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Joe Abercrombie Proves Half the World Is Even Better Than Half a King
The first book in Joe Abercrombie’s Shattered Sea trilogy, Half a King, follows a young prince, Yarvi, who’s sold into slavery and later frees himself and sets off on a quest to revenge himself on those who stole the kingdom of Gettland away from him. It’s also a rollicking tale that has everything a fantasy adventure needs. (Specifically, galley slaves and kind-of vikings.) But though we do see him succeed, rising from slave to minister of Gettland, he has a long way to go (this isn’t a trilogy for nothing), and the ending leaves you with two big questions: Will Yarvi get his final revenge against the schemers who caused of his dethroning? And will the political machinations involved be half as compelling a story as his escape from slavery?
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Luckily, Abercrombie’s followup, Half the World, is just as strong a story, partly because it introduces a new protagonist and a host of new allies and enemies, even as it while expands the world of the Shattered Sea.
Surprisingly, this isn’t really a book about Yarvi. Though the trilogy as a whole is definitely his story, and this installment provides plenty of chances to see just how “deep cunning” he’s become as minister of Gettland, Half the World is really about the journey of two new characters, Thorn Bathu and Brand.
Thorn Bathu is a young woman struggling to become a warrior of Gettland and live up to the legend of her long-dead father. Unfortunately, women warriors aren’t exactly celebrated in this society, and when she accidentally kills another student in an unfair training exercise, she’s sentenced to death.
Brand, on the other hand, is a poor orphan also in training, hoping to collect enough spoils of war to support himself and his younger sister. Feeling guilty for not speaking out against Thorn’s mistreatment, Brand appeals to Father Yarvi to spare her, an act of kindness that causes him to be stripped of his status as a warrior. With the threat of war with the High King looming, Yarvi assembles an expedition to recruit allies for Gettland, taking Thorn and Brand along on the journey.
Once again, Abercrombie’s ground-up approach to world-building avoids the infodumps can prove a hurdle to smooth storytelling in fantasy fiction. After all, we’re exploring this world just as Thorn and Brand are—and it turns out there are a lot of new things to see in it, from the halls of the High King to the First of Cities.
just as Yarvi’s personal journey pulls you into the first book, it’s Thorn and Brand’s struggles that make Half the World such a compelling read. You get to know them so well—watching them train, live as oarsmen, and go breathlessly into battle for the first time—that you sometimes forget about the larger story of the looming war, even as that conflict brews, bubbles, and threatens to boil over in the background, preparing us for what’s to come.
By the end, Abercrombie has assembled a cast of unforgettable characters and introduced a whole world for them to inhabit just in time for him to tear everything apart in the concluding book in the series, Half a War. Luckily we don’t have to wait years for it—it’ll be out in July. I, for one, can’t wait.