For heroes like Leo dan Brock and Stour Nightfall, only happy with swords drawn, peace is an ordeal to end as soon as possible. But grievances must be nursed, power seized, and allies gathered first, while Rikke must master the power of the Long Eye . . . before it kills her.
Unrest worms into every layer of society. The Breakers still lurk in the shadows, plotting to free the common man from his shackles, while noblemen bicker for their own advantage. Orso struggles to find a safe path through the maze of knives that is politics, only for his enemies, and his debts, to multiply.
The old ways are swept aside, and the old leaders with them, but those who would seize the reins of power will find no alliance, no friendship, and no peace lasts forever.
By the dead, THE TROUBLE WITH PEACE has been on my Definitely Maybe Probably Soon(ish) TBR for a long time. It was the cover reveal for the third book in the trilogy, THE WISDOM OF CROWDS, that kind of shook me out of my procrastination.
I fucking loved A LITTLE HATRED, completely. And I am sure when all is said and done, THE AGE OF MADNESS will be an absolute masterpiece of a trilogy. That said, I wasn’t as wildly obsessed with THE TROUBLE WITH PEACE as much as I was with A LITTLE HATRED. Historically, I tend to love the first book in a trilogy the most, and that may prove to be the case here. I don’t have very many complaints about this book, and it’s Joe Abercrombie, so of course it’s still brilliantly written.
If anything, I think I was frustrated with some of the characters that I had quickly learned to love in A LITTLE HATRED. There’s a lot of growing pains for several of them, and additionally, one character I was fascinated with doesn’t get nearly as much attention in book two as book one.
ANYWAY….
•Rikke continues her quest to understand more about the Long Eye, and it takes her to some strange & dark places, both in her mind & elsewhere. Her status among the Northmen is greatly challenged in this book. Rikke & Shivers are also like a package deal at this point, which is fucking delightful. Like with A LITTLE HATRED, Rikke’s POV continues to be my favorite.
•Leo dan Brock was someone that won me over early in the first book. But here we really start to see his naivety get the best of him, and fucking hell, he is a hot mess in this book. His character arc is shaping up to be something amazing, but it was so hard for me to root for him at times.
I’m not going to highlight every POV character, but needless to say, everyone in this second book is learning some hard lessons about the way this world works. Finding their way as they become increasingly removed from the legacies of their parents.
As I mentioned earlier, there was a character I badly wanted to see more from in this book, Gunnar Broad. Without doing some deep digging, I feel pretty sure that his “screen time” was significantly reduced in this book, and that personally just bummed me out. While his role is still quite pivotal to the whole story, I find him to be one of the most interesting characters in this trilogy & I just wish we had spent more time with him here.
There’s a bit less action in this book than I would’ve expected from Joe Abercrombie. That said, this is an Abercrombie novel. So any and all action sequences are fucking bananas, chaotic, messy, and wildly unpredictable. Not to mention bone-crunchingly violent.
So, yeah. This was not my favorite Joe Abercrombie novel, and it was still fucking spectacular. That’s saying something.
Grimdark Dad 