Before they are hanged
2007
- fiction, fantasy, general
- fiction, fantasy, epic
- fiction, war & military
- fiction, action & adventure
- fiction, science fiction, general
- kings and rulers
- fiction
- imaginary wars and battles
- fantasy fiction
- rois et souverains
The story
Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It’s enough to make a torturer want to run – if he could even walk without a stick. Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem – he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world. And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters. If they didn’t hate each other quite so much. Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven – but not before they are hanged.
What it’s like
Grim, grimy and darkly funny, this is a book of cold rooms, smoke-stained taverns, rain-slick cobbles and frozen northern wastes, rendered in a wry, sharply cynical close-third voice that moves briskly between scenes of intrigue, mud-churned battlefields and crumbling ruins. The mood is sardonic and weary, with a bleak sense of futility undercut by black comedy, the kind of read that suits a stormy weekend or a late-night stretch when you want company in cynicism. Violence is frequent and unsparing: battle scenes are messy and bloody, torture is described with clinical detail, and deaths arrive abruptly, with some sexual content and frank profanity along the way. Pacing is brisk, with short chapters that rotate among a cast of morally compromised viewpoint characters, each slowly shifting in self-regard, grudging loyalty and resentment toward one another. Readers who like flawed antiheroes, gallows humour and the grubby realism of war over gleaming heroics will find it rewarding; anyone seeking something gentle or cosy should look elsewhere.
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