Reviews with content warning for Blood - Last Argument of Kings

"A curse we all have to bear. Round and round in circles we go, clutching at successes that we never grasp, endlessly tripping over the same old failures. Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments."

Phenomenal conclusion to this trilogy, delivered in absolutely epic fashion. About halfway through it was already my favorite of the three books, and it simply went on to enhance those previous installments with more revelations and seamless converging of plot points.

The character work is also tremendous. This series is character focused at the core, and it pays huge dividends in this book when the plot emerges and events begin to unfold.

Abercrombie's humor really hit home for me as well. I knew before starting this series that people considered these books to be constantly hilarious, and I honestly wasn't sure why after the first two books. Sure, they were funny at times, but nothing extraordinarily funny. But this book had me laughing left and right. It was great.

Overall, this book is certainly a new all-time favorite, as well as this series thanks to the payoff this installment provided for the trilogy as a whole. I can't wait to continue reading the next books in the First Law world!

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camam4's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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mikarala's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The final reveal is almost good enough to make me up my rating...but not quite.

Basically sums up my feelings about this series. There are a lot of really interesting, bold elements to this story, and when it all comes together, it feels pretty brilliant, but overall I'm not a fan of how the story builds towards this climax. I feel as though a lot of narrative time and space is taken up by sideplots and secondary storylines, while the main conflict feels sort of undercooked. I really appreciate the genre subversions with the villain and the bleak examinations of power and human nature, but there are enough aspects of this story that frustrated me that I can't really rate it higher.

Spoilers ahead for my specific issues:

Frankly, I had a hard time getting invested in the whole Khalul and his Eaters coming with his Gurkish hordes to attack Adua. I appreciate that the point is that Khalul doesn't actually matter and Bayaz is the real enemy here, as a megalomaniac puppetmaster who likes to play the wise old wizard friend, but to me the lack of development of the opposition kind of weakens that eventual twist. Like, the idea that Bayaz and Khalul are just using the Union and Gurkhul as proxies in their war against each other is great, but I do think that reveal would have been more meaningful if Khalul had been built up more as a villain. Also, on a meta level, I don't appreciate that the Gurkish army are basically this underdeveloped horde of evil brown/Asian peoples. The way they're depicted as less skilled than their white Union/Northmen opponents, but having the strength of numbers, really plays into racist tropes like the Yellow Peril. The fact that it's not challenged or deconstructed at all leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Somewhat related to the previous point, while I find the actual lore fascinating, the way we learn about the lore throughout the story kind of feels belated. It's almost like we're learning about some of the more mystical world-building elements literally as they're having an impact on the story. For that reason, I kind of found it hard to follow or even care about it at times. We spent so much story time developing the conflict in the North, which is basically only relevant to Logen's character arc in the end and a distraction from the main plot, while the big magical conflict at the core of the entire trilogy's climax felt underdeveloped to me. Honestly, I found it disappointing that Bethod & his witch had very little importance in the end; it seemed like a waste to me, and I thought they were going to be connected to the main plot in some meaningful way.

Of course, there were plenty of things I liked about this story anyways. I thought the way the character arcs ended was quite satisfying, albeit pretty depressing too. This book stripped back a lot of the pretense with our main characters, really hammering home the point that they aren't heroes. In the epic fantasy genre, you expect the journey to have a meaningful impact on characters and change their circumstances. But this is a grimdark story, so...

even though the characters become more self-aware of their flaws, they don't fundamentally change. The change in circumstances is not matched by a significant change in beliefs, attitudes, or habits. Even the characters that want to change things find they don't really have the power to do anything different from before,

and while that's a bleak message to send, I also found it kind of satisfying, in a twisted way. I guess because it fits in with what was already established. This is a crapsack world without happy endings, so it would feel cheap if that's what our characters got. Actually, the story kind of deconstructs a couple of seemingly happy endings, which I really enjoyed.

I also found the book quite funny at times, moreso than the first two books, even. While the wry and understated tone can sometimes do a disservice to more dramatic moments that I think would be well-served by a little more emphasis, it does have the benefit of allowing for some quite funny black humour. Like, there's a moment where Glokta basically rhetorically queries

why everyone backstabs him, and Ardee sarcastically replies that maybe it's because he's a villainous backstabber who tortures people for a living

. The lampshade hanging made me laugh out loud.

So it is what it is, I guess. Overall I can't help but feel that this series was full of a lot of wasted potential and intriguing elements that could have been handled better, however, I still quite enjoyed the ride. All of my positive feelings are kind of tempered by disappointment in what could have been improved, but this series is still a fascinating examination and deconstruction of many character archetypes and fantasy tropes that I can definitely recommend.

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imspaceman's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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harley_merlin's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Ich habe diese Reihe vor einem halben Jahr angefangen. Demnach habe ich ganz schön lange gebraucht, was aber nicht an dem Buch lag, sondern eher daran, dass ich mich nicht so lange auf die Geschichte konzentrieren konnte. Eigentlich war sie bis jetzt sehr gut, voller Humor und angenehm brutal, mir waren die einzelnen Bücher aber ein wenig zu lang. Die Charaktere des Buches waren sehr angenehm. Es gab keine Superhelden und auch keine wirklichen Schurken. Dadurch konnte man sich selbst ein Bild von den Charakteren bilden und sich in viele von ihnen hineinversetzen. Die ganze Geschichte war ein wenig blutig, es wurde aber so dargestellt, dass man es eher lustig als brutal fand. Mir hat außerdem gefallen, dass die einzelnen Persönlichkeiten menschliche Probleme und Gefühle hatten und dass ich dadurch mit jedem mitfühlen konnte. Auch die, die am Anfang unnahbar und gefühlskalt wirkten, lernte ich mit der Zeit fast schon zu lieben. Ich denke sie alle hätten mal eine feste Umarmung nötig, auch wenn nicht alle sie verdient hätten. Ich muss sagen, dass ich die ganze Reihe bis hier hin geliebt habe und mich schon riesig auf den nächsten Teil freue. Leider gab es einen blöden Cliffhanger und ich habe das nächste Buch noch nicht zuhause. Ich empfehle das Buch jedem, der blutige Geschichten mit vielen Intrigen mag, auch wenn man es nur entweder hassen oder lieben kann.

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