Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

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I don’t know how to do a proper review of this book because it’s the last in the series and it gets very spoilery. I’ll be doing a brief review of this with an overall score at the end.

A young woman named Shy was living on a farm with her family only to have it raided by mercenaries. Her sister and her brother were taken off the farm and are believed to be alive, so she and her farm hand Lamb set off to go find them.

Their journey brings them clear across the world to an outskirts town that resembles a Western almost. People are moving out of the main cities in search for gold that’s in the rivers and the mountains. This book is set decades after the First Law trilogy and a lot of technology is springing up – people are talking about steam being the next big thing, and printing presses are now a thing.

Cosca is back, and he’s drunker than ever and leading a band of mercenaries out into Far Country.

Shy’s younger brother and sister are brought to The Dragon People, a feared group of people who live in seclusion and have their own unique society and culture. A man who runs the Dragon People “adopts” children who have been stolen from other parts of the world to raise them in the pure way. They consider all those who don’t follow their way to be savages. The longer the children are there, the more they adapt to their new lives and “family”. The Dragon People prey on younger children, since if they are too old they may not adapt to their new lives and run away – when the Dragon People raid a town any child over 12/13 years old is slaughtered instead of being brought back.

The pacing wasn’t quite as quick as some of his other books since there are more intimate one on one fights rather than armies going against each other. However, since there are certain very interesting recurring POV’s I just kept turning pages to see what would happen to them.

The world building took a step away from the usual in this world since technology is becoming more prevalent and because it’s set in a totally different part of the world. I really enjoyed getting something a little different at the end, it kept things fresh and interesting.

At the end of this series I still feel like book 2 of First Law Trilogy was my favorite, but the stand alones were absolutely superb and I enjoyed myself thoroughly throughout this entire experience.

Final Score: 85/100

 

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