Fantasy Book Club Series discussion

Dang but this prologue! Wowzie! Probably the most violent start of a book ever....


Couple things: DId anyone else think Monza and Benna were lovers instead of brother and sister? Kind of creepy on the boundary issues side of things....

Poor Foscar-I dont think this is going to end well for him....but I guess thats the thing about revenge...

Yep, the Monza, Benna relationship definitely gives you an impression of a more physical love. Duke Orso seems a little different to how we read him in the last book. I know we didn't get to see much of him, but in this book I feel like he is a different character altogether.
Bit of a stereotypical character build with the princes though. I have had a lot of expectation on character development after the First Law series.

i was definitely surprised when i found out that Monza and Benna were siblings. I would never have guessed that from the first couple of pages. At least my brothers would never talk to me like that :)

On the character-building, of course last time Abercrombie took entire book to do his character building, now he did most of it in the first couple of pages. I think he still did a marvelous job on Monza (I'm totally on the revenge-path with her!) but he did compromise on some of the others indeed.
But then, you never know, i thought for a long time that Bayaz was the good guy as well. Maybe Foscar will surprise us

Maggie wrote: "Dang but this prologue! Wowzie! Probably the most violent start of a book ever....


Couple things: DId anyone else think Monza and Benna were lovers instead of brother and sister? Kind of creepy..."

Abercrombie has that knack of making one constantly aware of the pain his characters are in. Monza getting her hand crushed made me wince.

And yes, I did initially think Monza and Benna were lovers until I found out they were siblings. But, as that other character likes to say who hasn't turned up yet - "why can't you be both?" Because that would be really really gross! And I'm 2/3 in and I'm still not sure they weren't. Maybe they were just really really close.

also, what do we think about the house of Valint and Balk being so involved in the Styrian war as well? is Bayaz really involved in everything?

Secondly, how freaky was the bone-thief/healer/doctor/torturer that put Monza back together? He definitely sounds advanced for his time, but especially considering he never expected her to wake up, i thought it was pretty damn freaky that he experimented like that on a living person.

Hanne wrote: "also, what do we think about the house of Valint and Balk being so involved in the Styrian war as well? is Bayaz really involved in everything?."

Its all part of the power struggle between Bayaz and Khulul. Bayaz has the Union and then through marriage extends his influence to Talins. And Khulul has the Ghurkish empire as well as elements of The League of Eight. Its like one big chess board between two wizards.

I wonder if the bone thief shows up again? Maybe at the end to reclaim those gold coins? That would be cool. But, you're the writer Abercrombie.

Oh, I do think we will see him again!

surprisingly

After the constant twists and shake-ups of the trilogy, this one seems really straightforward and predictable, so far. Perhaps a bit too much cribbing from The Count of Monte Cristo. I have no doubt that will change as the story progresses.