The Sword and Laser discussion

I haven't read Abercrombie since the First Law trilogy, and though I enjoyed the reading of most of the series, the end of the trilogy gave me kind of the same feeling as contemplating the heat death of the most nihilistic universe ever. It was so bleak that it seemed contrived as an exercise to make reader's sad.

Now, here I am, 80% of the way through The Devils. It is good. The characters are diverse, weird and quirky and have funny conversations. The action is good, the adventure is satisfying. I feel a bit like I should just stop. The whole thing is making me very nervous.

Now you've got me scared.

Well, I got there. I'll do spoiler tags, but still avoid specifics. (view spoiler)[ Of course they don't all make it, how could they? And the death is earned - in the sense that it's a mechanism that is foreshadowed more than once earlier in the books. It still feels calculated to make the reader feel crappy. It's bad enough that characters are rolling natural 20's throughout the book to avoid dying and then run out of luck at the end - that would just feel arbitrary. This is more like the author spends the whole book creating a button labelled "make the reader feel crappy" and then waits until the crappiest moment to push it. Anyway, the guy writes good books. Good humor, snappy dialogue, all that stuff - but I always end up enjoying the journey and regretting the end. (hide spoiler)]

^ Even worse, (view spoiler)[the moment was played for laughs. "Vigga, you are behaving badly!" (callback to previous scenes) It's Baptiste asserting herself! Except she gets eaten and then vomited back up for her trouble. (hide spoiler)]

Seems impractical that the binding doesn't prevent that. Although this is a book almost without rules.

I am going to be a little grotesque here.

(view spoiler)[Balthazar is a necromancer. The best in Europe, if he does say so himself. Is he capable of raising Baptiste? He's able to summon the highest (lowest?) demon of Hell so what could he do for her? And would her resurrected self even want to live again? She isn't even near whole at the end, so what kind of patchwork would be needed? Because I bet you Balthazar will try in the sequel. (hide spoiler)]

John (Taloni) wrote: "I am going to be a little grotesque here.

[spoilers removed]"

OK, you bring up the sequel. (view spoiler)[ For some reason, I was surprised to get to the end and feel like it was immediately set up for a sequel. The journey to get Alex crowned is over, but all the devils feel like they've just positioned themselves for a new episode. Whatever growth Balthazar, Vigga, vampire and even Sunny seemed to have had, it's all reset. Balthazar wants to break the binding, Vigga is a monster, vampire is still vampire, Sunny is once more an object of pity. I mean, I guess that's grimdark, making it seem like however they strive, they're still cursed to be themselves - but it's also convenient from the point of writing a sequel.

As for raising the dead, Balthazar seems like he animates corpses to do his own will rather than returning their own souls to them, so I figured Baptiste was really dead, dead. But you're probably right, there's too many occult doings going on to keep Baptiste dead forever. (hide spoiler)]