The Heroes [Hardcover]

Joe Abercrombie has become one of the UK's top fantasy writers after only 5 books. Many suggest he is similar to David Gemmell which I would not agree with, Gemmell's characters had a nobility and sense of right about them, Abercrombie's are lacking in a sense of nobility and justice and have the whole range of emotions and traits including many that are not at all nice.

So while Abercrombie does play in the Gemmell's genre of fantasy with swords and occasional sorcery, Abercrombie is strong on rich and often deliciously self serving characters spun into a violent and unforgiving world. His first three books, the First Law trilogy were a joy, followed up by a standalone novel set in the same world.

The Heroes is his fifth novel and it is an ambitious and unique take on the traditional fantasy battle story. The Heroes as a title is a clever sleight of hand - it refers to a circle of rocks on a hill, not any set of characters involved in the story. The Heroes are the central strategic goal for two opposing armies, The Union and the North and we see a battle over three days from the perspective of many of the participants. Abercrombie is making a few points here and turns the traditional fantasy battle on its blooded head, here there is no great evil to defeat or bigger picture, it's all a bit pointless. The loss of life for a small bit of ground was much like the trench warfare of WW1 with equally poor judgement and waste of life. There are no good guys or bad guys in this, just two opposing forces being slaughtered for nothing more than a pile of rocks. Wrapped in this mess we have a variety of strong and interesting characters and Abercrombie's trademark dialogue and banter.

It takes a while to get used to the vast cast but the effort is rewarded with a strong reminder as to how good a writer Joe Abercrombie is. Not for the fainthearted or those offended by earthy language though!

Three Men. One Battle. No Heroes.

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie is a standalone novel set in the same world he created for the First Law trilogy. It follows the course of a single battle, over the period of three days, between the forces of the Union and the Northmen. The opposing armies have been dancing around one another for many months but in the valley of Osrung, they finally come together in a definitive clash.

There are three main characters in the novel. Firstly there is Bremer dan Gorst, a disgraced master swordsman fighting in the Union army. He is attempting to reclaim his place in his King's court and will stop at nothing in order to do so.

Next is Curden Craw, a lifelong soldier in the army of the Northmen. He has reached the age where the appeal of battle is swiftly receding. His nerves and knees are shot and he wants nothing more than peace.

Finally there is Prince Calder, considered a coward by many, he is only interested in power and how best to avoid getting involved in all the fighting. His father was once king of the Northmen and Calder continues to crave the throne.

It is fantastic to read and discover the metamorphosis of these men over the battles duration. Each are forced to face hard facts about themselves and I don't think any end up where they would have expected when the battle began.

The battle itself is a brutal, bloody, frenetic affair and nothing is sugar coated. Men are violently dispatched and little is left to the imagination. The action is merciless and I think the novel is all the better for it. Many readers will be used to a battle in a fantasy novel having an almost clinical description. Abercrombie doesn't write that way. Each and every person on the battlefield has a story and the reader gets the opportunity to experience as many of them as is possible.

The vast majority of the characters have a moral ambiguity that makes it easy to switch your allegiances backward and forwards between the two sides as the story develops. Abercrombie is obviously having fun playing around with this. A chapter will begin written from the perspective of a Union solider and before you know it you are following the Northman who has just beheaded him. I think it is fair to say that some may find this writing style a little dizzying, but I felt it was in keeping with fast paced nature of the novel.

I was initially surprised by how much The Heroes made me laugh. We have a horrific situation where many men are facing an uncertain future. Some will live but a great many more will die. In hindsight though, this is exactly the place I would expect to find the darkest of gallows humour.

There is also a fair amount of swearing in the novel but I find it hard to fault this. Many of the soldiers that take part in the battle are just common men. They have no airs and graces about them. They swear, they drink, they consort with whores. Their human failings make them seem all the more real and they vividly come to life on the page.

The book is gritty and dark, but in turns also insightful and honest. I have always enjoyed the frankness that is displayed in Abercrombie's work and it is shown again here. I think, with one exception, there are no real heroes in the novel at all. This is where the book truly succeeds, it made me question the definition of what a hero really is.

The Heroes should firmly establish Abercrombie as one of the leading authors in modern fantasy. Arguably, in this reviewer's opinion (with his lukewarm feelings toward Malazan and with the continued inability of GRRM to move on with A Song of Ice and Fire), he is perhaps the best in the genre right now. Maybe, maybe not; but Abercrombie's fifth book certainly does nothing to harm his already strong reputation.

The Heroes is dark and gritty, even by the author's own standards. The environment, the characters and the events are all bleak. Imagine the Black Company dug in for a three day battle minus the comic relief of Goblin and One Eye, plus a big dollop of Malazan cynicism and you'll get a feeling for the atmosphere surrounding the events of this book. Abercrombie slightly over does his rubbishing of heroism on the battlefield - every other chapter does not require characters to reflect on the nature of being a hero - but through smart characters, especially Gorst, the author tackles the issue convincingly.

Although in a way it's disappointing that the more strongly established characters (Shivers, the Dogman, Bayaz) are sideshows in this novel credit is due to Abercrombie for creating new characters or developing older, previously less important ones. The whole gamut of Gorst, Calder, Curnden Craw down to Felnigg and Stranger-Come-Knocking are a wide range of varied and well written characters. Abercrombie's writing is as good as ever too. It perhaps lacks a bit of the sparkle present in BSC but only because the tone is so unrelentingly grim (though the gallows humour present throughout does alleviate things).

There are a couple of downsides to the novel though. One is minor - simply, haven't we been here before? Union soldiers fighting a bungling campaign in the North against hardy but numerically inferior opposition - does that sound familiar? The circumstances are different to what we saw in the First Law trilogy but it's a shame that, after turning to Styria in BSC, the author has returned to another Union versus Northmen conflict in this novel. Abercrombie's North is a great setting but we've seen plenty of it already. I still eagerly await the time (hopefully) that we get to see the Gurkish and southern lands in more depth.

The second, and greater, issue I have with The Heroes is that events never feel significant enough - very little really seems to be riding on the battle. Of course the personal events are the real focus of the story; but the lack of any impact on the big picture strips away a layer of suspense. The First Law trilogy was so excellent because it managed to blend personal tales with an important international struggle. The Heroes never really demonstrates why winning or losing the battle would be significant to either side. Perhaps the futility of war is one of Abercrombie's points but if so it's handled in a way that makes reading this novel less exciting than it should be.

Yet it's tough for Joe Abercrombie. He set himself an extremely high standard with his first trilogy of novels. The Heroes is a very good read but, along with all the above, it never feels quite as fresh and genre-subverting as the First Law books. This is a very good story of a messy battle and some of its participants, but it feels as if that's all it is. Abercrombie pulls some surprises out near the end but still the story doesn't feel as interesting as any of the First Law novels (although I would consider this superior to BSC).

Perhaps that's because it feels like a holding book, something to tie us over until the next stage of Bayaz's war with the Gurkish takes off? The Union has already moved on and with Logen and Glokta having been kept away from the reader for these last two books the time seems ripe for their return. The Heroes is another excellent book from Abercrombie; it's not perfect and not his best, but it does a hell of a lot right and still has me eagerly awaiting the next novel from this world.