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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:01AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:01AM (#1109521) Journal

    My take on the trilogy:

    It lacks polish. Not a bad story. It takes an old theme, adds a Nordic berserker to the mix, brings in the darker human races, but leaves some good stuff out. The Gandalf substitute isn't developed very well. Maybe there will be another book in which we learn more of his past, and his intentions, but at this point there is a lot lacking.

    We have a couple non-human races, but no good guys among them. It's just good humans against bad humans and humans against evil nonhumans.

    I'm no linguist, and a lot of Tolkien's efforts with language development is wasted on me. But, still, I feel a bit cheated that Abercrombie made no effort. Perhaps he is not a linguist either.

    Maps. Or, no maps, rather. Maybe in the print editions, there are maps. In the pirated editions I downloaded, there are no maps. My mental map of the world is all I have. I guess Angland is rather like Alaska, just hanging off one side of the northern continent, with a vast white wilderness between the lower 48 and Alaska - and there aren't even any dragons in the wilderness. No dragons anywhere for that matter.

    Joe's style is alright, all in all. He just needs to polish it some, and bring in some non-humans. What is a fantasy story without a couple characters such as Smaug, or some elves, orcs, halflings, and other such lovable creatures?

    Thanks for the suggestion though. I did get drawn into the story at a few points!

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