Before They Are Hanged

The First Law #2

by Joe Abercrombie

VACATION READ! Only one this time. Despite the fact that I had a lot of time to read on this vacation, this book is pretty long so you only get one review.

Before They Are Hanged is awesome and I definitely recommend it as a vacation read. Despite being long, it's pretty light and fluffy and definitely not one to make you think too hard when you just want to zone out. If you read my review of the first book of this series, then you pretty much know what to expect from this book. I was undecided for a while as to whether I really wanted to read this book, because there was some poor writing (and editing) in the first one. In the end, I'm really glad that I decided to continue reading the series, because I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Before They Are Hanged picks up right where The Blade Itself left off. Glokta is in Dagoska, trying to defend it from invaders and simultaneously find out what happened to his predecessor, who mysteriously disappeared. Jezal, Ferro, and Logen are following Bazal to the ends of the earth (literally) and they're still not entirely sure why. Meanwhile, up north, Bethod is dancing circles around the Union army, possibly through the use of magic. Threetrees and his gang are with West and the Union army, having taken pity on the poor naive fools and decided to help them out.

Without giving too much away, that's pretty much what's going on in this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it because I got to be reunited with all of my favorite characters. Abercrombie may have his failings as a writer, but boring characters is not one of them.

Glokta is as sarcastic as ever and he was my favorite to read about. I was happy to see Jezal turn into a real person instead of the whiny little bitch he was in the first book (and the beginning of the second book). Then West became "Furious" and that was just awesome. It was great that Dow helped him to find that side of himself when he most needed it, and I loved that he gave him the nickname "Furious". While I'm on the topic of Threetrees and his gang, Grim was probably the best. The one who never said a word until he needed to and suddenly it turns out that he can speak multiple languages effortlessly. Then he's the only one who can manage to say a few words for the dearly departed over his fresh grave and they were really great words. Go Grim.

I don't remember any battles from the first book (just lots of fencing duels), but it turns out that Abercrombie is really good at writing battles. They were gripping and suspenseful and there was more than one occasion when my family tried to get me to do something and I said I couldn't because I was in the middle of reading about a big battle and I had to find out how it ended.

Other than that, a lot of the things about Abercrombie's writing that bothered me in his first book still bother me in this one. He's got a little bit of the overly explanatory narrator going. I don't know if he's gotten a little better, or if it just didn't bother me as much in this one. He definitely still has a tendency to repeat words when he should just let it lie and he uses way too many adjectives and adverbs. There was at least one (short) sentence where I wanted to cut about five words because they were all superfluous.