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Last Argument Of Kings (The First Law: Book Three) by Joe Abercrombie
02/08/2008 . Source: Tomas L. Martin 
pub: Gollancz. 666 page enlarged paperback. Price: £12.99 (UK only). ISBN: 978-0-575-07790-4). Buy Last Argument Of Kings in the USA - or Buy Last Argument Of Kings in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
I've thoroughly enjoyed Joe Abercrombie's first two books, ' The Blade Itself' and 'Before They Are Hanged'. The 'First Law' series has been a invigorating shake-up of traditional fantasy tropes and characters and in 'Last Argument Of Kings' the trilogy comes to a satisfying and surprising conclusion.
After travelling to the other side of the world in the previous book in a fruitless search for the seed, ancient mage Bayaz and the adventurers he has collected return home to a Union beset by war from all sides, including within. With the king on his deathbed and his heirs dead, crippled Superior Glotka becomes embroiled in his boss' machinations for the voting of the next monarch.
Barbarian Logen Ninefingers is returning to the north, to meet up with the other warriors he defeated in single combat and spared the lives of. Together with West and the Union army, they must defeat the king of the Northmen, Bethod and his dreaded champion, the Feared. In the heat of the battle, Logen becomes the Bloody Nine and anyone can get hurt amidst his unstoppable fury.
In the capital, Jezal dan Luthar returns to his lover Ardee to find her drunk and angry. Things for the swordsman are about to get a whole load more complicated and the coward will have to rise to a challenge never thought imaginable. Peasants are revolting in the country, enemy armies threaten from North and South and the nobles scheme as the king grows weaker.
This is both the strongest and weakest book of the trilogy for me. The sheer audacity of many of the plot twists and conclusions to character arcs are dazzling. The realism and grittiness of Abercrombie's world continues to the end, with no character emerging unscathed with a fairy-tale ending. These are flawed characters, he seems to say, so why should they finish any less flawed?
Likewise, some of the twists midway through are superbly done and genuinely surprising, yet revealing more about just how much Bayaz, First of the Magi, does behind the scenes to force the Union to do his bidding. The revealing of the Gandalfesque figure to be as human as the others is particularly good, as the ancient wizard is willing to do anything to win. The blurring of the lines between good and evil adds weight and allegorical links to the battles.
I did feel occasionally like the author was straining to keep all the events and twists he wanted into the trilogy. A lot of events felt rushed and the pacing was often uneven as so many characters and storylines battled for attention. The fact that so many of them were worthy of this attention meant that whilst in other books I might say it needed trimming, this felt worthy of expansion.
A fourth book to extend the battles and keep the pacing more dramatic may have truly completed the 'First Law' sequence but even as it is they stand as fantastic examples of the best heroic fantasy. In his first three novels, Joe Abercrombie has shown that the road travelled by so many tired and clichéd quest novels has not been exhausted. There are other ways to do it without re-treading the old formulae and by populating his complex world with dynamic, immensely imperfect characters Abercrombie has produced a reinvigoration of the genre.
Tomas L. Martin
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