HALF A KING
SUMMARY
Prince Yarvi has vowed to regain a throne he never wanted. But first he must survive cruelty, chains, and the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea. And he must do it all with only one good hand.
The deceived will become the deceiver.
Born a weakling in the eyes of his father, Yarvi is alone in a world where a strong arm and a cold heart rule. He cannot grip a shield or swing an axe, so he must sharpen his mind to a deadly edge.
The betrayed will become the betrayer.
Gathering a strange fellowship of the outcast and the lost, he finds they can do more to help him become the man he needs to be than any court of nobles could.
Will the usurped become the usurper?
But even with loyal friends at his side, Yarvi finds that his path may end as it began—in twists, and traps, and tragedy.
REVIEW
Many times when writers of adult novels attempt
to enter the YA genre they merely dumb down the characters and
writing, thus making a bad book.
This is not the case with Joe
Abercrombie’s Half a King.
Abercrombie has done something truly
remarkable. He has kept much of the backstabbing, intrigue, and complex
characters, while simply slightly toning down the violence described to the reader. Now that doesn’t mean that there is no violence in this book, city populations are
slaughtered, there is raping and pillaging, there is torture, and
the main character is sold into slavery and often beaten. If what I just
described bothers you, then this is not the book for you. If you can handle
this then you’re in for one hell of a ride of a ride.
One of my
favorite attributes of Abercrombie books is that none of the characters are
black and white, he does an amazing job explaining backstories and motivations,
all while making readers understand why many of the awful things that the
characters do are done. No character is a saint and many have done horrible
things for what they consider to be the greater good or at the very least for
their goals, which might have originally started out noble, but can easily be
viewed as anything but in a different light.
Fans of
Abercrombie’s pervious books will love Half a King. I personally was riveted
from the first page and didn’t put it down until I finished, where upon I went
to amazon to see when the next in the series is supposed to come out. Speaking
of that, this is the first of a trilogy, the next in the series is Half a World
and is expected February 3, 2015, so at the least there is a quick turn around
for each book in the series.
INFO
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: July 15, 2014
Price: $26.00
Link to Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Half-King-Shattered-Sea-Abercrombie-ebook/dp/B00HBQWGYO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1414033345&sr=1-1&keywords=joe+abercrombie
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