Half a War
(Shattered Sea #3)
By Joe Abercrombie
Del Rey – July 2015
ISBN 9780804178457 – 362 Pages – Hardcover
Source: Goodreads’ First-Reads
The conclusion to Abercrombie’s Shattered Sea fantasy trilogy, Half a War follows a story begun in Half a King (which I reviewed here) and continued in Half the World. The first book introduced Yarvi, a prince born with a crippled hand, who events pull unwillingly onto the throne amid a storm of interstate intrigue that leads to his removal from royal obligations and into literal captivity.
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If you haven’t yet read the previous books in this series I recommend that you do. Half a War is an excellent conclusion to an impressive and deceptively simple series. Starting as something classifiable as YA fiction, and filled with a sense of some brightness and hope, the series progresses into greater complexity. Characters increasingly, and more easily make moral compromises for ‘the greater good’, or prove incapable of the heroism that their world – and perhaps the reader – expects of them. By this third book the series approaches closer to fitting Abercrombie’s Twitter handle, LordGrimdark. Not as extreme as some epic fantasy may get, Shattered Sea does pass beyond what I would consider a tone for YA. The sense of hope for a better world, of pursuing any pureness of character falls into decay, leaving settlements with options that are less bad, and acceptance of personal imperfections within a broken, harsh world.
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The series thus has a gritty realism that should be familiar to anyone paying attention to the politics of 2016, in the United States, Britain, or beyond. The strengths of this series of fantasy novels from Abercrombie is the detached, authentic way he deals with characters, allowing them to make immense sacrifices in this story of their lives (particularly Yarvi’s in the full scope). There is little complexity to the plots or the overall goals of the characters. But how are they going to get from A to B? How they are going to rationalize the best path? And what must they allow, or do to themselves and one another, for the betterment of the people they are responsible for? What does success look like? What does failure? And does something lie in between those two outcomes? These are the questions that the Shattered Sea series is concerned with.
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In wrapping up the series Half a War focuses fairly equally between the different protagonists: Yarvi who was the focus of the first book, Thorn who was the focus (with Brand) of the second book, and Princess Skara now added as a major component of this third book. Although the series as a whole is clearly Yarvi’s story – and oh what development he goes through! – introductions of each other protagonist never felt disappointing for long to this reader. I didn’t mind pulling away from direct points of view through Yarvi because those providing the new points of view were just as compelling. Secondary characters were equally brilliant, despite their faults, compromises, or failures.
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For any fans of fantasy with a ‘classical’ feel, but modern sensibilities, or those looking for complexity and tones of realistic darkness/despair without fully going down a ‘Red Wedding’ sort of route, this series should appeal. If you’ve already read Half a King, but not the others, you really should discover where Yarvi’s journey, his service to his kingdom and its people, take him and those he uses.
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Disclaimer: I received a free advanced electronic reading copy of this from the publisher via the First-Reads program from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.
Reading 1000 Lives 