By: Joe Abercrombie
Published: September 17, 2019
Read: February 28, 2021
“A leader worth a damn ever, led from the front.”
Joe Abercrombie is building a world, a dark, sexy bloody, corrupt, crass, fantasy world. With A Little Hatred that world is moving from its Fellowship of the Ring phase from his First Law trilogy into its Gangs of New York adolescence. A Little Hatred builds on the issues seen in The First Law and pushes them into this new age with a new age of industrialization with a new generation of characters. My initial feelings of excitement of something new reading A Little Hatred faded over time into a familiar feeling of Abercrombie’s previous works.
The two sections of the main plot brought two goals. One is of the “get you up to speed” theme new flavors of characters with subtle repetitions of notes from the past. The characterizations of Savine, and Bull Broad are utterly fantastic. At first, I assumed parallels with characters from the First Law trilogy, Logan and Superior Glotka but ultimately these characters are their own. Savine is the daughter of a conniving Arch Lector who has used those skills to become a cunning dust snorting entrepreneur. Bull broad is a ex soldier who spends a lot of energy trying to not murder people when he returns from battle. In Abercrombie fashion the more we see them the more unsettling things happen to them as we move through the story. The trials of Prince Orso, son of the king, are intriguing but ultimately are shades of the issues his father had to deal with, although he is a very different man than Jezel who we also knew from the last books as a young man. Ultimately, he may make still a better king than Jezel did despite the omnipresence of Bayaz, the ageless wizard who is constantly pulling the strings here.
A highlight for me was the appearance of the Breakers and the Burners as a contrast from the established utterly corrupt central Royal Government. Both groups are revolutionaries trying to counteract the momentum of the Kingdom of Adua moving into the industrial age. The peasantry of old are changing into factory workers and are treated more like garbage as industrialization ramps up. So the Breakers cleverly decide to Break the machines of industry The Burners are in the same camp but the distinction is instead of Breaking machines the Burner sect decides its totally fine to burn down the entire factory and segments of the neighborhood to try to counteract the corruption of the government.
There are two love story subplots in this book, and each left me wanting a bit more. I suppose its likely to happen that two smart beautiful women (even if one is a “savage” northerner) interested in men of power and being captivating in their own right would be swapped but the idea that it happened in the way it did just stinks of sitcom-esque writing. It also seems this book had more sexual intruige than in the past books Ive read from Abercrombie. Perhaps its just me and before I just blew through the scenes or maybe this is the first book where characters have been in comfortable enough circumstances to actually have sex. It could also be attributed to the fact that there are more female leads in the book (which should not be connected). The closest I remember from the first trilogy was Logen and … and Jezel and Ardee at one point but it didn’t seem to have the same impact or urgency that Rikke, Savine and Leo have. Speaking of sexuality there’s a slight nod to Leo’s friend Jorgenholm being gay I suppose and maybe Leo being Bi himself? At a minimum having mommy issues tangled up with his sexual proclivities as (I believe) three times in the book he internally pontificates whether he likes women as much as he does before he sleeps with them. This all leads to quite the dramatic climax (pun intended) and perhaps some major eye rolling.
Overall, A Little Hatred brought the plot and the characters but was quite striking to me the level of political intrigue that can be put into a fantasy novel.
Random Observations
- I have skipped right from Last Argument of Kings (Abercrombies last trilogy) into this book directly without doing any of the four (?) interstitial standalone novels. I liked the idea of the time jump but I have a sinking suspicion that hints are being dropped that I should be picking up.
- In specific it seems that Lady Brock, Bremer Van Dorst, and the queen all have their own machinations already in motion at the beginning of the novel, on that I’m not really privy to, but that may be the hidden reward of diving backwards into the other books. So many fantasy novels so little time.
- Gorst is supposedly a dueling master close to Savine and Glotka but as Leo notes within the end of the book. He has a very high feminine voice not linked to Leos initial impression of the man. It sticks with Leo. The man was also the same knight who Jezel defeated in the contest with Bayaz’s help. Maybe this is relevant, maybe not.
John (Jake) Kolb III 