The First Law: SPOILER TALK - The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie 

Corporal Tunny was some of the funniest of Joe’s work I’ve ever read! “Think your the best part of the egg do you yolk”

This was my favorite so far and really stuck with me long after I finished. It’s much more theme over plot. Joe did a great job of displaying the nihilistic and pointlessness of it all. The hill was pointless, no one really cared about it or the town for that matter. Craw retires only to realize he can’t do anything else and goes right back to a new war. Gorst saves the day three times only to have his “love” hate him, despite saving her husband, and we as the reader realize he was manipulated by Bayaz since it seems he was the real person who banished him and then allowed him to return to the king. Gorst just goes back to his depression. Beck accomplished nothing but killing a friend. Calder didn’t become king. Tunny sat around in the mud. Aside from Finree nothing changed and even that was a wash since her husband got promoted and her father got demoted. The North didn’t expand its boundaries or gain true sovereignty. The wars didn’t stop, just a new enemy. Stranger-come-knocking didn’t get civilized or the wife he wanted. And most heartbreaking of them all is Whirrun dies not in glory but a random spear in the back. And this demigod figure, feared and respected by all, doesn’t even get a song. Forgotten mere hours after his death. The part about the old songs being forgotten because new battles bring new songs really drove home the pointlessness of all the fighting and it gets you absolutely nothing. I get that a book about a pointless battle in a nothing valley over a random hill might turn people away but I felt it was amazingly done

So glad you got me to read Abercrombie. What I love about this book is how the Bloody Nine's reputation alone can change a battle. I hope he is not dead and can't wait to read the next book to find out.

The Heroes might be my favorite First Law novel so far even though it has none of my favorite story characters. I have to disagree with your assessment of the character of Cpl. Tunny. Speaking as a former Infantry NCO; every real military unit has a few like him in their ranks, and they are actually in a strange way indispensable. It's subtle, but he is actually a better and more important character than I think you picked up on. He certainly adds a lot to the veracity of the books military "feel" (as do the scenes with the various Generals). Glad you mentioned the shifting POV sequence during the climactic battle. I felt that captured the chaotic randomness of battle extremely well.

Black Dow has such a presence, brilliant character.

You should have read that excerpt in Gorst's squeaky voice that the audiobook narrator (Stephen Pacey, the one and only) gave him. It creates such a wonderful juxtaposition with all the butchery and violence Gorst unleashes on people. I wish we had his POV in other novels, because he's such a tragic, comedic, tormented character, more unique than at least three quarters of the characters you get in other fantasy novels.

I think The Heroes benefits strongly from a more thematic reading than a plot reading. The theme is pretty up-front and pretty damn fully explored -- what makes a hero and is being a hero worth everything it seems to be? (Gorst is a traditional war hero, he is also a petulant monster; Beck becomes a hero by happenstance and dishonestly; Finree saves like 50 lives just by being a hostage; etc.) Heroism and what makes one a hero is essentially paramount to understanding the culture of the North. Everybody wants a name, and they earn it by killing. And it adds to the greater theme of the series once the reader learns (at the end) that all of it was just a game Bayaz and, by proxy, Khalul are playing.

Just finished the Heroes, can't believe you didn't like Tunny as a character or saw him as pointless, thought the was fantastically written and extremely funny, peak Abercrombie humour. Found him a welcome break to everything else that was going on. That said I love your review videos, and it's part of my excitement and motivation to finish a First Law Book because it means I get to watch your video afterwards! Time to go dig my nose into Red Country.

Also, that "Tell us how you really feel, Gorst!" letter he writes to the king then burns...That bit had me laughing my ass off. "Your High and Mighty Fuckhole" Classic!

I felt very similar on my first read of the Heroes. It wasn't until my second read that I really began to love it.. I've read each of the standalones multiple times (as well as the first trilogy) and my spot for "favorite" standalone is constantly changing back and forth between the 3

Beck and Craw (while going in polarized directions) - This is what passing for a happy ending in an Abercrombie book, aye?

Just finished this, I almost DNF’d this after the first 300 pages I was struggling BIGTIME with it, but like you said, last couple of hundred pages I could not get enough of it.

Gorst is terrifying! His internal monologue is pure resentment.

I like this review a lot, thanks Mike, I think you're a great guy beside this channel. 👏👏👏

Agree with everything you said! Least favorite First Law, but still leaps better than other authors’ bests

This is my fav book of all time...

Amazing! Thank you for this video!

Tastes are so strange, I often have to remind myself how personal they are and how it doesn't have to make sense to me. I can not comprehend how someone would put any of standalones before the main trilogy, but there you go, so many put Heroes first. I love Red Country though and hope you enjoy it more than Heroes.

Great reviews! I just picked up Red Country and wanted a refresher, and Ive said for years the Heroes is my favorite. If youre curious why, I would say its Abercrombie shining at something he is particularly good at, writing military movements. I read a lot of non-fiction military history and I can tell Joe does too. All of the set up early on was really easy for me to get invested in because it was familiar as a lead up to a large conflict but because its fiction could zoom right into the major player's minds. Thanks again for the summary and review, subbing for more great content!

I finally can watch this video! Tunny was a nice break for me since his chapters made me laugh sometimes. I think he was meant to be sort of the comedic relief since everything else was so serious. Unfortunately, I didn't like this book as much as the others that came before. I was bored most of the time and some characters didn't have a strong enough personality for me to remember them or care for them. The book still had some good moments and Calder was interesting from beginning to end. Gorst and his obsession with Finree was creepy. I was expecting not to like this book much though because I don't care about war stories in general. I always feel like I've seen it all and the messages at the end are always similar so that becomes boring and repetitive to me. I can take a few chapters about war (like in "Last Argument of Kings"), but 600 pages is too much. I think this will be the only book in the series I will not reread in the future. It wasn't bad, it was just not for me.

Yo! Great review as always. If this "Demon Cycle" review is the one I'm thinking of, then I'll definitely need to watch your review to decide if I should finish it...I got the series for sale and have been sitting on it for years! I think Best Served Cold is a lot like Kill Bill (both plot and theme, actually!)...and continuing with that analogy I think The Heroes is more like Pulp Fiction, not really plot wise but with jumping around in narration and taking place over a very short period of time, you feel like you're there to experience every moment of it from all points of view. Both are great but some people prefer one over the other! I'm fortunate to like them both a lot, and hard to choose between the two most days. Best Served Cold is definitely more fun. The Heroes is pretty nihilistic. I'm glad you enjoyed Bremer in this one! I'll need to watch your review on the First Law and see what you thought about Colonel/Major West's character. He was always my favorite!

I read your good reads review the day before I started the heroes so I was expecting a slow start. I’m glad I did because as a result I was enthralled from the beginning. I absolutely loved it. I disagree about comparing it to Fires of heaven, that book nearly ended my wot journey, luckily I kept watching your videos and continued with WOT. great job as always Mike.

300 subscribers?? Haha. Funny how things change in a year. Thanks for the review Mike.

Calder went from a fuckle chuck in the first trilogy to my favorite character in the series. Getting inside this man's head does so much work. He grows so much from that young dumb bastard to an older, wiser bastard but a good bastard. Definitely also recenters my entire perspective of the first trilogy.

Simply put, and maybe it’s because of my background in PolSci, there’s little else, fiction or otherwise, that addresses war in a holistic way so well. It also does so through brilliant characters and amazing narrative. That’s why this is a brilliant book. If you look at it as simple storytelling, entertainment, it falls short. I think you’ve missed the mark here. Thanks for your reviews as always.:)

Just finished! Easy 7/10 for me. Just loving the First Law world so far. Small break time and straight to Red County and Sharp Ends. Followed by his newer trilogy… 😊

If you had told me back in the first trilogy that I would be cheering for Calder over Black Dow I would have laughed you out of the room. Here we are though. Love Whirrun 🗡️

I loved Tunny and Yolk. Brought some great comic relief

I personally loved Corporal Tunny, Catch-22 is my favorite novel ever and he very much reminded me of Yossarian with his aversion to danger and desire to make it through the war while putting himself in as little danger as possible.

Shy south is easily the least interesting POV character Joe’s written (imo) Caul Shivers needs his own book

See I have the exact opposite feeling. I think the Heroes is the best of the books so far because of how little time it covers. I love how for most of the pov characters this three day stretch of battle is one of the most important events of their lives, but in the grand scheme of things it's really unimportant. I like how the end of Tunny's story really illustrates that by just shipping them off to Styria with no fanfare. I suppose I just really like how it was a smaller story versus a big world changing event like the first law trilogy or best served cold.

I felt it more like the first law than best served cold, i think is just because Bayaz is in here.

You say you dont understand why Shivers would follow Caurib. But it makes perfect sense to me. Shivers followed Bethod and only stopped respecting him when he aligned with the witch, made the Feared his champion and made a pact with the flat heads. It is far from the realm of possibility that Caurib would have detsted these decisions as well but it would be far more difficult to walk away from your father than it would be from your King. Perhaps Caurib had every aspect that Shivers liked in Bethod before the changes, perhaps Shivers joined Bethod because of Caurib. This is not really a far fetched realization at all. Hell, Caurib could have been the one to give Shivers his name & make him a named man.

I agree with your take on the pace of this one. It was a slog for me as well but overall i did end up enjoying it. Especially the illustration of the futility of war.

I read the Hobbit, the LOTR trilogy, stuff like the Odyssey and Nights of the round table when I was a kid but since then I haven't read any fantasy books or really any Fiction. My grandmother made me watch GOT with her I enjoyed the first 4 seasons and heard everyone say the books were so much better so I read them and really enjoyed them someone after that said if you liked ASOIAF then you'll like First Law. So I really enjoyed the first 3 books then after best served cold I immediately finished the rest really quickly. Honestly Fist Law is the best fantasy even fiction book I ever read I been reading others steadily since then an I'm not getting anywhere near the same enjoyment as I did with First Law. I just wish RU-vid had more First Law content like it does for ASOIAF. Like character profiles theory videos I'd love to see stuff like that for For First Law. Anyway thanks for these videos. I hope all is well on your end best wishes to you and yours.

It bugs me that we never got a proper post-war follow up on Aliz. I had such a morbid curiosity about her fate after being left with Stranger-Come-Knocking.

Amazing review but man, I couldn’t disagree more with your opinion on Tunny. Ya I totally agree he didn’t NEED to be there for the story to work, but I’m damn glad he was. Dude cracked me up. His relationship with Yolk was great. Also having read AoM, it was a good introduction to both of those both of those characters in hindsight too. But that’s not really a fair point to bring up for this book. I just thought Tunny was jokes. “Think you’re the best part of the egg, do you yolk?” Fuckin got me I can’t lie. I didn’t expect him to say that at all 😂

Tunny was one of my favorites actually, thought he was hilarious

Hey mate, I don't want to be an arse but I think you totally misunderstod calder at the end. Bayez has establihed domination over Calder... so Calder passes rule to his brother, and will rule from the shadows, knowing that neither of them truly rule. Really it's no act of love or charity, Bayez runs the keep.

Damn I kinda liked tunny by the end

My biggest problem with this standalone was it just felt like we already got this in the trilogy, just expanded on. We've seen this before. Big battle in the north with Union mishaps. If you're really into military happenings and manoeuvres, this will be the book for you, but for story telling sake I personally found this the weakest of the three standalones.

I love the 1st law series but i felt his other books where tough at times

Another Quick Comment here regarding Prince Calder: We only saw him once before this and that was during his brief visit to Bayaz's Northern Library at the beginning of The Blade Itself and when he encounters Logan Nine Fingers, he calls him a Dog in front of Bayaz and offers to Put Him Down... Not at all the sniveling coward we see in this book. Perhaps he didn't have a lot of page time, but this seems a continuity lapse on Joe's part...

I actually really liked the Union political drama, because I found it so funny that most of these generals were actually semi-competent in different ways, but they are still petty as all hell. It shows how useless this actually makes them and, unlike in the original trilogy, there's not really anyone more competent to take over. Kroy is the only one with a level head, which is kind of ironic considering how petty he used to be too. It's also a truth of battles like this, in that normally they're less about the battle itself, and more about using the chaos to shift into higher positions, with the death toll

Just finished this one. Damn alot to say about it, try to keep it short. Gorst is a god damn monster! Loved his action scenes and he self pity/hate made me see him is such a diffrent light and the moment when he recognised shivers sent tingles down my spine. Cool to see byaz still pulling those strings like a massive doosh. Much more to go into but I am too lazy haha. With this book compared to the other I felt was a slowish burn to the point where I didn't rip through it, took me a good while. but liked it alot . Next up red Country.

The heroes was good but still best served cold is my favorite 🤔🤨😊🤗🙂

I'm amazed you got banned off Pat's reddit hahaha. That's fucking hilarious. Also, I should note, Rothfuss is one of my favorite writers and one of my least favorite storytellers. Also, I don't like him not fulfilling his promise. I get it, it takes time, doesn't take King time, doesn't take Abercrombie time. Rothfuss, it takes time. No idea why, the story is already finished, it ends in the inn. What the fuck is taking so long lol

Gorst 10/10

Have you read red country yet ?

Top ten Stephen King books?

The Heroes shocked me. Best served cold: On point. This could have been converted into a short story collection.

I dont understand how someone can like best served cold better than heroes, but fair. ill give my opinion: best served cold was completely predictable , meanwhile I was at the edge of my seat for half of this book, couldn't put it down. The drama was way stronger too, the plot way more interesting, everything was better idk, you liked best served cold more, fair enough.

I took gorsht as being a spiteful narcissist, not as being depressed.

Of Wonderful and Shylo Vitari, I just think Joe is not as original with female characters. There are similarities between the most important ones (which are far less than the male ones) Finree dan Brock and Ardee West have some similarities, as do Vitari and Wonderful, and then you get Monza which leads a great book isn't much as character, other than those I can't recall other important women in the saga

This is a lttle late and off topic But man u look really young here. Wasnt used to seeing u like this.

Heroes was my favorite Stand Alone and BSC was my least favorite.

Lol

I totally agree with your assessment. For me I didn’t understand why gorst past made him like he was. It seem over the top for something simple. I did like the character fighting scenes and such but his internal Monologue was downright annoying annoying and his fascination with this woman just brought this character down for me. I’m the end he put his foot in his mouth so there want even a payoff for all the drooling I had to listen to. Not to mention he was complaining the whole time that he got cheated by being a escape goat but no he actual messed up. In the end Gorst is just a over size baby.

I didn't enjoy this book at all. Real slog to get through. Glad when I finished it. Didn't like the characters,didn't enjoy the three day battle. I was bored. I literally loved every other book up until this point. I'm a bit nervous going forward with red country.

It follows too many characters. Made me not care about most of them.

I read this book like a passerby watches at an accident. I guess it is morbid curiosity now. Joe has only written two characters that I actually liked by the end of their stories. All of the rest are just bland collections of tropes. You can be all dewy eyed about his writing but I am not fooled. None of those characters are as deep and unique as you think they are. Worse, the plot of all 5 books so far is the same; Bayaz wins and if you don't like it, you get screwed. The best part of this story is that it didn't revolve specifically around this world's crappy magic lore, only its crappy wizards. The magic system is total crap but the magic monsters are much worse. This worlds Vampire analogue is so nauseating and annoying made more so by the fact that they are in every book, behind every thing that happens for the most part and totally uninteresting. The only 'imaginative' thing Joe did is make them cannibals instead of vampires. So they have no weaknesses, not even sunlight really. Why the entire world isn't covered with these supermen/women is beyond me. All you have to do to get supreme power is eat your neighbor. Also, if you break the first law you get even more power and become even stronger than that. It seems like the first and second laws are like the apple in the garden of Eden. God said not to do it, just to tempt you into taking a bite. This story can be boiled down to People fight because Bayaz and his brother are still fighting after a thousand years and the north is currently aligned to his brother. Many people die, including the leader of the north. The new leader accepts the leash frrom Bayaz and the book is over. Alot of characters you don't care about die, get excited and then disappointed and mained etc. Nothing really important happens except the name plates on certain positions of power change. Bayaz has cannons einvented, yeah, so what. Joe reuses a lot of characters you didn't care about before nand you still don't care about now and then tosses in some new ones that he will reuse until he kills them off or you get really tired of them. Joe even uses the dreaded resurrection trope here; you thought the character was dead, they should have been dead but no, they miraculously survived! Actually, he did that twice when the POV character's husband survives the explosion that destroyed an entire town; mostly because he wanted to write the POV character gGorst getting the knife twisted in his guts by having to save the man who married his love interest. No good reason a man who led the assault from the front should be found inside a stone building alive when everyone else in the entire town was dead... no reason but plot armor. You can't even blame Bayaz for it since the explosion was created by his enemy and so he couldn't have predicted it. Just a totally horse-crap reason for a character living. Just like Nicomo Coska who can't die because Joe likes him. I can't wait to see how much fun Red Country is; I've already started it :)