Before They Are Hanged is the second book in Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. As such it would make sense to start with the first book in the series. You can read my review of The Blade Itself right here if you wish. The book picks up almost directly from where The Blade Itself left off and concerns itself with largely the same set of characters.

I remember reading, many years ago, the crit­i­cism that a trilogy struc­ture almost invari­ably resulted in a middle book where people were "going some­where." That is certainly true in this case. The book threads between three major story­lines using several different view­point char­ac­ters. These three story­lines barely inter­sect at all during the course of the book. You can see that they will even­tu­ally impact each other, but to all intents and purposes at this point you're reading three stories set in the same world at the same time.

Of those three I found Sand dan Glokta's story­line the most compelling (whereas in the previous volume it was that of Logen Ninefin­gers). Glokta is a fasci­nating char­acter being crip­pled and cynical yet with a strangely honor­able core to him. His role as Supe­rior of Dagoska in charge of the defense of the city and his inter­ac­tions with the polit­ical leaders make for some enter­taining scenes. Glokta also seems to be perpet­u­ally nosing around the edge of some larger conspiracy that is happening in the Union.

That's not to say that the other story­lines are disin­ter­esting. The battle between The Union and the northmen in Angland has some very tense moments to it but neither Colem West or the Dogman are as inter­esting char­ac­ters to read. And the bick­ering of the "main" party gets a bit repet­i­tive at times, partic­u­larly since they are the ones essen­tially doing a tour of the world in their quest to find The Seed which, natu­rally, is at the end of the world.

Subverting Expec­ta­tions

On the one hand Aber­crombie is clearly telling an epic fantasy tale here. We have powers in play that can destroy cities. I mentioned in my previous review that there are moments where you get echoes of Tolkien. Here for example we get the idea that these same battles have been played out on a larger scale before. That what we have now is a mere shadow of the power and majesty that this world once knew.

And yet every time we get one of those moments, Aber­crombie deftly flips things around to show us that what might seem like majesty is little more than arro­gance and self­ish­ness. That the golden past, wasn't really so golden.

He does the same thing with char­ac­ters. There really isn't a noble one amongst the bunch. They are arro­gant or selfish or cruel or flawed in some other way. Many of them do, or have done, horrible things. Yet, in most cases, he keeps them sympathetic.

Colem West is a good example of this. In the first book he lost his temper and violently attacked his sister. But we don't come away hating him. Instead we see someone who is strug­gling, desper­ately, to hang on. To stay in control. To keep his sister safe. He feels threat­ened and over­whelmed by every­thing around him. And from time to time he gives in to the anger that fear breeds. Flawed? Very. Evil? No.

Sand dan Gloctor is another one. On the surface he is a horrible person. He tortures people. Some­times, he enjoys it. On occa­sion he know­ingly sentences an inno­cent to death, because the alter­na­tive is his death. And yet, when given the chance, more than once he has taken a risk to save someone else. There is a strange nobility to the char­acter. His pursuit of the truth is oddly honor­able in a very twisted way.

Complexity Of Character

This complexity of char­acter is present throughout the book and is one of its biggest strengths. The world building is solidly done but in truth there isn't that much to distin­guish this fantasy world from many others beyond a certain gritty realism. The char­ac­ters, however, are remark­ably rich.

Take Ferro Maljinn for example. An escaped slave who was clearly treated very badly, her past has scarred her present. There's a great moment in this book where Ferror reveals that she cut her own face as an act of rebel­lion because then her owner wouldn't be able to charge as much for her "services." That rebel­lious self-mutilation is a phys­ical mani­fes­ta­tion of her person­ality. It reflects how she speaks to people and how she conducts relationships.

And the complexity is not limited to the primary view­point char­ac­ters. While the minor char­ac­ters, obvi­ously, don't get the same time and atten­tion even they have a complexity that you don't normally see in fantasy novels. They live lives and form rela­tion­ships that aren't directly related to the needs or inter­ests of the main characters.

Grim, Gritty And Ugly

I've mentioned else­where that I'm increas­ingly tired with the grim and gritty emphasis of modern fantasy. Not only do I think it has become a lazy way to add cred­i­bility to a book, I also think it's just plain depressing to read endlessly.

Before They Are Hanged is grim and gritty to the core. This is a brutal and ugly world. And in a brutal and ugly world people do horrible things to each other. There is also a layer of cyni­cism coated over every­thing that happens in this book. Cyni­cism that I would hazard a guess is informed by the British history (the Union strikes me as a fairly clear parallel to Britain), both polit­ical and military.

The book is also, at times, quite depressing to read because of all the violence and misery. And yet, Aber­crombie manages to instill enough empathy for the view­point char­ac­ters and offer out the meagerest of hopes that each of these char­ac­ters may find some sort of redemption.

It's enough, at least when combined with the excep­tion­ally skillful writing, to make me love reading these books. They aren't going to be to everyone's tastes. Some will find them just to grim and the violence too unpleasant. But they are really well written.