“I have a conscience, but it’s a feeble, withered shred of a thing. It couldn’t protect you or anyone else from a stiff breeze.” Glokta sighed, long and hard. . . “You could not even guess at the things I’ve done. Awful, evil, obscene, the telling of them alone could make you puke.” He shrugged. “They nag at me from time to time, but I tell myself I had good reasons. The years pass, the unimaginable becomes everyday, the hideous becomes tedious, the unbearable becomes routine. I push it all into the dark corners of my mind, and it’s incredible the room back there. Amazing what one can live with.”
- Title: Before They Are Hanged
- Author: Joe Abercrombie
- Genre: High Fantasy
- Year: 2007
Before They Are Hanged is book two of The First Law trilogy, and this review will contain spoilers of the first book. For my review of book one, The Blade Itself, click here.
Before They Are Hanged steps up the action by a considerable extent from The Blade Itself, as well as answering many of the questions that have been raised about the history of the Magi, Juvens and the Master Maker, and the rest of the backstory that sets up the present conflict. The plot alternates between three major threads; the war in the North that has the freshly promoted Colonel West and his new allies — Logen’s old northmen crew commanded by Threetrees — dealing with Bethold’s invasion in the face of bureaucracy, backstabbing, and incompetence on his own side, Inquisitor Glokta’s command of the hopeless defense of the distant city of Dagoska as it is besieged by the Gurkish Emperor’s forces, and the quest for the mysterious ’seed’ that has Bayaz, Quai, Longfoot, Logen, Jezal, and Ferro journeying across the remnants of the Old Empire. It’s the stuff of High Fantasy: battles and sieges, quests for magic artifacts, inhuman enemies lurking in ancient cities — but, as in The Blade Itself, Abercrombie delights in skewing things a bit, doing the unexpected, and giving his fantasy a cynical, worldly slant that makes it distinctively different from run-of-the-mill fare.
Again, Abercrombie shows his skill in balancing his many threads and drawing them together, achieving a tightly-paced book. Like its predecessor, Before They Are Hanged is dialog-heavy and character-focused, and it’s the continued growth and revelation of Abercrombie’s characters that is the motive force driving the story forward. Things hinted at in The Blade Itself come into fuller fruition here, as characters are thrust into extremity and reveal themselves in conflict. West’s temper is uglier than we may have guessed, Bayaz’s pride may be of greater power than his judgment, Glokta’s conscience stirs to unexpected life — many of the central characters move in satisfying and interesting directions here, and it’s anyone’s guess just where each may end up.
Ultimately, whether a reader likes Before They Are Hanged depends on their opinion of The Blade Itself — and I can safely say that if you liked the first, you will like the second. Questions are answered and new ones raised, characters push and pull against one another, glimpses of plots are dangled with skill before the reader, and the whole conspires to keep the pages greedily turning — in short, everything is done well and will have fans rushing to get their hands on Last Argument of Kings, the concluding volume of The First Law.
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