Best Served Cold

Monza Murcatto, Captain of the Thousand Swords mercenaries and her brother Beno, are (almost) assassinated by their longtime employer and supposed sponsor, Grand Duke Orzo (with five accomplices). Monza survives with brutal scars, a ruined right hand and the rest of the book is about her revenge mission to assassinate all six of her assassins. Along the way Monza collects her own accomplices: Caul Shivers a tall, rugged warrior from the north who wants to leave behind violence to become “a better man”, Cosca, the very charismatic, very garrulous previous captain of of the Thousand Swords, now an alcoholic; Friendly, an institutionalized, counting-obsessed (autistic), simple, powerful, violent yet preternaturally calm man, Morveer a professional poisoner, short, ugly, amoral, pedantic and self obsessed.

I love Abercrombie’s books because the characters are clearly, vividly legible with clear characteristics and verbal tics so that as an fantasy RPG player they give me ideas to steal about how I can make my 3rd level hobbit rogue a more distinct presence during a game. And in all of the books these distinct characters are, in addition, amoral, violent, untrustworthy. To continue the RPG theme, in this book all the characters, the PCs in Monza’s crew and the NPCs they overcome (mostly) are horrible people but the PCs have, additionally, sympathetic, plausible back stories such that you easily begin to root for Monza or Caul to win, yet then you encounter a passage where Monza does something completely reprehensible, revolting so you stop, notice how horrible this is and you think, “JA you fucking tricksie talented bastard making me root for Monza!”.

The prose is just consistently above average to excellent, collectible and yet I have waited too long to flag a pull-quote so the following is just adequately representative, but there are many better I am sure.

“Why did you favour Styria with your presence, anyway?” asked Morveer. “Why not stay in the North, swaddled in the magic mists?”
Shivers rubbed slowly at the side of his neck. Seemed a strange reason, now, and he felt even more of a fool saying it. “I came here to be a better man.”
“Starting from where you are, I hardly think that would prove too difficult.” Shivers had some pride still, and this prick's sniggering was starting to grate on it. He'd have liked to just knock him off his cart with an axe. But he was trying to do better, so he leaned over instead and spoke in Northern, nice and careful. “I think you've got a head full of shit, which is no surprise because your face looks like an arse. You little men are all the same. Always trying to prove how clever y'are so you've something to be proud of. But it don't matter how much you laugh at me, I've won already. You'll never be tall.”