 for me to read every single book that Joe Abercrombie has written in one year and it could have been great. Obviously, I changed my mind. Everything else was just a practice run for this. So it became a goal of mine in 2021 when I realized that it was possible for me to read every single book that Joe Abercrombie has written in one year. And so I did that. I knew I would read all of First Law in that year because I was reading all of the First Law in anticipation of the release of Wisdom of Crowns. And then I was like, if I just squeeze in the Shattered Sea, I'll have read everything the man has written in one year. So I did it. So I just wanted to kind of like talk about that, like talk about my year of Abercrombie. And then because people have requested it, I figured this would be a good time to re-rank Abercrombie. But I won't just rank First Law, I will rank First Law and Shattered Sea. I will rank everything that Abercrombie has written. This stack is extremely precarious, so I will put it down. So I have read every single Abercrombie book more than once, except for Wisdom of Crowns because that just came out, and the last two books in the Shattered Sea, Half the World and Half a War. Every other Abercrombie book I have read at least twice, many of which I've read more than twice. So how do I feel about them all? And how do I feel about reading them all in one year? Do I recommend? I recommend reading all of First Law in one year. I can't say that I super recommend reading Shattered Sea at all. That makes it sound very, very bad, and it's not that bad. But it's not great. So you can give that a miss. Unless you want to do what I did and just say you've done it and read every single Abercrombie book that they're raising one year. Because like it's, it's kind of fun to say it. So for that reason alone, if you would like to do it, be my guest. But I guess that's spoilers for the ranking. I will be ranking the Shattered Sea at the bottom. So sorry if you like the Shattered Sea. I'm really happy for you. So reading these books as many times as I have, my love for them really just grows, which is a good thing, I would say. There have been times when I really loved a book and then I revisited it and I'm like, hmm, yeah, I don't like it as much the second time. Either because I no longer feel the way that I did, like that's not my taste anymore, or because it's one of those books that just like the first time through is great, but it doesn't really have that much to entice you on a reread. Whereas other books are just as good every single time you read them. And then still others aren't that good the first time but aren't great on a reread. So Abercrombie books, there are some that I would say they are the latter, where they're not that great the first time, but they're amazing on reread. Other Abercrombie books are amazing the first time through and amazing on reread. And then there are some Abercrombie books that were great the first time through and like not quite as good on a reread. And there's some Abercrombie books that weren't that great, and then still weren't that great, by which I mean The Shattered Sea. So let's just quickly talk about The Shattered Sea. I don't know if I've posted it yet, but I did film an entire video just about The Shattered Sea. So that is either available to you, in which case I'll link it down below, or it will soon be available to you, in which case stay tuned. But yeah, So Shattered Sea is his YA trilogy that is Viking inspired and it is just so utterly lackluster. It is not bad. There is nothing about it that it is bad. It is just it's there is the best thing I can say for it. Like it told a story and it there were characters and and it could have been great, but it's not. And it's it's kind of painful to read for that reason, because I as I'll either either you know, because that video is up or you will soon know there are things about it that there's a massive potential. There's a lot of things in The Shattered Sea that I'm like, why isn't this my favorite thing ever? Because I just don't feel like I don't know. I don't want to say that he didn't put effort into it because I'm sure that he did. But it just feels like there's it's just a bunch of ideas in there that I'm like, I wish you would do something with these ideas because the ideas are fantastic. But they're just there's just not a lot to it. So it's like a blueprint for something great. And then he just forgot to build it sounds so so harsh. But anyway, that's The Shattered Sea. It's the bottom of the ranking. If I was to rank them individually, I would say probably they get better with each one. That the worst one is half a king, then half the world's a little bit better, and then half the war is the best. But I gave all of them three stars. So I feel pretty much the same about them all. But yeah, if I had to if I had to rank them, I would say that they get progressively better. So the bottom bottom bottom of the ranking is half a king. And then second to bottom from bottom is half the world. And then third from bottom is half a war. So there we rank The Shattered Sea. Let's move on from The Shattered Sea. But so his other books, I've read the original trilogy in his entirety several times. And I'm working on currently rereading the trilogy and all of the first law books again. But so the book that I've read the most of all of Abercrombie's books is The Blade Itself because well, it's the first one. So every time I start again at the beginning, I always start with The Blade Itself. And I did read The Blade Itself a long, long, long, long time ago. And I didn't like it. Obviously, I changed my mind. As I've said many times now in many videos in many conversations, it is common knowledge at this point that the first time I read it, I didn't like it, but it was at a time in my life when I was a different type of reader. And I also had no idea that I mean, I didn't even know the Grimdark existed, let alone that this was Grimdark. I just was like, this is a fantasy book, you know, great. And I was on record the Amazon algorithm recommended it to me based on my previous purchases. And I was like, seems to have a high star rating. So cool. I'll give it a go. And I read it and I was like, why would anybody want to read this? I can't say that it's bad. But but why? So years past and I get a taste for Grimdark. And everyone who reads Grimdark is like, well, Joe Abercrombie, he's the best in the biz. And I was like, is he? I remember reading it and not liking it. But there are some really pretty special editions of his books. And I can't really justify buying them unless I like the books. So let's try again. So I read the blade itself again, for the second time. And it was like, actually, I think this might be my cup of tea. And I was like, okay, so you know, let's let's go on. I think I like this, I didn't give it five stars. But I was like, I'm into this. So then I read before they were hanged and last argument of Kings. Last argument of Kings, which is when you get the conclusion, the answers in the trilogy, I was like blown away. That was the first Abercrombie book I ever gave five stars to. This was a four before they're hanged was a four. And last argument, I was like, whoa, okay, whoa, okay. So I gave that five stars. By then, by the time I finished the trilogy the first time, I'd already read the blade itself twice. So thereafter, I read all the standalone and then when the new trilogy came out, I started reading that. Then I went back to the beginning again. And I read the trilogy again. But I didn't manage to get into the standalone before the new trilogy came out the before trouble with peace came out. So once again, that put blade itself at three times. And the next two at twice. And the standalone still at once. And then I again went back to the beginning in anticipation of the release of wisdom of crowds which put blade itself at four times. The rest of the trilogy at three times, the standalone's now at twice each. And then the beginning of the new trilogy at twice each as well. No, a little hatred three times. Yeah, a little hatred three times because I read it when it came out, then anticipation of the release of trouble with peace. And then in anticipation of the release of wisdom of crowds. So a little hatred is is catching up. And then just now I read the blade itself again because I'm doing a first law read along on Bethany's podcast this year. So that puts it at five times. And if I keep starting at the beginning, nothing will ever catch up with blade itself. So fifth time through, do I still love the blade itself? I surely do. And I think it was only the third, the fourth time that I read it that I finally bumped it up to four, five stars because when I read it the third time, I was like, I still love this. But I think I don't think I give it a five, I still think it's a four. And then last year when I reread it, I was like, this is my fourth time reading this. And I still love it. And I have a great time every time I read it. I was like, I got to give it five. So I gave it five. And I continued to give it five this time. It's fantastic. And obviously, this falls into the category of not that great the first time through. And the trilogy is not that great the first time through. And I would probably himself, well, I don't think he'd say it's not that great, but like, has admitted that the sort of pacing issues, which is what puts people off of it, is, you know, in retrospect, a mistake. But nevertheless, would I change anything about the trilogy? I wouldn't. So even though arguably that is a flaw that the author himself calls out, I love them the way that they are. So as Rothfuss would say, to love something despite, to know the flaws and love them to that is rare and pure and perfect. So blade itself, chef's kiss, where we're going to rank it, not sure yet. But so then the rest of the trilogy. So the first time that I read The Last Argument of Kings, which is the end of the first trilogy, that was the first time that I gave an Abercrombie book five stars. And for a while there, it was the only one in the trilogy that I gave five stars to. Now I give all three of them five stars. I think it is weaker on reread. I don't see myself lowering the ranking. I've raised the rankings on blade and before they were hanged. But this one, I don't think I'll lower it. It'll just stay at five. But while the first two vastly improve once you know the ending of the trilogy, the ending of the trilogy is less exciting because you do know the answers. And this is the part where you get the answers. So getting the answers the first time through is like mind blown. But now that you have the answers, it is so fun to go back to the beginning and look for all of the places where the clues are laid, where the hints are placed, where there is foreshadowing, where there is something going on in the background that you wouldn't have noticed that is actually tied in to where this ends. That's what's fun now. The part where you get the answers Last Argument of Kings, the part where everybody kind of comes into their final form, which again is that's not an answer, but it is surprising when the characters finally come to their end points or like where they're going to end up by the end of the trilogy. That is surprising. But again, rereading it, you're like, well, I already know this. I already have this information. So it's not that not as fun as going back into reading the first and second ones. So even though the first time through, this was my favorite. Every other time through, it's my least favorite, even though I still give it five stars. Okay, so let's talk about the stand alone. The stand alone are such a mixed bag and my relationship with them has been such an up and down. So now I have read them all twice, best of cold. I've kind of read two and a half times because like I began a reread of it a previous time, but I never actually finished at that time. So I've read it a little bit more than I've read the other two. But technically, I've only read each of these twice. I'm about to read them a third time this year because I've had the read along the aforementioned read along while my original ranking of the stand alone having only read them once, I would have said best of cold is the best not only of the stand alone, but in the first law this was before the age of madness was a thing. So I would have said best of cold is the best thing Abercrombie has written and therefore also the best of the stand alone. Then I would have said red country not nearly as good as the trilogy, but next best of the stand alone. And then the heroes when I originally ranked Abercrombie, and I had not read the Shattered Sea, but when I ranked or I ranked the first law, this was the bottom of my stack. And it is definitely not the bottom of my stack anymore. I'm not sure yet where it goes, but not the bottom. Because rereading these books, I was, I felt kind of the opposite from how I felt before. Red country I felt the most similarly, but I guess everything else like in relation to that change. So best of cold was my favorite, as I said, but I don't think it's that fun to reread. It's a little bit like last argument of Kings, although not for the same reasons, but it's sort of, it's an amazing ride the first time through. But there isn't anything about it. There isn't anything about where it ends or what you learn or what you find out or anything like that, that recontextualizes or reframes what happens before to make you want to reread it and to make you look for the seeds planted for where it ends up going. Like there's no real, I don't want to say there's no surprises, there are definitely surprises, but they're not the kind of surprises that is fun to see foreshadowed because for the most part, they aren't actually really foreshadowed with some exceptions, but it's not really that type of thing that we're doing. So it's an amazing, fast-paced, rip-roaring revenge thriller. So the first time you read it, after reading the original trilogy, after putting up with the snail space of the original trilogy where you're like, this is great, but like where are we going? Are we going anywhere? Will we ever get there? Well, I know when we've arrived. After like going through that in the original trilogy, when you pick up a surf cold and it's that is paced lightning fast, it is non-stop action revenge thriller. It's just like, wow, okay, wow. Oh, this is everything I learned about the trilogy, except like, it's popping. I don't have to wait these long stretches where I'm like, what in the F is going on? So the first time through, I was just like floored. I was like, whoa, what a ride. And it's still great. It is fantastic. I still give it five stars. But like I said, it's, there isn't really anything in it to unpack and pick apart and look for details in. There's, I still find things in it when I reread it that I didn't notice the first time. It's still a great book. So it's great to be reading a good book because I enjoy the journey because it's great character work, great, a great plot. It is a good book. But it's not a book where I feel differently now rereading it. There's nothing about it that like, that it becomes deeper or better or more interesting the more you read it. It's just like not that kind of book. So it's more of like a one and done or read it again in a few years when you've maybe forgotten some of it and it'll surprise you again. But you know what I mean? So I was kind of disappointed when I read it because I remembered this being like peak first law best experience. And then I reread it and I was like, it's good. But I just don't feel like that about it anymore. I feel like I can only feel that way about it the first time. Now I will say shivers. Call of shivers is my second favorite character after San Diego Acta. And this is shivers book. I know that Imans is the main character, but this is shivers book. So my main man shivers. For him, I read this book many, many, many times because even though he's in the first law trilogy, this is kind of his origin story. So for shivers, for shivers reread this. The heroes, which again was the bottom of my ranking stack, skyrocketed my estimation. And there were many factors involved in why I changed my mind about the heroes. The heroes is a book that if you don't know what it is going into it and if you don't know what type of project this is or what Abercrombie's attempting to accomplish, there's not, it's not guaranteed that you won't like it. You might just happen to like it. But there are much stronger odds that you will not like it if you don't know what this is going in. So I didn't know if this was going in. The only thing I knew was that it was another first law book by Lord Grimdark himself that would be taking place in the same universe as the previous books. That's it. And I was like, great, another first law book, let's do it. First time through, I was like, where is the plot? Like I've read the trilogy, like I know you sometimes are a little like iffy on a plot, but there's literally like no plot. And I was like, it will there be? This is a standalone. So like in a trilogy, you're like, maybe it will become clear to me later. And it does. It does magnificently. But in a standalone, you're like, I am on page 400 and there's still no plot. What? So the first time through, I was just so occupied with with trying to find the plot or trying to figure out when I would start to have one that I couldn't really enjoy it on its own terms or appreciate what it was doing for itself. Because I was I was assessing it based on a metric that it wasn't interested in adhering to. Like I was grading it on a rubric that was just like not the appropriate rubric for what this is. Grading like an English paper with a science test rubric, you know, like that's not what we're doing here. It will fail by your standards if your standards do not align with what this is attempting to do. So what is attempting to do is simply to tell several days of battle from multiple perspectives to suck as a project to see if it could be done. And having learned that that is what we were trying to do, I would say, well, it absolutely can be done. And you did it marvelously well. Good job, sir. This is fantastic. But it really helped to know that's what we were trying to do. I didn't know that the first time. So rereading the heroes the second time this time, both going into it knowing that there wouldn't be a plot, but also knowing that there was never supposed to be a plot that that it wasn't a situation where like I read it before I remember there was no plot. So I'm ready for it this time. I also came to learn that what was the the project what he was attempting to do here. And this is one of the situations where, you know, there's argument to be had over whether or not it's important to know what an author's intent is or what an author's opinion about something is, you know, death of the author, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In this instance, I think it was immensely helpful to know what the project of this book was, which when you just pick up the book, there's no way to know that knowing it and having read it before knowing what to expect. I picked this up and I had a ball. I was not concerned about trying to find a plot. I could just enjoy the ride and the ride is phenomenal. Abercrombie's character work is actually more impressive in the heroes than it is in a lot of the other books because there are so many characters that you meet so briefly, because they're just like one of the many that are in this battle. And the way he's able to paint a vivid three dimensional portrait of people that just fly by that you barely meet, that you probably won't see again, is kind of staggering. So when I could just sit back and enjoy what he was actually doing, and just take it for itself, I was more blown away by the heroes than I was by best of cold even. So this definitely improved on reread. And then Red Country, I felt the exact same way as I did the first time pretty much. So you know how I said books can feel not as good the first time and great the second time, or great the first time and not so great the second time, or they can just feel same. The stand-alones like run the gambit. There's one of each. There's one that I love the first time, not so much the second time. There's one that I hated the first time and loved the second time. And there's Red Country that I feel the same. Red Country is a western, and I just, I'm not that big a fan of westerns. So it's fine. It was fine the first time, and it was fine the second time. It's just not a kind of thing that I gravitate towards. It is executed wonderfully well. And in fact, when I went and watched the western film that most heavily inspired, it's not the only thing that inspired this, but it was the one that most heavily inspired this book. Watching that western, I was like, well, Red Country sure is a heck of a lot better than this movie is. So well done, Abercrombie. If this is what inspired you, you improved upon it massively. But yeah, I just, I mean, I know a lot of people who say Red Country is their favorite Abercrombie or their favorite of the stand-alones, and if you like westerns, I can't claim to understand why you like westerns. But if you like westerns, I easily understand why this would be your favorite, because he definitely captures the spirit of a western in this book. It just happens to be a thing that I don't really like. And because I don't really like westerns, I like this a lot better than any actual western, because it is still a first law book. It is still taking place in the world of the first law. So it's not completely a western. So I think it's better than a western. But because it's a western, I don't like it as much as I like the other first law books. And then before we dive into the Age of Madness, Sharpen's, which I never have that much to say about, because how much is there to say about short stories? I had a good time the first time I read it. I had a great time the second time that I read it. So I guess it's up there with Red Country, but it's a little more positive feeling than I have towards Red Country. Red Country was like, I feel the same. This is like, I feel the same. It's great having little snatches, little glimpses, little pieces, the little end bits, the off cuts of first law, and seeing new characters that you've never seen before, and seeing familiar characters in different places, different times in their lives, seeing young lockdown, seeing, not young but earlier, Logan, seeing some of the things that we heard, talked about. I mean, Abercrombie said that he doesn't really ever want to write a prequel, because prequels kind of like, what's the point? And you're going to kind of ruin the mystique and the enigma of whatever you have built, which I tend to agree with. I mean, here and there where there was definitely of a definite intent with a prequel, like, I'm not going to say they never work, but I know what he means. But that said, you kind of get like a tiny prequel in here for like Glockta and Logan. So he's not entirely opposed to doing a prequel. He just apparently won't do a full novel. But like, I would say this story about young Glockta, the story about younger Logan, those are technically prequels. So they are fun to see, especially because of whatever image you formed in your mind of what those events might have been like when you hear about them in the first law trilogy. So it's a great time. And if you listen to it on audio, which I mean, I always recommend listening to first law on audio in general. But in particular, like if you're not going to do any of the books on audio, which you know, you do you do sharp ends on audio because at the end, well, before the end, one of the stories is read by Joe Abercrombie himself, which is fun. And then at the end, there's an interview with Joe Abercrombie and the narrator Stephen Pacey. And it is a fantastic interview that I listened to both times that I read the book because it's fantastic interview. And I enjoyed that just as much the second time. And then we get to the age of madness trilogy, which is immaculate. This is Abercrombie in his final form. This is the most Abercrombie that Abercrombie has ever been. Everything else was just a practice run for this. And I still can't believe how good this trilogy is. It has no business being this good. When I heard that he was writing a new trilogy in the world of the first law, I had the audacity to be like, I'll read it, but is that necessary? And I will never stop apologizing for doubting you, sir, for doubting that this trilogy needed to be written because just wow, absolute nonstop staggering. Wow, a little hatred when it came out. I was like, again, I'm so sorry for suggesting that this didn't need to be written. What remains to be seen is if we can keep up this quality, if you can keep up telling amazing stories like maybe, maybe this book is great, but did this trilogy need to happen? I still don't know. But like, so sorry for doubting you, this is phenomenal. I am very much looking forward to seeing what happens next. It'll be hard to beat this. And then he fucking beat it with the Trouble with Peace, which was better than a little hatred, which, white and how this was amazing. This was the best thing he'd written to date. And then he went and wrote something better. So okay. And then I spent an entire year hyping myself up, preparing, rereading everything in the universe of the first law in anticipation of the release of Wisdom of Crowds. And the whole time I was like, is this a bad idea? Should I not be hyping myself up for this because it's setting it up for failure? Because it was already a long shot that Trouble with Peace could be as good as let alone better than a little hatred. So like, Wisdom of Crowds like, ease up. Like, it may not be as good as the first two. It'll still be good though, like calm down. And then it was the best one. It was the best one of the three. And I cried so many tears, not just because it was great, which I'm not sure that would ever make me cry. I might have done. And I didn't cry because first law is over, because it's also not probably over. Like you probably will write something more in the first law. But for now it's over. I cried many, many ugly tears for the events of this book because the one thing Abercrombie had not yet done was make me cry. And now I have cried. Not only have I cried, I have ugly cried over an Abercrombie book. So he's done it all now. I mean, if he ever writes more in the first law, this will be the time when I'll be like, well, last time I doubted you. So I won't doubt you this time. And that's when he'll let me down or not. I would hate to think he'd let me down. Anyway, um, yeah, I what no book has any business being this good. And pretty much everything I've read since has just been kind of like, yeah, that's fine. It's not the wisdom of crowds. Just just I what words can be used. These books are so tightly plotted. They are so they're so ever everything that we've seen him do in all of his previous books. And that's kind of what's amazing to about reading them all in one year. The way that I did was because I did already know when I went back to the beginning now, some of what's in the Japanese trilogy, what he's where he's come to with some of the things that he likes to do. So going back to the beginning and like, you know, you see the early forms of the type of writing that is in this trilogy, you see the early forms for the type of way that he'll construct a scene, the way that he'll connect scenes, the way that he'll weave together perspectives in a very Abercrombie-esque way, which I feel like sounds like it doesn't like I feel like that just sounds like any book, unless you read Abercrombie, in which case, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Because you're like weaving together perspectives, like any book that has multiple perspectives is weaving together perspectives, but that's not what I mean. And again, if you've read Abercrombie, you know exactly what I'm talking about him weaving together perspectives. So like, you see him starting to play with that stuff in the earlier books. And then you as you read on and on and on, you get to The Age of Badness trilogy, which is where he's finally like mastered the move. Like it's like watching like a biopic for some like Olympic athlete, where like you've seen them in their training phase where like, you could see that they were a prodigy, like you could see that they were born to do this sport. They were really good at a young age, but it was unpolished. Like they hadn't quite practiced the moves enough yet. They hadn't really trained hard enough yet. But then you see them practice it and practice it and work with it and improve it and make it their own. And then you finally see them at gold medal level when they have perfected this move. This move is now named after them because they are so good at it. Only they can really do it. So like seeing that growth and also again, not just growth, but like seeing the seeds of what would become the masterpiece that is The Age of Badness. And again, like his the way that he wanted to structure the original trilogy, I understand what he's attempt to do. And he understands why that wasn't entirely successful. But because he's learned from that, he's not shied away from having unusual narrative structures. He's not shied away from playing with how to present narratives to your audience in a way that is less, less typical, less straightforward. He's just learned from his mistakes and learned to do it in a way where it's not like, oh, it's good on reread or it's good once you know, or it's good if you it's explained to you that like so many of the other books, like I said, like, oh, the heroes is great if you know what he was trying to do. Or the first law trilogy is amazing. Once you've read it already, and then you're going back to read it again, like that's when it's like truly amazing, but you have to read it once already. Or like Besser of Cold where I'm like, it's really good the first time, like he learned like the one thing he learned from first law trilogy was pacing. So then he was like, okay, I'm gonna pace this way faster. And he surely did. But like, it's not that fun to reread anymore. This he just like learned from all of that. So it's paced brilliantly. It's never a slog. It's never slow. It's never like, where is this going? It's never a situation we were like, oh, the first time through I was like, what, but then I reread it because I know where this is going and it's actually amazing. It's amazing the first time through. But it's not like Besser of Cold where it's amazing the first time through but then you reread it and you're like, well, it was good the first time, but like, not so much the second time. It's amazing the second time. And then Wisdom of Crowds. I have not this is I have not reread this. So I cannot say for certain. But unlike Last Argument of Kings, where I'm like, it's amazing the first time because you get all the answers, I, I anticipate that when I reread this as I will be later this year, it will be amazing in a way that Last Argument of Kings isn't quite because it's just it's what all these other books were preparing Abercrombie to write and preparing us readers to experience. So I think the time has come at last to rank these bad boys. So let's freaking do it. Oh God. Okay, so we already know what's going to be the top and the bottom. That's the middle is going to be tough. So like I said before, the Shattered Sea, bottom of the stack, half a king, bottom, bottom, half the world, second from bottom, and half a war, third from bottom. But the Shattered Sea as a whole isn't the bottom. Now the rest is going to be first law rankings. So I've already done a first law ranking before. If I remember, I'll try to leave that link down below if you want to compare and contrast my feelings then and my feelings now. But previously, as I said, my bottom of the stack was the heroes and it will not be the bottom of the stack this time. Bottom of the stack this time I'm afraid to say is Red Country because I don't like Westerns. If I liked Westerns, I will probably love the shit out of this. And I highly recommend attending one that does like Westerns. And it is interesting and fun because I don't release. I mean, I am very happy that there aren't a lot of Westerns in the fantasy space. But because there are not a lot of Westerns in the fantasy space, it is it stands out. It's a somewhat unique project, not just to write a fantasy Western, but to take an existing universe, an existing set of characters, and to be like, well, it has a West. Let's tell a Western type like Frontier Tale in this universe that I've built. So like in concept, I appreciate the ingenuity of it. And in execution, it is also a good book. I just don't like Westerns. So this is the bottom of the stack when it comes to first law. Then I'm going to have to say Sharp Ends, not because it did anything wrong, but because it's a book of short stories. So it's hard to compare this to all the full length novels, because short stories, I would say pretty much never, there must be exception to this, but like really cannot compete with the impact that you're able to provide with a full length novel. It just doesn't have the time and the space to do what a full length novel can do. It just cannot compete, even though I did put Red Country below this. So I guess it can compete if it's a Western. Because I do enjoy this more than Red Country. Part of why it's also part of what helps it is that it's not just an isolated book of short stories that just like over here doing its own thing. It does rely on this existing universe. So it's not entirely starting from scratch, which most short story collections, I feel like that's why it suffers. It's because it's just this like whiplash of like introducing you to something and we're done. Introducing you to something and we're done. And introducing you to something and we're done. And you just like barely had time to get invested in a situation or a world or a set of characters before you're already done with it. So here, especially the familiar faces, like you will have so much foreknowledge about it already. So like it's really unfair to even call it a short story because like you know these people are. It's not starting from scratch. Yeah, so like because it's taking place in the same universe and can build off of that, it's a fun kind of little excursion. But you know, again, it can't really compete with the other full novels. I thought this would be slightly higher up, but like I can't think of anything that I would put lower. So next up I'm going to have to say the heroes. I do love this a lot more now than I did the first time. And the fact that it was genuinely difficult for me to say whether this is next or best of cold, which spoilers best of cold is next. The fact that it was a question that it wasn't just like, well, duh, this is not as good as best of cold. The fact that I was like, is this? But no, I would, if I push comes to show, which you just did, I will have to choose best of cold over the heroes by like, it's close, which as I just said, next up is best of cold. We're getting sort of like the very, very middle of this ranking. Yeah, best of cold, it's amazing my first time. And it's still an amazing book. It's just the rereadability isn't really there, which is why I almost wanted to put the heroes above it. Because I think the heroes is slightly more, it's got more of that rereadability to it than best of cold. But a main man called shivers, this is his book. And I do love shivers. I love shivers more than any other characters that are in, that are in the heroes. So it's got to be best of cold. And then that leaves us the two trilogies, which Abercrombie's peak performance is in trilogy form. So ideally, he writes more trilogies, although if he writes more standalone, I will read them. But so based on what I've said before, I think it's no surprise that the lowest ranked in the original first law trilogy for me is now last argument of King's. This was not the case before. But I do find it less compelling on reread, because it is an answers book. Answers aren't interesting the second time, but questions get more interesting the more you know. So last argument is phenomenal, is the five stars, the whole trilogy is amazing. But last argument is now my least favorite in the original trilogy. Then between before they are hanged and the blade itself, this may surprise you, but next I have the blade itself. I love the blade itself. I have now read it five times. There are so many iconic moments in the blade itself, truly. But every time I reread the trilogy, I find that I love before they are hanged just a little bit more. There are so many things before they are hanged that for that rereadability factor are amazing. The first book is a lot of just setting things up. And so that's still fun to see. It's amazing. And there are still things being set up in the blade itself that once you know how the trilogy ends are like, oh, I didn't notice that I didn't know that. Oh, I just noticed that clue. Like he was totally foreshadowing this, like there is that in the blade itself, 100%. Before they are hanged is a lot more of that because we're not setting up the world, we're not introducing the world. All the characters are acting out their parts in this world and we get to watch them do it. And we learn so much about the world, not just from the characters who are learning these things, but from the things that you never noticed and they never noticed the first time through. It's just jam-packed with stuff like that. Some of my favorite moments in this story, some of my favorite plotlines, in particular Glokta's plotline, phenomenal. Just amazing. So this is now my favorite in the original trilogy, which brings us to the immaculate, the amazing, the Olympic gold medal deserving age of badness trilogy, which I've already pretty much ranked these for you because a little hatred, as I said, dethroned all my former favorites in the first law. So I was like, holy shit, this was actually the best thing you've ever written. You can't really beat this though, can you? And then he said, yes I did. This is better than a little hatred, which shocked me, still shocks me, but can't possibly shock me as much as the fact that he still outdid himself with wisdom of crowds. This is the best one. I will never find the words to describe this. I will never find the words to express my admiration, my shock, my awe. I just bow down to the greatness that is Joe Abercrombie as is displayed and demonstrated in the wisdom of crowds, which is the best of the lot. And that concludes my year of Abercrombie. I apologize for the sunsetting while filming this video. I thought that I had enough time before I started, but apparently not. So the lighting, I'm sure, changed a great deal while I was filming. Sorry about that, but in any case, let me know in the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about the first law, about, I guess the chatterncy, about Abercrombie, whatever you want to let me know. I post videos on Saturdays, other random times as well, but definitely Saturdays. So like and subscribe, join my Patreon if you feel so inclined, and I'll see you when I see you.