The heroes is a story of a battle held over three days in the middle of Northman territory, the Union have come to strike back at Dow and have taken over the territory of, the Heroes The heroes a hill known as the resting place of great warriors, and is a very advantageous spot. Surrounding the hill belongs Osrung, a small town that is a stones thrown away from Carleon, and many bridges required to control the area.

This battle sees the point of views of many of the Unions most important military leaders, the north’s true prince and the views of those at the front of it all.

I always feel a bit bad when I read a Joe Abercrombie book, I love how he writes, I love a lot of the characters he creates and I love him as an author, but man, can he be difficult to read. Let me explain, he breaths life into a brilliant world, with characters you can love and hate no matter if they are torturers or king regents, but he really brings the grim into dark fantasy. No character is leaving for a happy ending, even if they “win” they will be scarred, or mutilated or bullied into a walking piss stain for Abercrombies entertainment.

It makes one struggle to continue some of his stories when you want your characters to do well and to not struggle with something awful that is going to happen to them, especially if there isn’t a whole lot else that is drawing you. For me, the fights in this book itself fell pretty flat and a lot of the PoV’s were really annoying to get through and I wish I could have skipped through them.

The big saving grace for me with this book was the characters of Gorst and Prince Calder, their point of views and the characters they interact with really brings you back into The First Law world in a big way, I only wish we had a bit more of those interactions. Especially so on the Unions side.

Spoiler

For a story where the North is the focal point, Abercrombie spends maybe five paragraphs on the Dog Man, the one north-man that surely should be doing the heavy lifting against Dow. Instead the Dog Man just chills out, makes a few odd remarks or scenes with Gorst and then uh, is around in the background doing, uh stuff, I think…

If you manage to slog through the ending is great, and is Abercrombie at his best, but that could be a big if. For me this was a slog and I found it hard at times to not skim read through certain characters completely.