Hanne's Reviews > The Heroes

I've been reading a lot of Abercrombie lately - one a month for the past 5 months to be exact. One more to go and (sad face) it'll be over for a while. I hope Abercrombie is writing fast!

This book contains more of what Abercrombie is absolutely brilliant at:
Gritty, dark but oh so real. This book tells the story of war: the Union and the Northmen have been in a cat-and-mouse-war for a while, but the council needs their army elsewhere and commands a short end to this war. We'll get three days of war.
Abercrombie shows the victories, the failures, the astonished reactions to new weapons. He writes about the 'heroes' but about the 'cowards'. One of the young lads in this war, son of a famous Named Man, always dreamt of becoming a famous fighter, but he chickens out of his first attack and hides in a cupboard.


And yet, what Abercrombie does so well is to balance all that heavy stuff with a lot of humour. Black humour usually, but he regularly makes me chuckle nonetheless. There are many moments i could have chosen, but i'm copying the one on the invention of sliced bread (parts of it, that is).

"I sliced the bread thin, d'you see?" (Whirrun slicing bread with his sword)
"Sliced bread?" Wonderful turned away from the black valley to watch him. "Can't see it catching on, can you?"
Whirrun ignored 'em. "Then when I got two cut, I trap the cheese between them and there you have it!"
‘Bread and cheese.’ Yon weighed the half-loaf in one hand and the cheese in the other. ‘Just the same as I’ve got.’
Whirrun sighed. ‘Have none of you no vision? A whole new thing. A forging of the humble part of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it … a cheese-trap.’ Whirrun took a dainty nibble from one corner. ‘Oh, yes, my friends. This tastes like … progress…”
(...)
Whirrun pointed at her harply with his whole new thing and the cheese fell out into the unlit fire. Wonderful near fell over from laughing. Yon snorted so hard he blew bread out of his nose.
Whirrun frowned at his two flapping slices of read. "Don't think i wrapped it tight enough."


Last but (definitely) not least, in this book Abercrombie shows again his brilliant character building. So many characters to cheer for. Too many to all put down here, so i'll just stick to my absolutely favorites:

Finree, daughter of the marshall:
Finree: "They're idiots!"
Hal: "Have you ever noticed that everyone's an idiot but you?"
Finree: "You see it too?"

But there's also Calder (a thinker, not really a fighter) and Craw (an experienced Named Man):
Calder: "Guess he couldn't beat the Union without my mighty sword-arm."
Craw: "What's his plan? Cut it off and throw it at 'em?"


This book is not for the faint-hearted. It's about war and all the little things that go along with war. It's a really good book, but personally i still prefer Best Served Cold. Maybe just a little too much war in this one. I preferred the revenge plotting over these wargames, which seems so ... pointless. But i guess that might actually be the point after all.


“The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.”