" An Incoherent Mess with Some Abysmal Character-work

Uff... It’s over. What a relief. Spoilers - for anyone concerned.

The Wisdom of Crowds takes inspiration from A Tale of Two Cities, the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. And does it all so, so much worse.

I’ve had many problems with this trilogy, from all the characters sharing the same snappy sarcastic voice to the relentless cynicism of the author, story-world and the characters, from structural pacing to torturously overlong chapters where random characters� POV shifts to them lecturing, killing and pointlessly dying, but all those were held together by Abercrombie’s mostly-engaging style. By the third book, however, it had just worn terribly tiresome.

Tonally the novel is all over the place, with the worst offending parts concerning the ’radical revolutionists� Breakers. For instance, there is a big set-piece scene at the end of the first part, where politicians are being pushed off the top of a tall tower to their deaths. Yet people are flapping, flailing, hooting, splattering to the ground. A woman pisses herself, a man gets a knifed in the ass. Onlookers are clapping and cheering, jumping for joy. Are these kind of scenes supposed to be funny, tragic, dramatic, whatsoever important? It is like a mixture of Saturday Night Live and A Tale of Two Cities with the absolute worst humour in the middle.

But see, A Tale of Two Cities is full of hope, colourful characters, satire and realism. Crowds characters are two-bit bastards who all try their hardest to see which one the reader sympathizes with the least. If Abe’s realism is amoral back-stabbing sociopaths, give me fantasy any day of the week.

Now, king Orso is the only major player that might be considered likable or morally good. Beginning as a hedonist, he comes to regret his arbitrary ruling and the sins of his father, and actually wants to enact a positive change for the people. Problem? He spends the entire last book as a prisoner with zero agency, unable to do anything at all, and is then unceremoniously killed off. Great conclusion to the character arc!

Broad started out interesting, a brute veteran numb from the horrors he saw and committed in the war. His fate is to become the most spineless bystander in his own chapters. All he does is lament his situation, then dismiss it, then carry on torturing and murdering.

Leo is the dullest and most dislikable character I have read in a long time. Not only does he not possess a single redeeming quality � he whines, blames others for his mistakes, throws temper-tantrums, is jealous of everyone and can not enjoy anything � he mounts the victim card on top of an ego the size of half the world. A closeted homophobe and xenophobic racist, who when a woman is about to be gang-raped ten steps from him and his buddies, muses that she can find a way to live with it because Leo himself is a cripple and people get on with their lives. I mean, what? How are we to root for any of these characters? Then, suddenly, he fashions a coup d’etat because he is the hero of his own story. All the monumental mistakes, all the horrible deeds he’s committed, none of it matters. He wins with a perscribed case of plot armour.

What about Judge, one of the main villains? What does she want, who is she as a person? Doesn’t matter, she’s just a nutjob who delights in matter-of-factly torturing and sentencing people to death, and then asks what’s for lunch. Jacques Three she most certainly is not. Pike is even worse, a hypocritical maniac in love with his own voice.

Bayaz shows up once or twice, but vaguely remembering him from the previous trilogy and with no build-up in this one, the question is why should he be taken seriously? Then we have Glokta, who has done zip all, and what do you know, que drumroll, it was him all along! He’s the one who made it all happen! The revolution, the war, everything. Any set-up, plot intrigues, thematic connections? Nope, an exposition dump is all we get. Top marks.

Finally, there is the North in its head-scratching resolution. By the third book, Rikke has alienated everyone around her, her allies dwindle apart, the threat of Black Calder grows insurmountable. How will she crawl out of a battle, where she is outnumbered ten-to-one? Well, apparently everything over the past book-and-a-half was a smokescreen. See, she did not push away any friends, her bad judgement and decisions carry no consequences, her differences of opinion with others do not matter. Everything is alright, because they were friends all along and help comes from all angles. Needless to say it completely butchers her entire character arc. Nothing is tested, nothing is learned, she just stays in power and all her enemies are wiped out. To add insult to injury, she then betrays Orso because I guess she needs the good graces of the southern kingdom she cared not at all about when she seized power and stabbed them in the back.

There’s no satire or meta-commentary on the fantasy genre from the first First Law trilogy, no captivating characters. No charm, nothing that makes the heart thump faster. My advice would be to (re)read A Tale of Two Cities, a non-fiction book about the French revolution or some Conan the Barbarian stories. I’m all done with Abercrombie. Plus, I don’t think I can endure another person murmuring a sentence out."