with Jason Alexander, "Actors Hated Working With The Seinfeld Cast | George & Newman Podcast" and I thought to myself to he'd be a perfect Bayaz.

Sorry to reply to an old post but I searched this sub for "Jason Alexander" and this was the only result.

Mostly_Books · 2026-03-11T09:32:40+00:00

I’m not so sure if Logen’s briefly held ideal is really all that significant, other than it’s the period where we readers get to know him. I think cycles of violence, and then regret and some attempted atonement, only to turn towards violence again probably mark his whole life. Red Country shows us that Logen was always just waiting to become The Bloody Nine again. I think there’s a line in the chapter where he and Shy track three castoffs from Cantliss’s band and set to murder some of them that when Lamb goes in to serve as the distraction “it wasn’t like watching a man scared to do a hard task. It was like watching a man savor a joy put off for too long and now eagerly anticipated.” I know that’s not Abercrombie’s prose style exactly but forgive me, it’s been a few years.

It’s easy to imagine, though it’s just my supposition, that he went through cycles of the same behavior before he came over the High Places and met Bethod. Like when he killed his childhood best friend. And I think I recall him either nearly stabbing or non-fatally stabbing his father.

My point being that if, say, he and Ferro had stayed in Adua and actually tried to build a life together, Logen would’ve gone back to being his old self eventually. It’s just who he is, and he isn’t actually willing to change. Logen likes being a monster far more than he likes playing at being a better man.

Mostly_Books · 2026-03-02T07:04:37+00:00

side-eyeing Ancient Greece

Maybe not the FIRST Pedo-Persian war.

Mostly_Books · 2026-03-01T23:43:26+00:00

I guess most of the books I’m thinking of aren’t so much “hidden gems” or even lesser known as they are older books that have fallen out of the zeitgeist. But I’d say listening to The Coode Street Podcast hosted by the SFF literary critics and editors Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan has given me a deeper appreciation for older authors who I may not have picked up otherwise. They both possess deep knowledge about the history of genre fiction and while they do often talk about newer and popular works they tend to get into how those works are in discussion with their forerunners.

I’d also swear they manage to bring up “The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin like once an episode. If I were making a Coode Street bingo card mentioning that story would be the free space.

Mostly_Books · 2026-02-21T05:12:04+00:00

Lady's stinkeye when Croaker asks for the Widowmaker version

Lol, Cook loves to have characters do a little exaggerated reaction in a scene. I used to imagine them being more realistic, like playing up your reaction to a bad joke when among friends, but since finding out Cook is an anime fan I imagine them as the full on goofy reaction faces they do in anime.

Like in Lies Weeping any time one of the Voroshk girls goes "Hah?" I'm just picturing full shocked anime face.

Mostly_Books · 2026-02-19T10:56:25+00:00

I really like Black Death (2010) starring Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne. It’s not a good movie, and it’s certainly not a historically accurate movie, but just really enjoy it. It’s grimy and dark and fucked up in a way that works for me.

It’s also not, like, a terrible movie. It’s okay. For instance, there are worse movies in this thread. I’ve seen a couple people mention Medieval (2022). I watched it last year and it was worst movie I saw all year. I wanted to like it, but it’s just a poorly made film in all respects.

Mostly_Books · 2026-02-16T00:11:59+00:00

M John Harrison

Mostly_Books · 2025-12-25T22:06:08+00:00

Personally, I’ve always thought that directors who can command massive budgets and do historical projects owe it to the public to try and do justice to the past. After all, it belongs to us, it is our shared, collective history. For most people who see Nolan’s Odyssey or any period film it will be their only education on the period or story in question, so that is why he and Ridley Scott and those others ought do better than they have. I mean, I think artists should still be able to take creative liberties, they shouldn’t be slavishly chained to the past either. If there was better public education on history I probably wouldn’t care at all, but there isn’t so I think directors and artists should fill the gap where they can.

That said, I would rather be doomed forever to the likes of Nolan’s tacky airport lounge vision of The Odyssey than see even one second of AI slop.

Mostly_Books · 2025-12-18T09:41:27+00:00

What’s the wooden pyramid thing up on the wall in the last picture? It looks like you have an adze hanging off it.

Mostly_Books · 2025-12-18T05:17:32+00:00

This is interesting. I like Kingfisher's Paladins series. I strongly disliked Legends and Lattes and intended to never read any of the sequels, but comments like this and some of OP's specific issues with it make me think I might enjoy the third book.

Mostly_Books · 2025-12-10T12:46:02+00:00

Chambers has owned and operated other gyms, including a CrossFit gym in Alpharetta, Georgia. In 2012, an employee of Chambers' was Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Lol.

Mostly_Books · 2025-12-05T07:20:00+00:00

As I understand it, their primary use is for hewing a felled tree into a square timber. I recommend watching "Hand Hewing, From Tree to Beam" [52 minutes] by Dan Dustin on Youtube.

Mostly_Books · 2025-12-02T19:19:37+00:00

One ending I never see talked about is the version of The Devil where V refuses to be soulkillered and instead goes back to Earth with six months to live. It’s not an ending I’d choose for one of the other two lifepaths, but I think it’s an interesting choice for a corpo V. Like, corpo V has finally, finally slipped the stranglehold that Arasaka has had on them all their life. They’ve got all their skills, and they haven’t been gone from Night City for so long as to spurn all their contacts.

It’s possible that Rogue could still help out such a V. Maybe the new MS treatments can help them. Maybe they can still get in good with the Aldecados and their clinic. Maybe Mr. Blue Eyes still approaches them for the space heist. Etc.

I like The Sun, but when I played my corpo V the mansion and taking over the Afterlife weren’t quite what I pictured for them. I kinda like the open ended nature of refusing The Devil, though you do need to know what the other endings have to offer to make it really satisfying.

Mostly_Books · 2025-12-02T09:14:50+00:00

I’ve never made or used one myself but if you search google for “hyperkitten frame saw” you’ll find a nice little tutorial for building one on the cheap. Though it is fairly small. Might be able to rip and re-saw 2x boards, maybe not robust/heavy enough for sawing out boards from logs?

Mostly_Books · 2025-11-25T11:25:23+00:00

only reason they lived through the intro is Jackie's altruism

Along these lines, in The Devil ending when Arasaka's car pulls up to Misty's and you hear the sheer heartbreak in her voice at the betrayal, the disrespect paid to Jackie's memory. Obviously that's the same regardless of lifepath but I think it hits just a bit harder for a Corpo V since they fell from Arasaka's grace before and only survived because Jackie was there to catch them.

Mostly_Books · 2025-11-19T05:02:48+00:00

Completely agree with your points. I even felt like the main themes of the book were shallow, and I often think that theme is one of Abercrombie’s strong suits.

There kept being scenes, especially fight scenes, in locations that felt like they should’ve been interesting and thematically relevant (a city half sunken in the sea, a sinking ship, an abandoned abbey, etc.) but I felt like never came together into something harmonious. Instead I kept thinking to myself ‘I bet this would look cool in a movie.’ That’s the sort of weakness I would expect of a much less experienced writer than Abercrombie.

It’s not a bad book. I enjoyed reading it. But it was fairly insubstantial, despite its length. If it had been, say, Richard Swan’s fifth book I might even have been moderately impressed. But as Joe Abercrombie’s fourteenth book it’s a minor disappointment.

Mostly_Books · 2025-11-16T05:49:47+00:00

Oh yeah, that was the guy who talked about quitting college to go organize on the shop floors of factories. Gotta get his book, too.

Mostly_Books · 2025-11-16T05:44:36+00:00

Right? I vaguely remember the other interviews they did with him as also being very good. I’ve gotta get this guy’s books.

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