Finished Half A King and I have to say, I thought it was just fantastic! For the longest time I thought I just couldn't get into fantasy anymore, but clearly it's because I've been trying to read too much super-high fantasy recently with all kinds of weird and contrived magic systems and spells and dragons and elves and dwarves and other stuff I just.. Rarely really care about.
Shattered Sea is at the other extreme, it's probably the most mundane fantasy world in a while when it comes to magic and while I think a tiny bit more fantastical stuff would've made it even better, I feel like the lack of spell-slinging, metal-eating, rune-drawing, color-draining weirdos is one of the biggest reasons I found it so very enjoyable.
There isn't really anything I disliked about this book. The characters were fun, Rulf and Nothing were particularly great and often hilarious. The story, while straightforward for the most part actually managed to genuinely surprise me a couple of times (reveal being by far the biggest holy shit moment) and there were some truly heartwarming moments. The pacing was fucking spot on, like perfect from beginning to end, rapid as hell in every respect but still slow enough to make me care about the characters. Particularly enjoy how damn fast and brutal the battles were. I don't enjoy reading about duels that go on for pages and pages. The world is a ruthless place, one mistake is enough to get you killed. When you get stabbed through the chest, you fucking die and that's it.Nothing's true identity
Best fantasy I've read in quite a while, and the fact that this a) isn't the best book in this particular series and b) this series isn't even the best Abercrombie has to offer makes me super excited to read the rest of this books too.
Now I just gotta decide which one to start reading next, The Blade Itself or Half The World.
e: the fact that Half A King was pretty stand-alone and the utterly coal black humor I've heard The First Law world is filled with makes me lean towards The Blade Itself.
That's because
it's actually post apocalyptic. The map is recognizable if you assume rising sea levels, and try saying the names of the ruins out loud. On top of that I found the descriptions of what happens to people who spend too long in the ruins or bring something back to be a giveaway.