- MP3 CD
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc; Unabridged edition
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1400163277
- ISBN-13: 978-1400163274
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13.5 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,479,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Best Served Cold
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'd not read Abercrombie's First Law trilogy before buying this book, but rather bought it because it was £1.99 in hardback in a book sale and I'd heard he was meant to be a pretty good author. After making sure that the book was a stand-alone novel (because I didn't want to get into another trilogy) I handed over my pennies and settled down to give it a go.
have to say, loved it. Loved his characters (more than two dimensional yet not quite more than caricatures) and thought the plot was great, with plenty of twists and turns and never knowing who will make it out alive. I especially liked the hinting at greater themes and larger plots working in the background. I enjoyed the book so much in fact that I finished it in three sittings and immediately ordered all three books in his debut trilogy.
If you're looking for a damn good fantasy read then buy with confidence.
have to say, loved it. Loved his characters (more than two dimensional yet not quite more than caricatures) and thought the plot was great, with plenty of twists and turns and never knowing who will make it out alive. I especially liked the hinting at greater themes and larger plots working in the background. I enjoyed the book so much in fact that I finished it in three sittings and immediately ordered all three books in his debut trilogy.
If you're looking for a damn good fantasy read then buy with confidence.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've read the First Law trilogy so I was really looking forward to this book and I wasn't disappointed.
It's a big book and at no point did it seem to amble on just to fill pages. I enjoyed it cover to cover.
Violence, sex and horror (not the ghosty jumping out horror, the other "Oh my God" horror.)
Mr Abercrombie goes from strength to strength. Can't wait for "Heroes"!
It's a big book and at no point did it seem to amble on just to fill pages. I enjoyed it cover to cover.
Violence, sex and horror (not the ghosty jumping out horror, the other "Oh my God" horror.)
Mr Abercrombie goes from strength to strength. Can't wait for "Heroes"!
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Whilst not a direct sequel to the excellent First Law trilogy, Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold returns to that same brutal medieval fantasy world and populates it with a handful of the same characters. All of the expected Abercrombie trademarks are here - explicit torture, sex, cynicism, Machiavellian back-stabbing and some incredibly vivid battle scenes. With empire building on a massive scale, its scope is certainly no less grandiose than its predecessors, so why just the 3 stars? Well, I have to confess that, whilst the previous novels rattled by at a terrific pace and I devoured them in just a few sittings, I really struggled with Best Served Cold. Quite simply I didn't warm to any of the characters. The main heroine (that is SO the wrong word!) who we dally with for most of the book, is downright loathsome. Her chief consort evolves from a fairly thuggish brute into a fairly brutal thug. The high and mighty who cross their path are inevitably effete, perverted or both. It is only in the roguish and vaguely Falstaffian Cosca and the strangely other-worldly (autistic?) Friendly that a degree of more satisfyingly 3-dimensional characterisation is developed. A couple of characters, who I would have liked to survive into further instalments meet gruesome ends. Most disappointingly of all, everyone's favourite torturer Glokta, who stole the show in the original trilogy, is only referred to by reputation here.
Not wishing to be too critical though, I did still quite enjoy this novel and I believe there are signs of Joe Abercrombie doing for heroic (or villainous!) fantasy what Iain M Banks has done for sci-fi with his inspired Culture series. The theme of sinister bankers holding states to ransom is quite a topical one too I suppose! Please though Joe, let's have more wit and characters we can relish along with the cynicism next time!
So, a fairly grim read, but just about worthwhile.
Oh, I almost forgot - the moral of the story .... hmmm... well it's either that revenge will probably not bring you satisfaction or that human nature is pretty damn base, selfish and greedy.
Not wishing to be too critical though, I did still quite enjoy this novel and I believe there are signs of Joe Abercrombie doing for heroic (or villainous!) fantasy what Iain M Banks has done for sci-fi with his inspired Culture series. The theme of sinister bankers holding states to ransom is quite a topical one too I suppose! Please though Joe, let's have more wit and characters we can relish along with the cynicism next time!
So, a fairly grim read, but just about worthwhile.
Oh, I almost forgot - the moral of the story .... hmmm... well it's either that revenge will probably not bring you satisfaction or that human nature is pretty damn base, selfish and greedy.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A tale of bloody betrayal served up by the master of grim, dark...
The feuding city states of Styria have endured nineteen years of bloody slaughter. The `Years of Blood' have seen the ruthless Grand Duke Orso of Talins seize ever larger tracts... Read more
Published 23 days ago by Mr. D. I. Fisk
best served cold
Really enjoyed this book. Had read the Blade itself Bloody Nine trio-excellant, then went straight to this novel. Read more
Published 1 month ago by loulou
Oh!
Not as expected. I did not like the style of the author. More of a noire (?). From its description, I would say the book is mis-categorised.
Published 2 months ago by Doctor Who
Not as satidfying.
I like Joe Abercrombie books, I like this one too, although I found it less satisfying than his others. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Anthony J. Hagarty
a review on an unread book!
Amazon asked me to review this book; however, it is at the bottom of a large pile of books yet to read! Read more
Published 6 months ago by LoadZaFunk
Best Read Now
Joe Abercrombie showed in his `First Law' trilogy that he was one of the masters of the new style low fantasy - the type of fantasy that paints a bleak picture full of real people... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Sam
Revenge has never tasted so good.
A few years ago Joe Abercrombie burst on to the fantasy scene with Scott Lynch and a host of other authors. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Snikt5
Good, but not great
Having read The First Law trilogy, I was eager to get to grips with this stand-alone "sequel". It has been stated in quite a number of the other reviews here, and I agree with them... Read more
Published 11 months ago by JBP
Awesome
Well I have to disagree with the negative reviews - I thought this book was great. It only really follows one group of characters rather than several like in the First Law which is... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Ms. R. E. Jones
More great story telling from my new favourite author.
I bought this book as I was finishing 'The Last Arguement of Kings' by the same author so I could just carry on straight away. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Dave Lunn
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
|
|
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
