Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

From The Week of October 15, 2012 Entropy is an inescapable force. Even the most efficient systems in the universe, systems so complex and advanced that we can barely comprehend them, must bow to the laws of decay. For this is the way of things in the grand experiment we call life, a universe in which everything and every one is destined to die from cold. Entropy cannot be defeated; it cannot even be argued with. It can only be put off for a time by the wisdom of self-restraint and the careful husbanding of resources which must inevitably run out. So what do we do with this terrible truth? Armed with the knowledge that everything will eventually devolve into nothingness, do we yield to the inevitable? Do we surrender, knowing that everyone else must, at some point, follow? Or do we stubbornly persist, aware of the unavoidable but equally unwilling to concede that life, while we have it, is worthless? Mr. Abercrombie, in his inimitable, British way, confronts such existential questions in his latest, grimmest novel.

In a savage world of mud and war, swords and slavery, peace from the powers that be is a rare, priceless commodity. For the Union, the Northmen and the gurkish, the continent's three notable, imperial powers, are invariably at one another's throats, clashes whose toxicity inevitably infect their civilian populations. The most consequential strain of this virus of war is the degree to which it makes monsters of men, burning out their capacity for empathy and making a mockery of their morality. And so, not only do the little people have to avoid being conscripted by the major players, they must stay beneath the radar of the cruel men changed by them, men who are willing to do anything for profit.

Shy South isn't so fortunate. A thief turned farmer, she is largely content with her lot, turning her back on her past as a bandit to raise her child-aged brother and sister with the help of Lamb, a family friend, a mild-mannered Northman who harbors his own dark past. Her settled life takes a sharp and devastating turn, however, when, after returning from selling their goods at market, Shy and lamb discover their farm burned and her siblings vanished. Spurred on by rage and desperation, Shy begins to track the men who attacked her family, learning that they are a mercenary group specializing in stealing children, for what purpose no one is willing to imagine. Through plain an desert, across river and forest, Shy and Lamb hunt for what was taken from them, little knowing that they are flirting with the crux of larger events.

Set in the same universe as The First Law trilogy and its two supporting novels, Red Country is the most virulent murderer in Mr. Abercrombie's gallery of rogues. Though his other works take great pleasure in subverting the most conventional tropes of the fantasy genre, the heroic quest, the war for all the crowns, this latest effort narrows its focus in order to feature and confront more enduring truths about human existence: that it is short, that its successes and its failures are often decided by nothing more purposeful than happenstance, and that our choices are rarely entirely our own. Summoning a cunning and clever pen, Mr. Abercrombie creates a host of fantastic characters, harnesses them with a most difficult mission and lets them loose upon his grim world, letting the death and the oftentimes hilarious Gallos humor do all the talking.

For all its wit and gracelessness, its savagery and its bumbling, Red Country possesses an even deeper truth, that, in life, the most difficult achievement is to overcome ones nature. We are the way we are, cowards and heroes, fair and foul. To alter that destiny, to overcome our shortcomings, requires unceasing dedication and an indomitable will. It demands that one reject the values they were taught and embrace a new way of being, all the while knowing that the temptation to revert to their prior, easier, more natural self will forever be nipping at them, insisting that its insidious song be heard. Who has the determination to realize such a permanent transformation? Not many.

Mr. Abercrombie is the king of helplessness. He deploys his keen understanding of the weaknesses of the human heart to demonstrate the many ways in which we let ourselves down and turn our lives into cliches. And he does it by entertaining us and teaching us that energy, once spent, can never be recovered.

This is not his finest work -- that award must go to The Heroes or Before They Are Hanged --, but Mr. Abercrombie's second best is far better than the best of what most others have to offer. (4/5 Stars)