Best Served Cold / Joe Abercrombie

Best Served Cold

category: fantasy, author:

Joe Abercrombie

original copyright 2009,
read in December 2010

Agamedes' opinion: 8 out of 10

Is this book brutal? Yes. Is it honest? I think so. Is it enjoyable? Yes -- if you don't mind blood, guts and gore.

The action is brutal, with graphic violence (and occasional graphic sex). The violence is over the top... so brutal that -- to the hardened reader -- it is like a Warner Bros cartoon: it's obviously just a story, it's clearly not real, it is not offensive.

Except, of course, that some of the good guys also get brutalised. I never really enjoy that.

Still, it's a ripping good yarn... With added complexity:

There is a clear heroine; you hope that she wins through in the end. Yet what she is doing -- revenge -- is ugly. Even the heroine questions her actions!

From the book's title, Best Served Cold, it is clear that revenge is the theme. At first you think, yes, go girl! Get those evil... people! Then you begin to have second thoughts: second thoughts which are prompted by the heroine's opinions and by other points made by the author.

The same is true of the fighting: hard and bloody, show no mercy, pull no punches. Yet ultimately pointless -- as the author points out, several times. Violence breeds violence. Blood leads to more blood.

At times I am wondering, Is Abercrombie writing this book with a strong anti-war message? Sure, the book is violent. Yet the violence is hardly glorified. Both characters and author let us know that violence makes for a good story -- but it is not the answer to all of our problems.

Still, it's a violent book, and that is part of the enjoyment of reading it. To be honest, the violence is a key part of the enjoyment. In a fantasy world steeped in violence we would be bored by characters who ran away from every fight.

So it's a violent book.

The next strongest theme is... betrayal.

After betrayal comes the urge for revenge. Yet the betrayal never stops! I was beginning to wonder, Is there any character who will not change sides?

Until the revenge theme changed up a gear... And betrayers began to feel the pains of revenge. At which point I began to wonder, Will there be anyone alive at the end of this book?

No worries though. There are enough characters left alive to start a new book. Just.

I expect -- and hope for -- a book to continue the adventures (to use a euphemism; I mean, to continue the brutal and violent adventuring). It will be an interesting sequel, too, with a whole host of new characters. Unless, of course, the fantasy extends to raising the dead...

..o0o..

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