So I have just finished this amazing audio book, I absolutely loved it but real the genius of it wasn’t apparent to me until very close to the end.
The book is completely from the bad guys point of view, and they win!
I’m not just talking about the obvious one Bayaz who it turns out is fully evil, and obviously Glokta who if you think isn’t a bad guy then you may have some issues, but Nine-fingers as well.
Even the Dog man realised at the end and Black Dow understood. He was walking death, a child and friend killer who because of all the fantasy books you have read you are conditioned not to understand this and see him as a hero or Anti-hero and that is the genius of the writing.
The above are not Anti-hero’s if you look at there actions they are straight up evil.
Also when we do briefly meet the characters who you have been told are the bad guys, Bethod or Mumun they seem quite reasonable and not at they have been described.
Even Jazal who is a spoilt selfish man and starts to turn good is left as the coward he is at the end.
Ferros desire for revenge in the end, leads to the slaughter and illness of thousands.
It is extremely rare to read an entire book from the bad guy’s perspective and I didn’t fully realise this until very close to the end.
Spoiler Alert for the book Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks.
It is only the above I can think of that also only makes you understand at the end whose point of view you have really been reading. The bad guys.
Brilliant writing, looking forward to the rest of the books now.
by life-is-a-simulation