Last Argument of Kings

The First Law: Book Three

De: Joe Abercrombie

Narrado por: Steven Pacey

The end is coming.

Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him - but it's going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the King of the Northmen still stands firm, and there's only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy. It's past time for the Bloody-Nine to come home.

With too many masters and too little time, Superior Glokta is fighting a different kind of war. A secret struggle in which no-one is safe, and no-one can be trusted. His days with a sword are far behind him. It's a good thing blackmail, threats and torture still work well enough.

Jezal dan Luthar has decided that winning glory is far too painful, and turned his back on soldiering for a simple life with the woman he loves. But love can be painful too, and glory has a nasty habit of creeping up on a man when he least expects it.

While the King of the Union lies on his deathbead, the peasants revolt and the nobles scramble to steal his crown. No-one believes that the shadow of war is falling across the very heart of the Union. The First of the Magi has a plan to save the world, as he always does. But there are risks. There is no risk more terrible, after all, than to break the First Law...©2008 Joe Abercrombie

Reseñas de la Crítica

Highly recommended - a funny, finely-wrought, terrifically energetic work of high fantasy. Seek it out (Joe Hill)

LAST ARGUMENT OF KINGS signs off the trilogy on a high, interspersing breathless skirmishes with thriller-like moments. You should always end with the best. Wow them in the final act... get them on their feet applauding when the curtain falls. LAST ARGUMENT OF KINGS is the textbook example of this theory in practice

Breathtaking moments, great characters and grim laughs

"Put together a terrific cast of characters ... add in magic, war, plots within plots and you have a positive feast for the ears." 20 August 2010 (Kati Nicholl)

A superb story with an exceptionally talented narratar!

There was nothing that I did not like about this audio book (save perhaps the annoying audible review that insisted on how many words I needed to submit)

Hanging threads

This third book in the trilogy is just as wonderfully written as the first two, with compelling character stories, intricate but entirely convincing plotting and a dark but often comic vision which will delight some readers and alienate others. The language is often coarse but always on point. The action is, by turns, gruesome, shocking and thrilling. It may or may not be your cup of absinthe, but if you read it you will not soon forget it.

That said, I really felt let down by the lack of a satisfying ending. I realize that Abercrombie continues to write tales in the same world which share some of the same characters, but the threads which were left hanging, very much in his "nothing is neat or pretty" style, seemed too numerous and too frustrating to allow him to walk away from this as the concluding book of a trilogy. There was a distinct strain of cruelty in the decision to leave his readers hanging with the threads.

Wonderful Trilogy (including the ending)

I read this trilogy a few years ago when it first came out (going so far as to purchase the final book from England because I just couldn't wait). When I saw that this had been put on Audible I held off listening for awhile, but finally I decided to give it a try and it did not disappoint. Steven Pacey does a masterful job bringing Abercrombie's world to life and considering how detailed, gritty and messy that world is this is no mean feat. Pacey's narration captures the dark humor of Abercrombie's observations, the quick, brutal, often surprising pacing of his battle scenes and lends another dimension to already incredibly vivid characters. If you like your fantasy more than a little dark, your humor on the black side and your morality uneasy at best, Abercrombie's world is a place you want to visit and Pacey is a fine guide.

Now the ending. There have been a lot of comments on here about it, how it's abrupt and how it just ends. This is one of those rare times, where I think I might blame the narrator and/or the format in the slightest. Yes the ending feels abrupt on audio, but in written format it doesn't at all. You can feel the book decrease in your hands you know you're getting to the end, and something about that helps you to understand how very, very deliberate Abercrombie's ending is. There's a thematic line in this trilogy about the patterns men fall into, about how when aspirations run head long into the reality of choice sometimes the winner isn't pretty, and as a consequence there's a circularity to how the trilogy ends for all the character versus how it begins. In other words I think the ending works on the written page very well, but something about the audio format about the narrative pacing makes it feel more abrupt and consequently a little less satisfying. So when it does end, please take a breath, take a step back and go back and listen to the last two chapters again. It will make sense.

Great Ending to a Great Series

Be warned. The ending to this series has seriously ticked of and bothered a lot of people. Personally, I love it. Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie, say he knows how to end a series.

All the characters I've come to know and love from the series make a return, and some have slightly happier endings than others. From what some of the other reviews said, I was expecting some charactercide on the order of GRRM, but quiet honestly it is no where near that bad.

As for the girt and darkness of this fantasy, it is there, but I find that at the same time there is quite a bit of hope and character growth. Few of the characters are inherently "evil" or "bad" and multiple times I found myself sympathetic for an antagonistic character.

As for the ending, well it did end in a bit of a cliffhanger, but I have my suspicions as to what happened.

Once again, Steven Pacey's narration was out of this world. I would listen to this man read the operating manual for a John Deere tractor. He does such a sublime job creating distinct voices for each of the characters. Wonderful wonderful job.

Overall, this is more a tale about a place and time than it is about any one character or event. It is a worldbuilding extravaganza and it gives us some perfect examples of how characters live and act in this world.

Just like in our own world, I got the sense that this was a conflict that didn't necessarily threaten the entire existence of the world, but rather was a conflict between two nations, that will soon pass into history.

Great book, great performance

this is the secod time I've listened to this trilogy. was very enjoyable both time. narration was reallt well done, adding to the enjoyment.