Best Served Cold
David Gemmell Legend Award nominee 2009, British Fantasy Award nominee 2010.
Springtime in Styria. And that means war.
There have been
nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a
vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them
they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll and
cities burn, behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker
powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.
War may be
hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and
famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making
money too. Her victories have made her popular – a shade too popular
for her employers' taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for
dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for
vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.
Her allies
include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous
poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a barbarian who just
wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the
nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is
dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started...
Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.
“Joe Abercrombie’s 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
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Joe Abercrombie
In the grimy taverns and blood-soaked battlefields of modern fantasy, Joe Abercrombie’s name is spoken with equal parts awe and amusement. Known for dragging epic fantasy out of its shining armor and into the mud, Abercrombie has built a reputation for turning genre conventions on their heads—then lopping those heads clean off.
Born in Lancaster, England in 1974, Abercrombie didn’t set out to be the crown prince of grimdark fiction. He studied psychology at Manchester University, worked as a freelance film editor, and quietly began drafting a story filled with flawed warriors, crooked politics, and sharp tongues. That story became The Blade Itself, the first book in The First Law trilogy—a debut that landed with a thud, a cheer, and the metallic ring of steel meeting steel. From there, the world of Logen Ninefingers, Glokta, and Jezal dan Luthar took on a life of its own, where even the heroes are liars, cowards, or worse—and the villains are often more honest.
World of the First Law
World of the First Law consists of 4 total books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Related series The First Law Trilogy
Related series The Age of Madness
Book Reviews
This book is quite straightforward compared to those of the First Law Trilogy (or at least it seems to me). The story has only one thread to follow and the characters are a bit too plain. I enjoyed it nevertheless as it has got an inkling of the former books in the matter of violence, betrayal and twisted story.