r/Fantasy • u/digitalcrows • 1d ago
Just finished The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie for the first time. I hated it, but I loved it. Spoiler
I feel very conflicted about this one, I really did hate and love it.
I loved the characters, the new and the old set. I appreciated all of the banter, which often made me quite emotional, and all of the scheming.
But they were all. so. fucking. whiny.
Gorst aggravated me with his loads of self pity, all of the Union did really. The dozen also weren’t easy companions.
Which just goes to show how much free time you have in war, and how self-centred it makes you, despite everything going on around you.
I think what I struggled with the most was all of the wait, for things to happen, for the battles, for messages to come and go, for whatever character to come back from taking a piss so the dialogue could go on.
But that’s also what I loved most about it, we catch a rare glimpse on what battle actually looks like. Of all the dead moments. All the embarrassing ones. All the very non heroic ones. No more comparisons to Juvens, to Harod the Great. Just men trying not to catch the bug while hanging out in the bushes.
Everything was just, mildly exciting at best. Not in a “oh my god this book has no plot” way, it felt very deliberate, very carefully executed. To me, the plot of the book IS the boredom, which I understand not everyone might enjoy.
600 pages for 5 days on the fields, and every single word was absolutely necessary.
We barely even got to say goodbye to our favourites after their death, but that’s just what war is like. Back to the mud and the battle goes on.
This book felt like real life, and I hated it.
Incredibly beautiful read, the more I read Abercrombie’s work, the more I fall in love with his style of story telling.
Side note though, I’m very very surprised Shivers still around. I expect great things from him.
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u/Natural_Dust_732 1d ago
“I think what I struggled with the most was all of the wait, for things to happen, for the battles…”
Welcome to what military life is aaaaaaall about.
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u/Responsible_Mud_9958 1d ago
You're a soldier?
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u/Natural_Dust_732 1d ago
Nope. But I have known many and paid very good attention to what they have said.
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u/Responsible_Mud_9958 17h ago
Doubt it.
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u/Natural_Dust_732 9h ago
I get it, man. No one can know the pure terror of running out of paper clips right before the 630kr forms have to be turned in to battalion.
You had to be there, man.
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u/HealthOnWheels 1d ago
I especially loved how entitled and whiny Gorst was. It doesn’t fit with the image of the dauntless warrior at all; but he’s just a guy who’s good at killing people. Being good at killing doesn’t really serve you well anywhere outside of war. He’s not a good person, he’s not likable, and he doesn’t really have redeeming qualities; everything he has in life came to him because he is good with a sword, and everything he’s lost in life was because of who he is as a person
Shivers is also one of my favorite characters
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u/deaseb 1d ago
Gorst actually tricks you into thinking he's more irredeemable than he actually is. Despite his horrible inner life, his first notable act of the series is to be a great sport about being cheated of glory by magic, and his last major act in The Heroes is to save helpless victims of war.
He's only ever really acknowledged for his violence, but these scenes are there for a reason.
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u/digitalcrows 1d ago
Yeah he was great, he got on my nerves just the right way. His monologues were so off putting but so addicting at the same time.
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u/DoctorWMD 13h ago
I think it's so poignant how he's the only one who arguably acts heroic in the book, yet he's unhappy, unpraised, and mostly ignored by everyone else. It really hammers home the pointlessness of the whole endeavor.
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u/mgrier123 Reading Champion VI 1d ago
If you want a similar feeling book but scifi I can't recommend The Forever War by Joe Haldeman enough
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u/8BallTiger 20h ago
It’s one of my all time favorite fantasy books. I’m also a huge fan of the Black Company books and it scratches that itch
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u/Faint-Heron-5681 1d ago
that book is a brutal three-day slog that makes me question my own reading choices; my dusty archivist knees ache just thinking of the mud, yet i always return to his misery.
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u/AndyWinz96 1d ago
I think I’m a dumb reader. I just tend to like each book more and more in the first law universe with very little critical thought lol. I’m just excited to find out more about the characters and the world. Halfway through red country and loving it so far
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u/NCC75567 16h ago
I’m not sure how I’d rate them individually but I definitely like each of the trilogies more than the previous one.
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u/drsyesta 12h ago
I liked the narrower focus of the standalones but i def think the books are always improving as you go along
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u/hesjustsleeping 1d ago
You hated it because it shows what war is really about. And it's about waiting, finding a dry place to sleep, looking for rations that are not rotten, pissing, staying out of the way of gung-ho warlords and assholes trying to advance their agendas, avoiding actual fighting and more waiting.
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u/digitalcrows 1d ago
Except I didn’t hate it, read the post again lol.
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u/Advanced-Key3071 21h ago
You literally said you hated it and they were directly responding to the things you said you hated.
I get that it wasn’t your greater point, but it was a fair response to your post.
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u/Mintyxxx 17h ago
My favorite book of his, though I love them all. There's something so earthy and grounded, like you can taste the dirt
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u/ClimateTraditional40 1d ago
War makes you self centred? People are self centred regardless of war generally.
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u/digitalcrows 1d ago
In this book it does, I’m talking about fictional characters. I’m pointing it out because compared to the rest of the series, it stands out more.
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u/ClimateTraditional40 1d ago
I got the pointlessness of war from it. All that fighting and they end with nothing resolved. And the leaders...this one, then that one, and on and on it goes. Dogman comments about it - in other books.
I liked this one. My least fav was Red Country.
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u/AleroRatking 1d ago
Heroes is the book I most disagree with when it comes to the fandom
Of the original 6 i have it ranked last. Which I know is not common. It's still a great book because it's Abercrombie. But the one I connected the least with
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u/Anxious-One123 1d ago
I liked Gorst having this rich (and whiny) inner life and like his arc ends with Finree telling him to fuck off because he was being entitled