Courage can come from many places, and be made of many things, and yesterday’s coward can become tomorrow’s hero in an instant if the time is right. The giddy flood of bravery which Jezal experienced at that moment consisted largely of guilt and fear, and shame at his fear, swollen by a peevish frustration at nothing having turned out the way he had hoped, and a sudden vague awareness that being killed might solve a great number of irritating problems to which he saw no solution. Not noble ingredients, to be sure. But no one ever asks what the baker put in his pie as long as it tastes good.
- Title: Last Argument of Kings
- Author: Joe Abercrombie
- Genre: High Fantasy
- Year: 2008
Last Argument of Kings is book three of The First Law trilogy, and this review will contain spoilers of the first two books. For my review of book one, The Blade Itself, click here.
Reviewing the concluding book of a series is a bit different than doing the same for those that proceed it — what readers of the series want to know isn’t the basic premise of the book or what things the author does well, as they know those things already. What they want is to know if the author delivers on his promises, if, in short, the whole endeavor can be counted a success or rated on some variable scale of disappointment. The answer in the case of Joe Abercrombie’s Last Argument of Kings is a resounding ‘yes.’ Yes, he pulls it off, yes, he maintains and resolves what has come before and, yes, go get it if you haven’t already.
The book begins sometime after the conclusion of Before They Are Hanged, with the return to Adua of the group led by Bayaz in an unsuccessful quest for the Seed. War continues in the North, and Logen Nine Fingers goes to join it. Rebellion in the countryside and a succession crisis for the throne sweep up the other characters — Inquisitor Glokta, playing the political game now with two dangerous masters, a matured Jezal dan Luthar whose new and exaggerated celebrity status makes him an unexpectedly important player, and First of the Magi Bayaz who, with his allies, engages in a deep manipulation of events and himself harnesses a tremendous power.
Abercrombie’s characterization continues to be at once both solid and unexpected, as characters grow in interesting ways and events emerge seamlessly from their motivations. In particular the sharp-edged triangle formed by Glokta, Jezal, and Ardee West is an interesting and surprising dynamic, with each of these characters revealing new facets of themselves in the process. Revelations of Bayaz’s true nature, and of the bloody partnership between Bethold and Logen, also have the reader questioning just where exactly the truth lies.
Which is something of the point of Abercrombie’s skewing of genre tropes. Logen, reunited with his northern compatriots at last, is plunged back into his old role as The Bloody-Nine — at once a hero and villain to the North. Other roles, other archetypes, are assumed by the other players — most notably Jezal — and these too are and undermined and steered away from our expectations. Not for Abercrombie are noble wizards, confident kings, and heroic warriors — his characters are conflicted, powerless, misguided, political, ruthless.
As in the North, War engulfs Adua with the coming of the Gurkish, led by Bayaz’s great enemy Khalul the Prophet, and Bayaz, Ferro, and Jezal are caught squarely in the middle of things. Abercrombie gives us not a heroic clash of arms, but a sordid, bloody, confusing affair which crushes all those in it’s path. Here is the underlying logic of High Fantasy — a game of wizards and wars — taken to its logical, cynical conclusion. Even manifestations of virtue, such as Jezal’s dash of courage depicted in the quote at the top of this review, are revealed as having impure and imprecise motivations. And this, frankly, will not be to everyone’s tastes. There are times when the strong dose of cynicism and bleak depiction of human nature borders on the heavy-handed, but, in the end, I think Abercrombie pulls it off, and the whole works naturally with his themes. Just as a surfeit of virtue is par for the course in the traditional High Fantasy, here we have the negative image of such books, one in which characters are either powerless, psychotic, or tyrannical — but neither extreme reflects reality. But I don’t think realism is Abercrombie’s intent, and in at least acknowledging these faults of human nature as the province of hero and villain alike, he is injecting reality into a medium all-to-often dominated by archetypes and mary sues.
As for those traditional fantasies, Abercrombie offers this winking condemnation in a conversation between two of his most damaged, and least sentimental, characters:
“I’ve been trying to get through this damn book again.” Ardee slapped at a heavy volume lying open, face down, on a chair.
“The Fall of the Master Maker,” muttered Glokta. “That rubbish? All magic and valour, no? I couldn’t get through the first one.”
“I sympathise. I’m onto the third and it doesn’t get any easier. Too many damn wizards. I get them mixed up one with another. It’s all battles and endless bloody journeys, here to there and back again. If I so much as glimpse another map I swear I’ll kill myself.”
The First Law Trilogy has no map, not all that many journeys, only a handful of wizards, but a great deal of battles. It is not a radical departure from High Fantasy, but a High Fantasy skewed toward a different polarity — while the above conversation calls to mind some of the bland traditional fantasies we are all familiar with, I think Abercrombie also knows that Glokta and Ardee, with a bit of a stretch, could very well be talking about his own books. Last Argument of Kings is more honest about a great deal of human ugliness than most fantasy but, like most fantasy, it also exaggerates for effect. It is not to every taste, but nothing with a strong flavor ever is, and for those of us that prefer to risk burning our mouths to always being bored with our meals it’s a treat I can recommend with enthusiasm.
And, a final word about the end of the book, a coda entitled ‘The Beginning’ which mirrors the opening of the trilogy. Some readers have inexplicably complained about it for one reason or another. They are wrong. ‘The Beginning’ is probably the perfect finish for this series, and for the character that is the real heart of The First Law.
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Bill,
I started into your review, but stopped before I read any spoilers. Given your tastes in books so far, and Abercrombie’s DGLA nomination, I might have to move this up my reading list. Thanks,
I think you’ll like them, Dave — and smart move on avoiding the spoilers, although this review really doesn’t contain many.
Great review, Bill. This is one of the best trilogies I’ve read in many a year.