The Red Country

The Red Country by Joe Abercrombie



I got into Joe Abercrombie through his second foray into the world, Best Served Cold, a novel of revenge. The Heroes , which I read last summer, was a war novel; the Battle of the Bulge with swords and armor instead of M1s and uniforms. The Red Country, though, is a western, close kin to John Wayne's The Searchers. A young woman named Shy South returns to her home with her stepfather to find it burned, their farmhand killed, and her brother and sister stolen. She and her stepfather, a man she always took for a coward and named "Lamb", set across the great expanse to the Far Country, a lawless land sprung up around rumors of gold. They cross the expanse, facing Ghosts who take ears as trophies, hoping to find the children and bring them home. As they journey, some truths about Lamb's dark and bloody past are hinted, but never quite stated, left instead to the informed reader to make their conclusions. They're followed by Nicomo Cosca, famed degenerate and mercenary general, who has a commission from His Majesty's Inquisition, and hopes to use it to wring every bit of gold out of the Far Country he can manage.

I really enjoyed this book. Abercrombie's writing drags you along... frequently through the mud and the shit and all of the squalor of the world, but there's enough good and decent in his protagonists that you don't feel dirty empathizing with them, but rather feel the filth that they're stuck in. It's a fantasy novel, but the fantastic elements tend to take a back seat to real human stories that happen to be set in a fantasy world. There's no exotic races of demi-humans (save the Shanka, mentioned perhaps twice in this book); there's little grand magic, and only a grasping at machines, slowing coming into play as the world develops over the course of the six books so far (three in the First Law trilogy, and three stand-alones). But there's humor, and humanity. The action scenes are exciting, and a leavening of sex that varies according to the books. Characters from the past reappear, on their own terms, and adds to the fullness of the series.

That said, I would not start here. The hints as to Lamb's nature will be missed by those not familiar with earlier books, and I think that will rob it some of its impact. I came at the series somewhat inside out, and don't think it's a horrible way to do it, but start with The First Law trilogy; The Blade Itself , Before They Are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings. The slow building of the world, and the weaving of the stories, makes it a worthwhile task, and Abercrombie is greatly enjoyable to read, to boot.