Red Country

Red Country by Joe Abercrombie was in my reading pile till my son stole it and then he brought it back to the hospital so this was the first read I made from my sickbed…. In another Red Country… Most appropriate book since one of its central characters is called Nine Fingers!

This latest book is keeping the same driving line as the previous books by Abercrombie, a fantasy universe with very little magic and a lot of blood. A few characters have links with the earlier novels, the least spoiler being the band of mercenaries led by Cosca. However, despite reproducing a lot of features from the earliers books, Red Country is much more of a western, with several characteristics of the genre. From the duel to the wild pursuit to the wagon train to the confrontation between locals and settlers to the mushrooming gold-rush towns to the brothel madam. I am not very much into this literature so I did not like the book as much as The Heroes, still it makes for an enjoyable read The central characters are “grey” enough to be likely, the extension of the universe plausible and the only gap in the plot is the intervention of the mountain tribe of the Dragon People that just feel like a convenient trick to tie a lot of loose ends. Red Country could have been better and may signal that Joe Abercrombie should now consider a new universe and a new set of heroes, but I’d still recommend it!