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ArisKatsaris comments on July 2015 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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Fiction Books Thread
Still reading through the Abercrombie's The First Law series. It's not a conflict between Good and Evil, it's not a conflict between Good and Good (one Orson Card would consider more interesting). It's a conflict between roughly equally "evil" people and/or groups. This holds externally, as well as internally: even the characters themselves (well, the smarter ones in the series, anyway), have no illusion about being more "objectively moral" than their opponents.
I find this pretty rare. And refreshing. Even HPMoR has a clear Good vs Evil narrative, which I dislike. Thus I've been rooting for HPMoR!Quirrell throughout the story, up until the last arc, where he holds the idiot ball and seems to be forced to take various inexplicable actions, completely out of character.
Abercrombie's portrayal of war as brutal is extremely graphic. Sort of like in Saving Private Ryan. Certainly more graphic than, say, in GoT, flaying and all. I am not normally a fan of visual violence, but the way he does it does not turn me off. Your mileage may vary.
There are several minor things I dislike about the series. One is that a few characters are visibly bent to follow the narrative, or because the author likes or dislikes them (Jezal, Shivers and Gorst come to mind). Another is that the same (uncommon) way to express a certain emotional state is repeated rather often, sort of like in Brandon Sanderson's novels, where a hard-to-perform physical action of raising just one eyebrow is a near universal way of expressing surprise or incredulity.
On the whole, I am surprised how little recognition Abercrombie gets, given the quality of his writing.
Don't be too hard on Quirrell, he got the Prophesy Plague.
If this is not a trope, it should be.
Within the fantasy genre, he seems well known as the current authority on the (seriously labeled, humorously adopted by him) 'grimdark' genre.
If you like that, you'll probably loveBest Served Cold and The Heroes. He's got the trappings of a debutante in The First Law, but those two books show an experienced designer at work.
There's something Tarantino-like about him, as applied to fantasy fiction. An ability to confer personality through changes in writing style is probably what truly sets him apart from other fantasy authors, though. Above all, he is able to tell when a character has no stories left to tell, and usually sets them aside in favor of a minor character from a previous fiction.
When Steven Erikson and George Martin do it, it sometimes seems arbitrary, a reminder to the reader that it's a shitty world where shitty things happen, and they are often taken out of the plot by death or worse.
It feels more (I'm not sure if the denouement of the First Law might allow this to make more sense, or reveal it to be an old impression that does not match reality- it's definitely the case in his more recent adult books) natural in Abercrombie's books, and I don't doubt that feeling is entirely deliberate. I have an impression that he's a writer that doesn't leave much to chance, artistic whim, or fits of inspiration.
Just finished The Heroes, one more book and a few stories to go in the series. Looking forward to them.
A.E. Housman: