Before They Are Hanged

With perhaps a little more understanding of how things will go, I found this book perhaps a bit better than the first volume (bookwyrm.social/book/402337/review#reviews).

What I didn't fully understand about the first book, and which took me a surprisingly long time to realise reading this one, is that the lack of awareness or knowledge of the "big picture" in this epic tale is the whole point. The point of view characters each has their arc, all of them dealing with difficulties and unpleasantness that is much greater than they can ken or manage. The result is that the grand sweep of history is unfolding, but there's no way for the characters or reader to fully grasp it.

Both because we've got to know them better, and because of development, the characters themselves are more appealing. They are rounded, often messy, and so the more compelling for it, though flaws certainly shine through.

The book also has flaws typical of the genre - it doesn't pass the low bar of the Bechtal Test, for instance, and the treatment of women is also noted in other reviews on here and worth looking at. The world building remains generally decent, though the mythology feels strangely restricted - with a couple of continents and several countries, everything religious or mythological seems to come down to the same few men. Still, there are some nice twists and serious messing with the tropes too.

I don't often talk about my feminism because it's usually pretty sus when dudes talk about being a feminist, but this is the book that made me think about how implicit biases impacted me. Not because this book is a good example, but rather the opposite.

While I read the book, I started to notice that the defining characteristic of all the major female characters was that they had been used for sex to fill out their backstory. Sex slaves and that sort of thing. This was at the height of grimdark fantasy. It was no great revelation, but I wasn't being coached about that trope. Just that something finally broke through my wall of cluelessness.

I wrote about my realization about the book on my book blog at the time. Author Joe Abercrombie noticed it. And wrote his own blog post that acknowledged what I noticed. More than one of his fans ended up commenting at my blog that I was just wrong, and how dare you, though most of the commenters at Abercrombie's blog were less confrontational. Anyway, the comments at my blog were also eye-opening.

I did like the book though!

That was 16 years ago this week. I make no claim to any kind of great feminism, just that I try to be intentional these days. This book was the start.