Whoa. I just read an entire trilogy straight through. I was looking for something to scratch my medieval/fantasy itch, have had the first in the series on my reading list for a long time, sunk my teeth into it, didn’t hate it, and kept going.

Across Half a King, Half the World, and Half a War, Joe Abercrombie weaves a tale of cunning, intrigue, broken noses, sex (although he does an excruciatingly bad job in the romance genre – it truly was cringeworthy), and an interesting bit of foreshadowing of “elves.” I can tell no more than that.

While this is no Game of Thrones, I was entertained enough to not hit any real lulls and plowed through in just about a month. The reading was easy, the characters for the most part was interesting and well-developed. One fun twist is that each book features a main character and those who don’t die (maybe…) have strong supporting roles in latter books.

My highlights:

• “Better gear than good sense a traveler cannot carry.”
• “A good liar weaves as much truth into the cloth as they can.”
• “The death of fear is knowledge.”
• “The fool strikes. The wises man smiles, and watches, and learns, and then strikes.”
• “Some men you stick to right off, but it’s those that take time to stick as stick longest.”
• “Take everything as a compliment, and you can never be insulted.”
• “Still pools are the deepest.”
• “Nothing more dangerous than idle warriors.”
• “When something has to be done, there’s nothing to be gained by putting it off but pain.”
• “The beaten can win tomorrow. The dead have lost forever.”
• “Silent men rarely cause offense.”
• “A man who’s not content with what he has more than likely will not be content with what he hasn’t.”
• “There’s no changing yesterday. You can only look to do better tomorrow.”
• “Modesty’s for folk with nothing to boast of.”