Stuff

Another Grimdark winner for Joe Abercrombie, well read by Stephen Pacey.

Europe is in turmoil, plague and famine go hand in hand, the church is split and her holiness the pope, a ten-year-old child, calls upon the services of her 'devils', tried and convicted transgressors. There's a vampire, a werewolf, an undying knight, a female soldier, an elf, and a necromancer, all shepherded by an unwilling monk who would rather be a librarian. Their task is to make sure Alexa, newly discovered heir to the empire of Troy, gets safely home and crowned. But there are complications. Alex has been brought up on the streets of the Holy City, living by her wits. She's a better thief than a princess, but her newly introduced Uncle Michael says she's the true heir, and it's better than being shredded by the shady folks she owes money to, so Alex goes along with it. They have many adventures on the way to Troy. They are attacked, shipwrecked and attacked again, mainly by Alexa's cousins who believe they hare the rightful Emperor.  And then... when they reach their destination, there are betrayals, from the highest, disguised as political expediency. The characters are fabulous, the plot twists, twisty. If anything, the fight scenes - which are well written - last a little too long. It does resolve but then there's a bit tagged on to the end that leads into a second book in the sequence. Not exactly a cliffhanger (thank goodness). Stephen Pacey does a marvellous job differentiating the voices and accents from a growly, insane werewolf to a cheerful elf with little to be cheerful about.