| Date: 14 April 2011, 06:54
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Alright, I'll confess: I loved this trilogy and I enjoyed the third installment every bit as much as the first two. This is an unconvential fantasy epic that stands typical fantasy stereotypes on their heads and I had a blast reading it and would unhesitatingly recommend the entire series. This is fantasy with dirt under the fingernails and pus festering under ragged scabs though. Sure, you have your traditional cast of characters...barbarian warrior, old wizard, handsome young captain, and a fearless warrioress, etc. but Abercrombie takes these archetypal characters and gives them deep character flaws, dodgy pasts, and poor attitudes. They must face hard circumstances in a complicated and morally ambiguous world. His books are complex and extremely well-plotted, the characterization superb, the dialogue excellent, and the writing is involving and keeps you riveted to your seat. Even though this finale ran over 600 pages I managed to bang it out in a day, partially because it is so deliciously readable but equally because I simply couldn't put it down until I finished it.
The Last Argument of Kings is a grand finale too. Abercrombie satisfactorily ties up most all of the major plot points but there is enough ambiguity at the end that additional books would not necessarily be precluded. Personally, I would have preferred a tighter, less ambiguous ending but I wouldn't be surprised if elements of the ending weren't driven by the editor/publisher. I'll forgive Abercrombie for it and, I confess!, I still loved the book and think it is a wonderful five star read.
I'd hazard a guess though that there will be some readers who may not like how this series ended...because it isn't necessarily pretty and it certainly isn't a fairy tale ending. Unlike those tidier fantasy stories, Abercrombie doesn't forget that battlefield corpses don't just magically disappear and besieged cities aren't magically made whole at the end of the day. His is a dirty, gritty world every bit as nasty as medieval Europe and the story and the endings reflect this adherence to realism. As Logen Nine-Fingers often says, you have to be realistic. Abercrombie definitely is realistic and the story reflects it. Wounds come at the price of disfigurement and death, people will do awful things to accomplish their goals, and people aren't charitably motivated. The weak get squashed, soldiers get maimed, the powerful do horrendous evil to hang onto their power and the more things change, the more they stay the same. You have to be realistic about these things dear reader, and that realism is what sets this trilogy apart and makes it such a great read.
The first two novels present enough character development that a reader could hope that the books would end on a high note in a Tolkienesque fashion, but they also provided plenty of clues that there could be a grim ending indeed. I won't give away any of the plot and ruin your enjoyment, but I will say that this book did not disappoint me, was just as compelling a read as the first two, and the story gets the ending that fits it even if it may not be exactly what most readers expect. It is the ending the story deserves though.
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