Joe Abercrombie - Red Country

Praise for Joe Abercrombie

The Heroes is an indictment of war and the duplicity that corrupts men striving for total power: bloody and violent, but never gratuitously so, its imbued with cutting humour, acute characterisation and world-weary wisdom about the weaknesses of the human race. Brilliant

The Guardian

The futility of settling arguments by violence is the clear message of The Heroes, making it an anti-war war story which I suppose all the best war stories are, really but its also a very strong continuation of his excellent previous books. Highly recommended both for fantasy readers and lovers of Cornwell and Iggulden

Bookgeeks

[The Heroes is a] blood-drenched, thought-provoking dissection of a three-day battle is set in the same world as Abercrombies First Law Trilogy but stands very well alone... Abercrombie never glosses over a moment of the madness, passion, and horror of war, nor the tribulations that turn ordinary people into the titular heroes

Publishers Weekly

Joe Abercrombies Best Served Cold is a bloody and relentless epic of vengeance and obsession in the grand tradition, a kind of splatterpunk sword n sorcery Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas by way of Moorcock. His cast features tyrants and torturers, a pair of poisoners, a serial killer, a treacherous drunk, a red-handed warrior and a blood-soaked mercenary captain. And those are the good guys... The battles are vivid and visceral, the action brutal, the pace headlong, and Abercrombie piles the betrayals, reversals, and plot twists one atop another to keep us guessing how it will all come out. This is his best book yet

George R. R. Martin

Abercrombie writes dark, adult fantasy, by which I mean theres a lot of stabbing in it, and after people stab each other they sometimes have sex with each other. His tone is morbid and funny and hard-boiled, not wholly dissimilar to that of Iain Banks... And like George R. R. Martin Abercrombie has the will and the cruelty to actually kill and maim his characters... Volumetrically speaking, its hard to think of another fantasy novel in which this much blood gets spilled

Lev Grossman, Time Magazine

Joe Abercrombie is probably the brightest star among the new generation of British fantasy writers... Abercrombie writes a vivid, well-paced tale that never loosens its grip. His action scenes are cinematic in the best sense, and the characters are all distinct and interestingly different

The Times

Overall this is an immediately rewarding experience. There are reveals in the final third that are unexpected yet satisfyingly logical. The stand-alone nature of this installment should attract new readers, and its tight, uncompromising focus makes for an absorbing read. Best Served Cold? Modern fantasy doesnt get much hotter than this

SFX

The books are good, really good. They pulled me in. Well-developed world. Unique, compelling characters. I like them so much that when I got to the end of the second book and found out the third book wasnt going to be out in the US for another three months, I experienced a fit of rage, then a fit of depression, then I ate some lunch and had a bit of a lay down

Patrick Rothfuss on The First Law Trilogy

For Teddy

And Clint Eastwood

But since Clint probably aint that bothered

Mostly Teddy

CONTENTS

Some Kind of Coward

G old. Wist made the word sound like a mystery there was no solving. Makes men mad.

Shy nodded. Those that aint mad already.

They sat in front of Stupfers Meat House, which mightve sounded like a brothel but was actually the worst place to eat within fifty miles, and that with some fierce competition. Shy perched on the sacks in her wagon and Wist on the fence, where he always seemed to be, like hed such a splinter in his arse hed got stuck there. They watched the crowd.

I came here to get away from people, said Wist.

Shy nodded. Now look.

Last summer you couldve spent all day in town and not seen two people you didnt know. You couldve spent some days in town and not seen two people. A lot can change with a few months and a gold find. Now Squaredeal was bursting at its ragged seams with bold pioneers. One-way traffic, headed west towards imagined riches, some charging through fast as the clutter would allow, some stopping off to add their own share of commerce and chaos. Wagon-wheels clattered, mules nickered and horses neighed, livestock honked and oxen bellowed. Men, women and children of all races and stations did plenty of their own honking and bellowing too, in every language and temper. It mightve been quite the colourful spectacle if everywhere the blown dust hadnt leached each tone to that same grey ubiquity of dirt.

Wist sucked a noisy mouthful from his bottle. Quite the variety, aint there?

Shy nodded. All set on getting something for nothing.

All struck with a madness of hope. Or of greed, depending on the observers faith in humanity, which in Shys case stood less than brim-full. All drunk on the chance of reaching into some freezing pool out there in the great empty and plucking up a new life with both hands. Leaving their humdrum selves behind on the bank like a shed skin and taking a short cut to happiness.

Tempted to join em? asked Wist.

Shy pressed her tongue against her front teeth and spat through the gap between. Not me. If they made it across the Far Country alive, the odds were stacked high theyd spend a winter up to their arses in ice water and dig up naught but dirt. And if lightning did strike the end of your spade, what then? Aint like rich folk got no trouble.

Thered been a time Shy thought shed get something for nothing. Shed her skin and step away smiling. Turned out sometimes the short cut dont lead quite where you hoped, and cuts through bloody country, too.

Just the rumour o gold turns em mad. Wist took another swallow, the knobble on his scrawny neck bobbing, and watched two would-be prospectors wrestle over the last pickaxe at a stall while the trader struggled vainly to calm them. Imagine how these bastardsll act if they ever close hands around a nugget.

Shy didnt have to imagine. Shed seen it, and didnt prize the memories. Men dont need much beckoning on to act like animals.

Nor women neither, added Wist.

Shy narrowed her eyes at him. Why look at me?

Youre foremost in my mind.

Not sure I like being that close to your face.

Wist showed her his tombstone teeth as he laughed, and handed her the bottle. Why dont you got a man, Shy?

Dont like men much, I guess.

You dont like anyone much.

They started it.

All of em?

Enough of em. She gave the mouth of the bottle a good wipe and made sure she took only a sip. She knew how easy she could turn a sip into a swallow, and the swallow into a bottle, and the bottle into waking up smelling of piss with one leg in the creek. There were folk counting on her, and shed had her fill of being a disappointment.

The wrestlers had been dragged apart and were spitting insults each in their own tongue, neither quite catching the details but both getting the gist. Looked like the pick had vanished in the commotion, moren likely spirited away by a cannier adventurer while eyes were elsewhere.