Reviews

The Last Argument of Kings makes it clear that the first two books in this series were only the first 2/3rds of one large book. As with the other 2 books, there’s not much of a self contained plot here, rather it spends its entire length paying off and wrapping up every question you already had. It makes for an immensely satisfying read.

The biggest concern I have after reading this is seeing Abercrombie’s obvious skill with a great plot and how many twists and turns he was able to throw in here, and then asking why we had to throw all of them into the last book. Could we not have sprinkled some of these big reveals throughout the series? There’s a few big reveals, one in particular with Luthar that happen almost immediately in the story that I just think would have served for a great cliffhanger ending in book 2. At the very least it would have given me some hope that this plot was ultimately going somewhere. I mentioned in my reviews of the other books that I might raise the rating or lower it depending on how the series ends, and as I’ve thought about it, I think 4/5 is fairly generous for the first two books. You have to be extremely patient in them and although they are made retroactively great by book number 3, I still disagree with the choice the author made to put all of the juicy reveals in the last book of the trilogy. I much prefer a steady drip feed of cool twists and turns. It bothers me as well that the prior books don’t answer any of the questions they pose, and this book pays them off without even reminding me about those events. I’m fortunate that I read all three mostly in a row so it was also fresh in my memory, but had I taken a year or two between books I would have been completely lost in this one.

Getting all the criticisms out of the way first, there were still a lot of unanswered questions about the “why” of everything that I thought we’d get answers to, especially when it comes to the magical elements in characters like Logen and Faroh. Faroh’s explanation for what she can do gets hand waved away with a pretty boring inspiration, but it seems like later in the book she actually has a similar ability to what Logen can do based on voices she’s hearing. And Logen they didn’t even try to explain where his magic came from. I understand that in the grand scheme of the story, these details aren’t really that important to the story, but as a fantasy fan I like knowing a bit more about where the magic in the world comes from. On the same note, I didn’t particularly care for some of the long magic battles. While they’re wonderfully and brutally descriptive, they usually were between random mages that we’ve heard little details about but not ones I really remember all that well. It lead to those battles having very little stakes in my eyes as I was reading them, despite them being the ones where the world was most likely to completely end.

Ok, now on to the good stuff. This book is still a masterpiece of grim dark fantasy, a sub genre that honestly I don’t care for all that much in general, but any book done well can be a masterpiece still. I’m a simple man who loves a good Heros story of good conquering evil and marrying the princess and happily ever after, and if you know how this story ends with Luthar (who is our closest thing to our typical fantasy hero), you’ll know how painfully and hilariously that trope got turned on its head. The most brilliant thing about it is that while I’m reading I’m cheering for our POV characters, then after I put the book down and think about it I’ll realize how delightfully evil it all was. I mean, this book tackles all sorts of evil deeds and for most of them you’ll be cheering on our protagonists as they carry them out. There are of course some exceptions where evil acts are done and your stomach drops with the horror of it. It’s not something that necessarily glories in the evil act itself, rather the characters are so sympathetic and so beaten down by this world that when they get any small victory it makes me elated as a reader.

So now that I’ve gone through general thoughts, let’s look at the characters. Even in my absolutely favorite books like the Stormlight archive or Harry Potter, I’m never as consistently delighted to be in every characters POV. They’re all brilliant. Some are great because you love them, some because you hate them, but every single one of them is unique and surprising and has a fantastic ending when considering the entire three story arc.

Logen: this one is cool. The themes of the story are most present in his story, and the character itself is just a delight to read. I was impressed that we didn’t shy away from the more horrific aspects of his powers in this book like we had in the other two and felt genuinely heartbroken at some of his more painful moments. One really great thing about him is that he starts the series as a guy where you think, “sure he did a lot of bad stuff in the past, but he’s a better person now so it’s ok to root for him!” Well, no. You should never root for him. He’s still just as evil as he was, he just isn’t nearly as realistic with himself as he thinks he is.

Glokta: he still competes with Dalinar Kholin from Stormlight Archive for me as the greatest fantasy character of all time. He’s a man that embodies grim dark for me: people rarely ever get what they deserve. When he was a hero fighting bravely on the battlefield, he ended up being mutilated and tortured for 2 years in a cage too small for him. Now that he’s a disfigured and pathetic evil torturer, things are finally looking up! The coolest thing about him what you’ll find in great characters like Tyrion Lannister. They don’t just fight their way out of problems, they literally can’t. The only way they survive is with clever tricks and always thinking 3 steps ahead of everyone else. Glokta proved just how smart and ruthless he is in this one. While we see a far darker side of him as the stakes in the story increase, we also see a far more tender and vulnerable side to him, making us care for him all that much more. Some people might think his story ends on kind of a strange note, but I entirely disagree, and it’s something that I’ll get into in my paragraph about the themes of the story.

Baez: imagine if Gandalf were actually Sauron.

West: one of the only few really honorable characters in this story (aside from the one time he beat his sister near to death, but we don’t talk about that.) The book tries to make an argument that he’s more evil than you think, but I don’t really buy it. Based on the time I’ve spent with him now, I actually feel less convinced that he acted in character for the sister beat down. We’ve watched him in some really desperate times, and even when he did his big “evil” act in book 2, I was cheering for him the whole time. Not only that, but he did it cool and collected. I never really felt he lived up to the name “Furious” that they gave him. He always seemed pretty even tempered to me (again, aside from the sister beat down). I loved seeing how much he was willing to sacrifice for his country, and sacrifice he certainly does. I really don’t think we needed to watch him beat his sister though. It added tension, sure, but all the characters move past it quickly enough and it doesn’t serve any real plot function. Not only that, it seems a bit out of character from how I perceive his actions to be in the rest of the story.

Faroh: probably the weakest of the main protagonists story wise, though she’s still so much fun to read. It’s nice seeing how she slowly starts to value human life somehow, despite everything.

Luthar: his is one of the funniest stories in the whole book. If you had come into this story at the very end of it you could check off every single one of the fantasy tropes. When dive a bit more into it though, you’ll see how hilariously wrong that assumption would be. I’m still trying to keep this spoiler free, but all the clever ways the author turns the trope on its head just make me laugh.

Themes: so, here’s where I’m going to talk about the themes that I think make this an immensely satisfying trilogy to read. The big ones that pop up over and over again are these. People can’t change, history is cyclical, and people don’t often get what they deserve. When you look at the story through that perspective, it makes complete sense where the story ends for all of our characters. I’ve heard some people say that Logen’s story ends on a cliffhanger, but when you consider the themes, it really doesn’t. It will continue exactly where this book trilogy began as history repeats itself and Logen will just end up repeating the same series of events for the rest of time. He will try to improve himself, make horrible mistakes, and end up worse than he was at the beginning. The same goes for Luthar who is rewarded for doing absolutely nothing and Glokta who is rewarded for his persistent evil deeds. Each of them try to do good deeds every once in awhile, but more often than not they are punished for those.

The story is like a poem where the last verse rhymes with the very first one. Everything has changed, and at the same time, nothing has. What a brilliant story. It’s bleak, sure, but still satisfying as heck. Easy 5/5. This is a masterpiece.