Plenty of Abercrombie fans on here I reckon – anyone picked up his latest, came out last month?

Have to say I loved it for all the usual reasons – great wit and energy to his characters, black humour, dialog etc but was a bit disappointed in that it felt like I’d read it all before. A lot of the same characters doing and saying the same things. Very entertaining and engaging, but was hoping for something a bit different.
He is using the backdrop of an industrial revolution and social change, which is a new direction and done pretty well, but really just drives one voice in the narrative.

Anyhow, if you like a bit of Grimdark I don’t think you will be disappointed. He’s at a really high level with his craft now (and he was good when he started out) – exceptional stylist.

Just reading it now and I’d agree that it feels like a bit of a re-hash. Also it’s difficult to replace great characters like the Bloody-Nine. Still entertaining but not quite “un-put-down-able” like some of his previous books,

Have it on the shelf waiting, just finishing a reread of the first three, even half as good will still be right up my street. Went to meet him in Glasgow the other week, quite amusing, picked up a signed copy too.

It’s in the queue. Just finishing the Legends of the Apt series first.

Keeping it for my holiday next week…it hasn’t had great reviews though.

I looked at it in Waterstones in Bath yesterday, but decided to buy Neil Stephenson’s most recent two, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. And Fall, or Dodge In Hell as ebooks, they’re a lot easier to manage for reading during breaks at work on my phone.

Are we not way past the point where Abercrombie starts reusing old ideas? No more bloody nine? Here, have another berserker. I don’t mind, I love what he does and I can’t blame him for feeding his market but I do wish he’d branch out more- loved the “half a” series.

Yeah even the greatest writers only really write one way, but some of this stuff is like a Star Wars film – that character sequence worked great in the first film, so let’s just do it again. The ex-soldier, trying to be a good man and live an honest life providing for his family – but can’t seem to escape his violent past. Perhaps he was just made to kill things?

tbf two really strong female voices in this one and he’s also set up a potentially good confrontation of technology. One setting in like Manchester circa 1800, whereas the folk up the coast are more iron age 200 BC, so he could take that somewhere interesting.