Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

I first read this book nine years ago and my memory of it was rather hazy: I could remember the Bloody-Nine alright, and Glokta was a name that rang heavily in my ears, but otherwise most of it was cloudy, vague memories of possibilities. After finishing my Annual Reading Challenge six months early-and having read mostly genres that were not my favourite just to see how I fared with them-I knew I needed something good: something I knew (or thought I knew) I liked.

I'm so happy that I was not disappointed. I was instantly transported once again to Adua, the stinking great city of the Union and I was with the Bloody-Nine once again. Memories flooded back, but still there were surprises in-store. I didn't recall Ferro at all: the escaped slave-girl, full of malice and hatred, rather annoying yet obviously welcoming redeeming features in the future, and Bayaz himself. In fact, I'd completely mis-remembered the plot and didn't realise there was magic involved. This got me even more excited.

The First of the Magi, Bayaz, is returning to civilisation again. Wars are ever on-going, the Union is pressed on two fronts with the Gurkish and the Northmen. New kings have risen and yet, in the city of Auda, the very heart of the empire, the only thing any of the self-important fops care for is who will win the Fencing Contest.

The book begins slowly: of course, to introduce the many characters, weave the many threads and set out the many, many political intrigues of the world. I couldn't fathom how they all tied together: why are we following a Northerner who's only life has been killed and then switching to a pompous, self-important, stuck-up little swine of a Union soldier? This felt strange and yet intrigued me. It took maybe 100 pages altogether, but afterwards I was hooked. It has been a long while since I didn't want to work and instead read. Hell, I even stopped playing Destiny 2 to read this. Now that is commitment.

The story is developing nicely, the characters all suitably arranged. They all seem destestable, and yet we have a hierarchy of detestation and can pick a level of it to slot ourselves in to wherever we feel comfortable. They're all vile and I love it.

What I was not expecting was how much I would fall in love with Sand dan Glokta. In my memory of this book he was an 85-year-old, lethal little man, bitter, snide, awful, self-absorbed. Poor cripple, oh poor him. But no: he is witty-yes bitter but who wouldn't be?-35-years-old, tried and tested and almost dead inside. And yet there is a spark there that I can see, and I enjoy every moment we are with him. I find myself wondering of him whilst we move to other countries and lands, thinking on how he fares. This is not right: he is mean and disfigured and, well, a torturer. How can you love a torturer? It is often said that the victim becomes the crime and this is no different, and yet it feels different. I cannot explain it, it is just so.

I have often re-read books before, waiting at least five years between the two, and have often been disappointed. Books from my youth are not so magical, not quite so wonderful as I always recalled that they were. Harry Potter, Abhorsen, to name but a couple: but this lived up to everything I remembered and more. My only gripe? The dialogue. The words are fine, they move the plot along nicely and we get an insight to the speakers, but the exclamation marks are verging on tedious. We have at least 5 in every paragraph that contains text, every single character seems to scream, shout, cry. I can avoid them for the most part, but if it continues I do not know if those who speak them will come out the other end in my favour.

I am not so dead inside that I cannot see that this is gritty, grim, dark and visceral. It cuts and spins, twists and slashes at every moment, but that has no effect upon me. The battles leave me wanting other things, I care not for them, and yet when they end I want more. It does not frighten nor quicken the pulse, but then again it does not easily lie down and go to sleep. Abercrombie's Shattered Sea series was abysmal: I didn't not finish it. It was watered-down twaddle for the easy-to-buy, quick-to-praise YA market. This is what I love with High Fantasy.