Disappointing.

I read all three books back to back. Credit is due for the characterisations throughout the novels, with flawed characters and gray morality throughout. Gone is the normal good versus evil nonsense seen throughout most books. The end to the series is original for the genre, entertaining and well planned.

Unfortunately the journey to that end was the disappointing part, In retrospect much of the story feels like padding, and didn't really move the story towards its conclusion. So many of the sub-plots in the end seemed totally pointless, with whole huge sections of the plot coming full circle and to no conclusion. A deus-ex-machina moment in the final 1/3 of the final volume instead brought the plot together. Although many of the subplots were probably designed to draw the reader through the rich world, sadly the unsatisfactory conclusions to most of these sub-plots undermined the whole effort.

Add to that some rather overlong and over-detailed battle and fight descriptions, and frankly almost the entirety of the tedious chapters involving the northmen and so much of what could have been a great series of books was undermined. The "shades of gray" characters themselves even became less of a draw as no sympathy was left for any character by the end of the long journey, with the possible exception of one.

To my mind the series was 1 book too long, with one too many "defeat snatched from the jaws of victory" moments that instead of being an enjoyable read and being able to savour an original ending, it felt more like an unsatisfactory slog with a bunch of characters I'm glad to see the back of. It's an ok book, but a disappoint ending to a series which started with such promise. I would read an individual Abercrombie book again, but could never commit to any new series.