Best Served Cold

This book is a turd of diamond. By the end of the first audio segment, I was in a mood to set fire to kittens. by the second, I wanted to massacre every single pro/antagonist myself. Halfway through the third, I swore I'd delete the entire accursed thing from my hard drive. By the end of the last segment, I desperately needed a hug, but feared human contact.

I hated nearly every minute of this book, and yet every time I decided I couldn't bear the spleen-imploding misery of the plot's latest apocalypse, Abercrombie would bash my face in with another epiphany of prosaic genius. This is one of the most gratuitous, disgusting, brilliant, and unique things I've ever read.

If you lack any trace of suicidal tendencies, have friends who will tolerate a massive week-long mood swing, and do not own a particularly flammable kitten, then it may be safe to read this book. I'm pretty sure it's worth it.

Best Served Cold has an exciting plot and it???s clever and funny ??? mostly in the droll, ironic, black humor sort of way. For example, Monza pulls Cosca out of alcoholism??? so he can murder people. Some of the scenes in which Morveer was trying to poison somebody bordered on slapstick and provided some hilarity to balance the story???s grimness.

I enjoyed the plot, characters, and humor in Best Served Cold, and I recognize and admire Joe Abercrombie???s talent, creativity, and passion. But the truth is that his stories stress me out. It???s sort of like watching Schindler???s List. Brilliant movie, important message, but not something I want to watch before bedtime. There???s a lot of ugliness and vulgarity ??? much of which seems to be done for shock value (e.g., cannibalism and incest) ??? and there are more characters who are sociopaths than who are normal. If there???s a crude word for something, Abercrombie uses it. Characters are constantly pissing, spitting, growling, bleeding, feeling sticky, and sucking on their sour teeth. They don???t make love, they ... battle and torture scenes are the worst ??? they literally give me headaches.

All of this makes for interesting, original, dramatic fantasy, and I completely understand why it???s so appealing. After all, Joe Abercrombie at least makes me FEEL something. But what he makes me feel is rather depressed, hopeless, and just plain icky, and I can???t say that I really LIKE feeling that way.

I enjoyed this book more than I am willing to admit. Indeed, the author seems to really loathe his protagonists, and subjects them to all manner of horrible situations, but darned if it doesn't just work, somehow.

The sex scenes made me feel slightly ill, the fight scenes also made me slightly ill - they went on forever and were needlessly gory. The motivations of every character were suspect and ridiculous, and the narration was painfully overdone.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and really hope that there's more ahead for this group of characters.

I got this expecting it to be ho-hum, something to listen to on a 7 hour drive back and forth. Turned out to be an unexpected gem. I enjoyed the story, the subject is kind of grim, but it is funny at times and interesting. Very character based, often I will listen to a story and wonder who each character actually is, or heck even reading stories that happens to me, not with this one, (I may mispell their names since I listened to all this and didn't read it) Shivers, Shank, Morcato!?, Orso, Dae, and Kosca, all of them were incredible characters that I cared about and worried for, though my favorite by far was Friendly. I am going to buy all his other books for a few trips I am taking and to read at the beach tomorrow. :-)

Abercrombie is the most vital voice in fantasy fiction today. He writes excellent action, his characters are fresh and he _gets to the point_ of the story without resorting to 1000 page endless epics.

If you're tired of seeing 'Sci-Fi & Fantasy' titles on Audible and other online book stores that are thinly disguised furry romance fiction, do your bit for the genre and pick up 'Best Served Cold'.

The narration isn't the best - hopefully they'll pop for a more enjoyable reader for future Abercrombie titles. The world of 'Best Served Cold' may be a dark, unpleasant place but that doesn't mean the narration needs to be dark and unpleasant.

A fine companion in theme to the Count of Monte Cristo with a wonderful variety of characters, landscapes, places and scenes of inventive episodes of sweet revenge. Woe be to those who crossed Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins. She is one enemy you don't want on your trail.

Much of the book is rivoting. Parts of the book are so horribly descriptive it is impossible to stop listening, or else it's absolutely necessary to stop listening and catch a breath and go back for more. Phew! Got through that part without ripping apart everything in sight.
But then, there are some long, too clever by half, dreary, weakly theatrical monologues where all I wanted to do was run the character through myself - just to have some silence. These do have an unpleasant effect on the overall enjoyment of the story.
I think, too, after hearing Steven Pacey's narration of the First Law trilogy, I was spoiled. It is such an outstanding narration; Michael Page just cannot match it.

This was a terrific book. The reader captured the tone of the story as a whole and did a good job with the characterizations. And what characters! The length may seem daunting to some but the story is nicely paced and doesn't lag. The characters are fabulously flawed and range from sword for hire to poisoner extraordinaire because the heroes of the tale are as bad as the villains. Fun stuff and funny too. Dastardly derring do and quips to boot!

Yes...this book is rated R. it has all the things you would want if you are a George R.R. Martain's song of fire and ice series fan. The narrator is awesome. Page brings the story to life. Its cold and brutal. this will be one of the books i revisit often

Why so hard on the narrator? I was never once confused about which character was speaking. Now, when I first heard the voice he chose for the Poisoner, I snapped off my Sansa, thinking, "Yessh. Another wasted credit. This would be better if I read it." I almost quit listening right then because it revolted me instantly and seemed pompous and stagey. But wait! The character is a slimy, arrogant, self important wretch. I grew to LOVE the NARRATOR and I'm hard on narrators in general. I'm glad I gave the book another chance. Two months after listening, I still think about some of the characters and I can't name another book that has done that to me. It was a harsh story, a pathetic roller coaster of pathos and pointless waste. The two most helpful reviews listed here speak of the varied qualities of the book already. Believe what they say. It's an awful story beautifully told. It's actually painful but still I laughed out loud a lot. I think some of the "monologues" toward the end of the story were a bit redundant, but if I reserved 5 stars for a perfect book, no one would ever get a 5 star from me. So. Yes, it induces cringes, stinging eyes, laughter, disgust, exasperation, trepidation and spoons out tiny doses of hope and redemption. Not one of those characters was all bad or all good, even the vile Poisoner. Kinda like real people, huh? I miss those guys.