The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Spoiler away! But keep spoilers limited to Books 1 and 2 of the Shattered Sea.

Great end to the 2nd book.

I remember reading an interview or blog post by Abercrombie before HaK came out and he was asked/responding to questions about how much sex and violence to expect. I recall he mentioned there would be plenty of violence but the sex would be toned down. It was nice to see some dry humping, fumbling, groping, and alleged sex after Rin set Thorn and Brand straight.

The prophecy that no man could kill Grom-Gil-Gorm was a pretty big hint that eventually he would face Thorn. I wasn't sure what to expect from the battle, but was happy the way it ended. It would have been a bit too simple if Thorn had won, and obviously I didnt want her to die, so it was nice to see Yarvi's deep cunning pay off once again.

Looks like we wont have to wait long for Half a War - it drops on July 16th!

Really enjoyed the ending. After all my whining I was glad Thorn and Brand ended up together. If I had to read all that high school drama might as well have a happy ending. :)

Thought it was a really clever way to end the duel and have everything work out.

Shocked book 3 is releasing so soon.

Awesome, I am glad you liked it too Bill. I think the general consensus so far is that Book II is much better than Book I.

I think Abercrombie had pretty much written all of this before book I was published, and was putting the final edits on book III as book I was released, if i recall.

Nice wish more authors took that approach.

Sky wrote: "Great end to the 2nd book.

I remember reading an interview or blog post by Abercrombie before HaK came out and he was asked/responding to questions about how much sex and violence to expect. I ..."

When I read your post that the third book comes out July 28th, I rushed straight to Amazon to put it on my wish list! I remember seeing on Goodreads last year that both books would come out this year, but I thought that was a mistake. Only 5 more months to wait then! Now there's 3 books coming out on the 28th that I need to pre-order: Dinosaur Wars, Armada and Half a War.

And I wanted to add that the sex scenes read really awkward for me at first until I started to think that it actually was written very realistically! Good on Abercrombie for that.

Oh....and I really hope we can do another read long on this group for the third one, too! I really enjoyed reading what you all had to say.

Same here! I am sure Rob will put it on the calendar, we can ask him over in the suggest a book for a group read thread :)

I just headed over to that thread and requested a group read for the last book. Thanks for the tip, Sky! I'm fairly new to this group and hadn't realized you could do that :)

I really, really enjoyed this one. The duel was great. Also glad it ended the way it did, Grom is too kick ass a character to lose out on. Now we get to see how this alliance will work out.

Only complaint I had was no Yarvi POV chapters. I missed being in his head. Hopefully he goes back to it in the third.

Oh yeah and the very end made me laugh and kinda cheer. I was really hoping Hunnan was going to test Thorn so we could watch him get his ass kicked. Also thought the last scene between Yarvi and Brand just cemented Brand's character in my eyes and Yarvi's surprise was fun

I really liked the ending as well , it could have only been better if Grom took out Isriun, although I guess making her a slave is a good penance for her ; )

I like how Abercrombie didn't go for the obvious ending of Thorn killing Grom or visa versa. I started to realize when they kept talking about Yarvi giving Uthil special herbs that didn't seem to be helping him, that the minister was perhaps ensuring the king could not fight. Yarvi is most certainly a "deep cunning" man. (i think that was mentioned a time or two).

Brand and Thorn were a good compliment to each other and the carrying forward of many key characters from HaK was great. Overall a really good read, it kept me interested all the way through.

I didn't realize the next book it coming out so soon either but I will definitely add it to my TBR list.

Thst surprised me as well. I don't know if it was mentioned or not but I wonder if he wrote the entire trilogy in one go as if it was one book broken up into 3 parts

Love the phrase "deep-cunning man" That man does have an excellent way with words

I enjoyed this one a lot more than book 1. Even though I predicted some things, it didn't feel quite as predictable, and I liked the additional world-building. I think Brand may be the first Abercrombie character I've encountered that is just a good guy. I liked the duel, and the unexpected (to me) outcome, and I like how sneaky Yarvi is.

Well I called Thorn fighting Grom. Or meant to. The whole "no man shall kill me" screamed foreshadowing.

I'm kind of glad she didn't win or lose. I was going to be pissed if she died for her arogance.

I LOVE that she's going to train the girls. I haven't liked Hunnan since the first book.

I hope he gets his in the end. I liked both Thorn and Brand sticking it to him.

I thought the romance was much better done in this section. It changed my mind after the last section.

Good on Rin

Personally I hope we don't get more Yarvi POVs. I like him far more in the background for some reason.

I liked Yarvi more this book too - that bit of distance helped.

I thought the ending we good - there are still big events on the horizon but the plot wrapped up well.

Does anyone know if book 3 will focus on new characters like book 2 did?

I kind of hope it doesn't I want more Thorn and Brand myself with Yarvi as a supporting character again.

Rob wrote: "I kind of hope it doesn't I want more Thorn and Brand myself with Yarvi as a supporting character again."

I'd be down with that as well.

I also wouldn't mind getting some Yarvi POV though. Sneaky bastard

I like it better not knowing his plans until they are revealed I think.

The goodreads description of Half a War sounds like it is the same POVs, unless they recycled books 2's description (it sounds awfully similar). I checked Joe's blog to see if he says anything about the plot an POV characters and only found this, when discussing editing progress on the book:

Otherwise it was a host of small tweaks, mostly centring on one of the three viewpoint characters, who, it was felt, was too sure of herself, too adult, and lacked a clear mission in the book. A lot of other minor issues to attend to, plus a thorough, detailed overhaul of the writing with an eye to cut, cut, cutting anything that made me the slightest bit uncomfortable. Ended up with a much improved book, I think, and one some 3,000 words shorter, despite all the additions of new thoughts.