The First Law Trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie
I finished this trilogy a couple of days ago. It's high fantasy dragged through gritty reality. The characters are gritty, with varying degrees of education, morality, and social ability. It was riveting. I didn't even skip stuff, like I usually end up doing when there is too much description going on, and not enough story. The dialog is fantastic and matches the characters well. There are no real happy endings, but there are endings. All of our heroes have pretty serious pathology of one sort or another going on, some described, some only hinted at, that make their struggles that more intriguing.
My only gripe is that the last book in the trilogy seems to clearly be a set up for more stories later and is somewhat of a cliffhanger. I HATE that!!!
Oh, and this author is obsessed with falling. Describes falls with lots of detail. The trilogy begins with a fall from a cliff into churning waters, and ends with the same. The next book that is being released begins with a fall from a battlement.
By the end of the third book, I did skip a little, as the author seemed to be scrambling a bit. And one of the main characters, who is a maimed torturer, just isn't that believable, maybe because his handicaps are so pounded into the brain.
My only gripe is that the last book in the trilogy seems to clearly be a set up for more stories later and is somewhat of a cliffhanger. I HATE that!!!
Oh, and this author is obsessed with falling. Describes falls with lots of detail. The trilogy begins with a fall from a cliff into churning waters, and ends with the same. The next book that is being released begins with a fall from a battlement.
By the end of the third book, I did skip a little, as the author seemed to be scrambling a bit. And one of the main characters, who is a maimed torturer, just isn't that believable, maybe because his handicaps are so pounded into the brain.