Product Description
The end is coming.
Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him-but it's going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the king of the Northmen still stands firm, and there's only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy: it's time for the Bloody-Nine to come home.
With too many masters and too little time, Superior Glokta is fighting a different kind of war. A secret struggle in which no one is safe, and no one can be trusted. As his days with a sword are far behind him, it's fortunate that he's deadly with his remaining weapons: blackmail, threats, and torture.
Jezal dan Luthar has decided that winning glory is too painful an undertaking and turned his back on soldiering for a simple life with the woman he loves. But love can be painful too-and glory has a nasty habit of creeping up on a man when he least expects it.
The king of the Union lies on his deathbed, the peasants revolt, and the nobles scramble to steal his crown. No one believes that the shadow of war is about to fall across the heart of the Union. Only the First of the Magi can save the world, but there are risks. There is no risk more terrible, than to break the First Law...
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 Wonderful finish for a pragmatic "Sword n' Sorcery" trilogy
To keep this brief, this is a wonderful trilogy that ends in a delightfuly dirty, realistic, and often painful (for both the reader and the characters) series. There are twists and unexpected developments for all! This series does not play to the high epic standard that good things always come to the good, and bad does not alway come to the bad. The characters are complex enough to allow the reader to appreciate the ending and its unexpected ironies as well as the expected endings equally.
As an amature military history buff, the portrail of the gritty hardships shared by officers and soldiers, warriors and leaders alike as they grow to deeper understanding of what the experience of War is like (the capital "W" is deliberate) is admerable.
This is first rate "realistic" fantasy at its best. Every character is flawed, every motive has an underside. This makes this set of books stand apart from the crowd, and demands to be read and experienced. Those who have an appreciation for sarcastic, sardonic and dry humor will find this doubly entertaining.
Mark Cordia
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 Endless torture, endless war ( kerii )
I read the first book of this series and thought it was all right so I bought the next two. That was a mistake. The books are endless torture and endless wars and endless self pitying. I got so irritated with Glotka that I wished he would jump off a bridge and get rid of his aches and pains. The only character I liked was Col. West. I did not understand the reason for Bayaz's journey north; there was nothing there and it seemed like a pointless part of the story.
I will take a very good look before I read any more of this author's works.
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 Rather good fiction ( greatandpowerfulhamster )
I really enjoyed the first two books of the trilogy. The last book is also a great page-turner and a rather good book of fiction. Characters like Sand dan Glokta (the inquisitor) rarely show up in fantasy books and when they do authors usually don't pass an opportunity to judge them. Joe Abercrombie managed to avoid that, which in my opinion made the book better. Unfortunately author could not doing absolutely unwarranted things to advance the plot. I particularly disliked taking all of planning capacity off Jezal. He used to be an astute card player and champion swordsman in book 1 and now he just doesn't make any plans? None? This is just illogical. Another place where author in my opinion could do much better is the pulling the daughter of Master Maker out of nowhere and quickly getting rid of her. Apparently she could not get her revenge over hundreds of years and had to show up simultaneously with the invasion.
By the end of the book it was hard to follow the plot without certain resignation but the book is still exciting.
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Not Free SF Reader ( bluetyson )
A good end to the trilogy.
While the second book had a little of that annoying marking time of your garden variety trilogy thing happening, this does not.
Bayaz had been lurking (and smirking) around in the first couple of novels, and now you see what he has really been up to all this time, as all the events and people come together.
The Union has problems on two fronts - Bethod and his Northmen, which is a problem for the Dogman, Logen and West. Then there is serious rumour of a Gurkish invasion, and here is where Glokta's double (and death) dealing comes into play.
If a fair few of them weren't funny, the constant asides to himself in italics would get annoying to read, but Abercrombie mostly pulls this off.
With the prospect of killing lots of Gurkish, Ferro is happy to stay around. However, an old fashioned army and navy is not their only problem, given Bayaz has some enemies of his own ilk.
Perhaps darker than the rest, with a couple of open threads for if he wanted to produce another story or two.
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This book is INCREDIBLE!
Calling all females- forget the romantic vampire books, this series is all you can want! Easy to read, romance, action, fighting, not too much magic. This book is so good that I can't stop reading it at night. The character development is unusually good, with unique characters. I care about all of the story lines. The action is so well-written, I don't want the chapters to end. I am only halfway through, but expect a great ending. The last time I felt like this was for George R.R. Martin's latest (except the last book), and didn't have to wait so long for him to write it. Thank you, Joe Abercrombie, for the hours of pleasure.
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