A Little Hatred

By: Joe Abercrombie

Narrated by: Steven Pacey

Length: 20 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's Summary

The New York Times best-selling first book in Joe Abercrombie's The Age of Madness Trilogy where the age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die.

The chimneys of industry rise over Adua, and the world seethes with new opportunities. But old scores run deep as ever.

On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specializes in disappointments.

Savine dan Glokta - socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union - plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control.

The age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles to control the blessing, or the curse, of the Long Eye. Glimpsing the future is one thing, but with the guiding hand of the First of the Magi still pulling the strings, changing it will be quite another....

For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out:

The First Law Trilogy:

• The Blade Itself
• Before They Are Hanged
• Last Argument of Kings
• Best Served Cold
• The HeroesRed Country

The Shattered Sea Trilogy:

• Half a King
• Half a World
• Half a War

©2019 Joe Abercrombie (P)2019 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"Rife with emotion with wit to spare, both honed to an effortlessly fine edge. A Little Hatred is the joy of watching a master of the craft with his tools at their sharpest." (Sam Sykes, author of Seven Blades in Black)

"Abercrombie's work is dark and gritty and filled with black humor and grim observations about human nature." (Forbes)

"A Little Hatred is Abercrombie at his very best: witty, wise, and whip-smart. Masterfully plotted.... I had high hopes for this book, and it exceed them all." (Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the Wyld)

Rough listen.

Well written book presented and read with skill. The story is awful. Profane talk of violent sexual acts and forced bestiality. Couldn’t get into the story, not for me.

Medieval-Punk

It's a pretty good read/listen, lots of interesting, well developed characters in what I would call a medieval-punk setting (if steam-punk is implementing 21st century devices with 19th century tech, medieval-punk is this instance is developing 17th century innovations with medieval tech). You have factories and mills and high finance and you also have people in armor bashing each other with swords. The plot is kind of uneven, humming along nicely in some places and really dragging in others, especially towards the end. I'll probably pick up the sequel at some point but not soon.

Characters are getting a bit dusty

The first law books (3) are by far my favorite audio books. That being said I think it is time to bury any characters from that era/world. It's just tedious at this point .

Stunningly good.

I've been a fan of Joe Abercrombie's books, for a while, and I think this is the best book to date. It's a fantastic story. It's philosophically deep. It has bouts of cunning humor. It's incredibly gritty, but without straining realism or the suspension of disbelief, in the least. Every single thing that happens in the book has a believable motivation behind it, whether that motivation is beautiful or tragic. There is no hand-waving, no presumption that the likable characters are invincible, and no predetermination that the end will be what you want or expect it to be. The language is also beautifully composed (albeit crude, at times). In my opinion, this is everything a novel should be.

Note: This book is in the "grim-dark fantasy" genre, and is not for those who are easily revolted or offended.

Still got it... and then some!

I was worried about this book. Worried I had set my expectations too high. I really loved the first Trilogy, and had read those wonderful Stand Alone thematic novels at least five times each (some even more). So I was incredibly excited for this book and the new trilogy set in The First Law world. I love Abercrombie's way of creating nuanced characters with interesting thoughts and decisions, and his fantastic way of crafting brilliant dialogue (brilliant meant in the actual sense of the word, not the British way. I mean actually BRILLIANT). So I was worried. Worried about my insurmountable expectations. Worried about this world and story I love letting me down. Well, I'm happy to report – expectations mounted. And then some. Seeing some of the older characters pop up was like the icing on a lush and savory cake full of new intrigue and charm. I had always missed the feeling of reading the The Blade Itself for the first time. The quickly dawning realization that, wow, this is… this is interesting, this is different, this is… really good! And then devouring all the other books (luckily I became aware of Mr. Abercrombie's work right before Red Country was out, so I could read them all in a row.) Well, this feels like that. Although I know the world and the setting, and some of the main players (and those pulling their strings…) this new story holds promises of new intrigue and fantastic character work that I'm happy to gobble up. Purposefully avoiding talking about what actually happens so as not to spoil anything. Side Note – really hoping to get more standalones after this trilogy concludes, as Red Country, The Heros, and Best Served Cold are some of my all-time favorite books. They are a true master craft of taking the late medieval fantasy genre and combining it with concepts from modern cinema (Western, War Movie, Heist/Revenge Flick). I'm more than hungry for more.

P.S.
Let's not glance over how Steven Pacey's masterful narration and nuanced and distinct accent work brings everything to life in an incomparable way. Like watching a movie in my head. Fantastic.

Detailed, but incredibly slow.

While it is well written and detailed the pace was too slow. I would find myself daydreaming then having to rewind in order to find out what I missed turns out not much.

Exactly what I've been waiting on!

In today's age where readers some times have to wait a decade for a story to continue, having a let down novel in a highly anticipated series is always a real concern... Unless that series is written by Joe Abercrombie.

He played just enough fan service to the original First Law trilogy to keep the biggest fans pleased while introducing a cast of new characters that are unique, but definitely belong in this world. I cannot wait to listen to this book as many times as I've listened to the other First Law books (3 times a piece).

As for narration, it's Steven Pacey. There's nothing left to say. Sometimes you just have to keep your mouth shut and enjoy listening to a master at work. Simply the best.

Poor. Tried to be R rated and was just empty

The story is a shadow of the former series. There’s so many forced sex scenes. You have dumber copies of past characters and recurring characters displaying barely half of their former competence.

Good book, better than most in the genre just not

Fairly decent story but not Joe's best. There were multiple conveniences to forward along the story, more than we have seen in the past. The performance by Steven was great as always. It did get a little preachy in the middle with the whole class warfare, rich people bad stuff. I paused for about a month because of it. I got the point the first three times it went there. After that, the story picked back up a bit. His writing style is still great and there are some good characters to follow here. Every time he went for some predictable trope he would redeem in the next scene by kicking us in ass a bit. Looking forward to the next couple of books. Note: I felt like Joe watched Unforgiven while writing this, there were a few lines very similar to that in here. Minor Spoilers: The 3 times we've seen the fights in circle in these 7 books the underdog has won. Might be time to switch that up. Not sure I am liking the Seer, that seems a little to convenient to me, just like the spy. Lead to some predictable things. A Seer is to close to using time travel to solve things which is one of the laziest ways to solve problems in fiction.

A Multi-Layered Nascent Industrial Age Fantasy

I've read and listened to close to 100 fantasy novels and am always on the lookout for ones that are unique and then hope that the story is interesting. This book caught my eye and I had my hopes up listening to the sample and then all of the positive reviews. I was leery, though, since this was my first introduction to Joe Abercrombie's writing. I had seen other offerings from him in the past but for one reason or another, passed him by.

What a mistake that was. He has spun a story so varied in nature and done so with a wit so subtly and sometimes, not so subtly, that I found myself refusing to do what my body and mind were screaming for me to do -- put it down and rest my weary body for the evening.

There are a multitude of characters whose charms or idiosyncrasies or cunningness or fecklessness or ruthlessness or even whimsicalness was so entertaining that I was almost spellbound to find even flimsy reasons to stop real world tasks and venture back into the telling. To that end, Steven Pacey's narration performance was superb in constantly surprising me with the author's timing on delivering comical passages and critical events.

I was saddened to discover that this was book 1 of a series and book 2 was not yet available. However, my disappointment was assuaged to discover that his First Law Trilogy series was a predecessor story to this one. I already started into it.