Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

A flawed masterpiece.  That is China Miéville's Perdido Street Station.  The second novel from a relatively young author, it evidences both a hell of a lot of talent and not a lot of restraint or forethought.  Miéville cites M John Harrison as one of his major influences, and it shows; while Harrison kept his page count down, Miéville lets his infectious enthusiasm run free and we get a 700 page book (in my edition), which unfortunately really begins to feel its length at around page 500.  But before I get into the flaws, I will go over the strengths.

It's immediately obvious from the first page that Miéville has a strong style, and given the length of the book this is admirable.  A fluid and verbose style of this sort takes a lot of time and careful editing to keep consistent, so usually authors of longer books opt for something more streamlined; not so with Miéville.  It’s clear he is very much in love with the English language.  The prose flows quite well, and he uses consonance and assonance to great effect.  He is not shy of unusual words, and will occasionally raise eyebrows with his vocabulary (though not to the extent of, say, Gene Wolfe or Clark Ashton Smith).  His adverb use is occasionally a bit clumsy, but this is a minor quibble; generally Perdido Street Station a joy to read.  Miéville is especially adept with (and fond of) simile and pathetic fallacy, which is a good thing because he spends a hell of a lot of time describing inanimate objects.  Which brings us to

the setting.  The city of New Crobuzon is without a doubt the book’s main claim to fame; imagine Viriconium’s arcane decadence meeting Book of the New Sun’s sweeping, alien variety, combined with an elaborate steampunk aesthetic by way of Miéville's own “New Weird” movement.  New Crobuzon is perhaps the most fully realized of any city in fantasy literature save Gormenghast.  Numerous imaginative races inhabit its twisted, crumbling streets, engaging in complex politics and conflict, eking out filthy, violent livings under the oppressive weight of the titular Station, which houses the city’s totalitarian government.  Miéville frequently indulges in what is essentially descriptive fluff; he often takes the time to expands upon utterly non-essential details with little or no bearing on plot or character, unless New Crobuzon itself is considered a character (which, like Gormenghast, it could easily be).  However, Miéville's imagination and enthusiasm for the setting are such that this “fluff” is often more interesting that the actual “substance”.
  
An example:  there is an entire chapter devoted to a dock workers’ strike, which starts peacefully but quickly turns into a riot and ends up being violently dispersed by the police.  The tactics used by both the striking workers and the riot police (complete with floating jellyfish used as crowd-control) are described in intricate detail.  Aside from serving as a bit of a soapbox for Miéville's Marxist views, the scene is of very little significance to either the central plot or the main characters; yet it was riveting nonetheless and I’m quite glad it was included.  That particular sequence is more exciting and interesting than many that actually are significant, and unfortunately that brings us to what I consider the main weakness of the book at large.

The plot itself is dull.  Despite its grand setting, elaborate style, and interesting characters, Perdido Street Station is, at its core, a monster movie.  This is hardly an original criticism, but honestly it’s well deserved and bears repeating.  The central plot revolves around the accidental escape of the highly dangerous, Lovecraftian slake-moths, monstrous psychic vampires who quite literally devour their victims’ dreams.  The main characters (whom I will consider at greater length later on) spend the majority of the book planning and working toward killing these creatures.  While many books get away with simpler plots, they’re usually quite a lot shorter; at 700 pages, the monster shtick is worn quite thin by the end. 

Another criticism I’ve seen leveled at the book that I do not agree with is that it’s not of sufficiently epic scope; while the slake-moths do threaten the whole of New Crobuzon, the story focuses mainly on a few characters of  relatively unimportant stations, and by the end of the book little has really changed in the city.  In my opinion this criticism is missing the point; the problem isn’t that the conflict isn’t epic enough, as other books have had success with focusing on more personal stories in the midst of a larger fantasy setting (such as In Viriconium, the third Viriconium novel).   The problem is that Perdido Street Station lacks any meaningful central conflict, epic, personal, or otherwise.  The slake moths are little more than ravenous beasts with no motivation other than base instinct.  There are no moral questions involved in their pursuit, no complex motivations, very little evolution of interpersonal (or intrapersonal) relationships, only the hunting of dangerous beasts with their extermination as the goal. 

Unfortunately the slake-moths also miss the point of the cosmic horror and “old weird” they are clearly influenced by; one of the main reasons Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth and company work so well is that their character and motivation are utterly incomprehensible.  Even Frank Belknap Long’s Hounds of Tindalos (which seem to be a direct influence on the slake-moths all the way down to their hollow, sucking tongues) are more effectively frightening as they relentlessly pursue their prey through the angles of time.  In cosmic horror, and often in horror at large, it is essential that the nature of the horror not be explained and understood too thoroughly.  As the old Lovecraft saw goes, “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is Fear of the Unknown.”  The slake-moths are very dangerous and very exotic, but their methods are mostly understood and their behavior ceases to surprise quite early on.  The difference between hunting the slake-moths and hunting, say, a bear is only one of degree. 

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t occasionally books that do succeed at just such a conflict, as The Old Man and the Sea for example revolves primarily around an old man and, well, the sea (as well as a great big fish or two).  The difference there is, for one, it’s a lot shorter so the simple plot isn’t stretched nearly as far; for two, the internal conflict that takes place within the old man’s head is played up a lot more.  He is old; his struggle with the sea is also a struggle with his own weakness and age.  While the hunters of the slake-moths certainly end up in a different place at the end than they were at the beginning, they don’t seem to have changed much as people, nor does their quest have any particular personal significance beyond raw survival.

This brings us to the cast of Perdido Street Station, chief of whom is Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin.  A compelling character, Isaac is a woefully unfocused but genius researcher (nearly of the “mad scientist” sort) who is primarily concerned with juggling his treasured bohemian, self-consciously transgressive lifestyle with his dependence upon his peripheral employment at a local university.  He is written very well, with his own distinctive voice (you can practically hear him shouting “godshit!” in his gruff basso) and believable habits.  One of his central dilemmas is his forbidden relationship with Lin, an artistic Khepri (women with bugs for heads), who are generally considered second-class citizens.  Their romance must remain a secret, or he risks losing his research position at the university.  Understandably this puts significant strain on the relationship, as Lin cannot help feeling belittled as Isaac is forced to pay lip service to the common bigotry; also, it raises the question of whether Isaac is truly serious about his bohemianism, or whether it is just an affection he assumes to lend his stalled academic career a degree of significance (i.e. so he seems to have chosen a life of academic exile for political and social reasons, rather than because he was forced into it, as his questionable work habits and poor relationship with his superiors might otherwise lead one to believe is the case).  Even as I’m typing this, I am already more interested than in the slake-moths; unfortunately, this conflict is never satisfactorily explored beyond the outset, much less resolved.  

*SPOILERS*

There is some pretty clear feminist commentary present in the Khepri race and their relationship with the brainless males of their species; Lin’s relationship with her tradition-minded mother and her insular sisters appears complex at first, but again this is only briefly explored and then never mentioned again.  Soon after being developed, Lin is kidnapped, considered dead by her friends, and ends up sitting out for the majority of the book.  She makes a sudden reappearance shortly before the conclusion, only to immediately be sucked half-dry by a slake-moth, which renders her a halfwit.  Lin, a good character at her outset, is used like cheap prop to drum up sympathy and then discarded with little more than a “wham bam thank you ma’am.”  So much for feminism.        

The other major character is Yagharek, an exile of the bird-like garuda, who as punishment for a mysterious crime was shorn of his wings.  He has traveled from his far desert home to contract Isaac to get him airborne again by whatever means necessary, and more importantly to Isaac, at whatever the cost.  Yagharek bears immense guilt and shame for his crime, but still yearns for flight, and seeks to escape his punishment through Isaac’s arcane science.  Yagharek’s character is developed gradually over the course of the book, his background filled in through the clever and unusual technique of first-person, nearly stream-of-consciousness sequences that precede section headings (the book is otherwise told strictly in the third-person).  Yagharek slowly warms up to Isaac’s band throughout the hunting of the slake-moths, and they to him, but at the end it’s revealed that his crime is rape; his victim tracks Isaac down and asks him to not give Yagharek the flying device which Isaac has developed. 

This produces one of the most interesting moral dilemmas of the whole book; rape is a crime that forever scars its victims, so can a rapist ever truly be forgiven, or absolve himself of wrongdoing?  Can the “debt to society” ever be paid?  The justice-minded Garuda don’t believe so, and meted out a punishment that, quite literally, left lasting ugly scars on Yagharek.  Some rape victims actually describe their loss in terms of losing a limb, and in a sort of perverse role-reversal, Yagharek’s behavior after his punishment could be seen to broadly mimic certain aspects of a rape victim’s.  For example, in his initial extreme anger, as described in his flashback to his past as a gladiator; in his compulsion keep to himself and on the move, even when Isaac offers him shelter; in his strong reluctance to connect with others on any meaningful level; in his contemplation of suicide; and finally, in his utter abandonment of his erstwhile Garuda identity in favor of becoming “human”.  The knife that originally sawed his wings off using back-and-forth thrusting motions could even be seen as a phallic symbol.  In this sense, the Garuda’s punishment could be seen as successful, in that it forced Yagharek to endure something like the pain his victim undoubtedly felt (though what she actually went through is never made clear).  In the end Isaac opts to deny Yagharek his escape from punishment, a difficult decision given that Yagharek has helped him immensely and even saved his life.

Frustratingly, this fascinating moral issue is relegated to a bit at the end of the book, a brief surprise twist in the coda after the slake-moth menace has been disposed of; this could have been a much better climax.  Instead, it comes off as last-minute, and many readers felt blindsided and cheated by its abruptness.  Isaac was content to forget about Yagharek’s crime for most of the book when its nature was unknown (thanks in no small part to the copious amounts of gold Yag was paying him) but as soon as he is confronted with the truth, he has little trouble abandoning his now-penniless friend without even the courtesy of hearing his side of the story or returning his money.  Imagine if, after being confronted by Yagharek’s victim, Isaac had kept it to himself and carried on as usual, his dilemma played out internally over a longer period as he hems and haws between responsibility to his friend and client (and his own greed) on one side, and justice on the other. 

Clearly Yagharek deserves to be condemned for his crime, but the complex issue is glossed over in a few pages, and we get a monster movie for the bulk of the book.  This is doubly frustrating considering Miéville goes so far as to flirt with deeper issues, but chooses instead to focus on the simplistic slake-moths for the central conflict.  Some have said that they were meant to serve as a mindless, ravenous avatar of unchecked capitalism, but even if there is allegory, it’s pointless; the entire setting is in a totalitarian capitalist police state, which would have served as a much more direct and meaningful outlet for his Marxist leanings (and it already does, on occasion).

*END SPOILERS*

So, what we’re left with is a very prettily-told story in a fantastic setting about interesting characters who don’t do very interesting things.  After all of that, it may come as a surprise to hear that I’m glad I read it; Perdido Street Station has a lot of merits, and good style and setting, two areas in which it excels, are things I personally happen to value very highly in general.  It’s a good book.  Its problem is that, with a better plot and sharper focus, it’s easy to see how it could have been a great one.

The Malacia Tapestry by Brian Aldiss

Brian Aldiss is a relatively well-known science fiction author with a rather imposing body of work; The Malacia Tapestry was my first exposure to him, and considering how much I liked it I will definitely be on the lookout for more. Unfortunately I’ve read that this is not, in fact, representative of his oeuvre; but it was so good that I’m going to take the time to find out for myself. So, without further stalling for time...

The Malacia Tapestry is set almost entirely in the city of Malacia, which is reminiscent of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast mixed with the Italian renaissance. Like Gormenghast, Malacia bears a heavy weight of age and tradition, with an authoritarian council that oversees (and most often vetoes) change and progress. Many of the vignettes are reminiscent of Gormenghast’s, with vivid descriptions of static scenes that are evocative in ways difficult to articulate. Generally bittersweet, at times romantic, occasionally tragic or even horrific, less intricate perhaps than Gormenghast’s but also more human, more dynamic. However, unlike Gormenghast, in Malacia there is a significant and fundamental drive toward change pulling against the stasis (Gormenghast did have a few characters who wished or worked for change, but they were necessarily aliens to the setting). It this drive we see the similarities to the Italian renaissance; Malacia is full of vibrant artists and deep thinkers, brilliant costumes and exotic trade, as well as dubiously effective diviners and soothsayers selling their visions and prophecies on every street corner. It is an age of decadence, in which the nobility oppresses the lower classes and social mobility is nearly unheard of. But for the roguish actor Perian de Chirolo, politics is a game for others.

The novel is told entirely in the first-person, and de Chirolo makes for a fine guide; though chronically broke and always looking for acting work, he is nonetheless content with his station in life, and when not acting he spends his time and money drinking, philandering, and exercising his wit, displaying remarkable skill in all of these activities. He is charming, if rather selfish, though as is gradually revealed he has depths that belie his habitually superficial demeanor. Unfortunately it’s difficult to go into much detail without setting sail on a sea of spoilers; but what I can say is that the book is not full of sorcery or swordplay or other typical fantasy action, and instead concerns itself much more with de Chirolo’s evolving relationships with his friends, his lovers, and himself. It’s one of those rare fantasy novels (again, like Gormenghast) that doesn’t use the invented setting as a tool to exaggerate moral conflicts into arenas where cartoonish heroism and villainy wage war or gritty shades-of-gray antiheroes experience existential angst; instead, Malacia is a city populated by real live human beings. De Chirolo deals with weighty issues we ourselves might be familiar with (love, trust, duty) and deals with them in familiar ways, though the true nature of some of these issues may not seem obvious at first. But don’t worry; these weighty issues are never approached ham-handedly. They arise organically and their complexity is respected; Aldiss does not sermonize from the mount, rather his characters work toward their own solutions that are, as in real life, unequivocally ambiguous. Aldiss’s moral authority is human and personal. I have heard authors of speculative fiction called “costumiers of ideas”, in that they take the same staid human issues everyone deals with and dress them up such that we do not recognize them; we are then led to approach these issues from a new perspective, ideally gaining insight otherwise denied us. Whether or not that applies to all spec-fic authors is, of course, debatable; however, it certainly applies to The Malacia Tapestry. While some of its themes are quite obvious, it is layered and some of the deeper concerns are easily overlooked (more on this in the second part). Aldiss does not spell all his mysteries out for the reader, and this is definitely a book that would reward re-reading. Highly recommended.

Spoilers ahead, proceed with caution.

On the surface we have Perian de Chirolo’s story, a drama with many familiar elements but told very well, with excellent characters. Read simply on that level, it is still a good book. But below that surface, it deals subtly and carefully with competing ideals of stasis and progress, reactionary and radical, in both politics and art. People crave safety and stability, yet crave novelty at the same time; society grows and changes over time, yet human nature never changes. Or does it? This well-trodden theme of “nothing lasts but nothing is lost” is exemplified by Otto Bengtsohn’s photographic “play” which de Chirolo is hired to act in at the beginning of the book. He dismisses the play’s plot as antiquated, and claims it is no longer relevant to the modern day. However, over the course of the novel, it becomes clear (even to de Chirolo himself) that his own life has begun following the plot of the play.

Similar ironies abound; in the play, he acts opposite Armida, the beautiful daughter of the rich man who has commissioned the play. Gradually they fall in love (or lust, at least), despite being from opposite ends of the social spectrum. De Chirolo is easygoing, impulsive, dramatic, superficial, and places little weight on money and the future, living squarely in the moment; these are qualities Armida’s own stifled life is sorely lacking, with her oppressive and ambitious father grooming her for a politically advantageous marriage. Unsurprisingly, she is drawn to the dashing de Chirolo as he embodies the idealized freedom she wishes she had. However, she is firm in refusing him traditional sexual intercourse (an intact hymen being of the utmost importance in political marriages, of course), and though they do find less traditional means to amuse themselves, de Chirolo, so used to easily having women in their entirety and discarding them just as easily, is tormented by this beauty he can never truly possess...unless they are married.

Thus begins his misguided quest to maneuver himself into a social position where he will actually be able to formally marry Armida, a proposition she goes along with; their secret betrothal never seems anything more than an amusing fantasy to her, but to him it becomes something of the utmost seriousness, something he idealizes to the point where his view of the relationship begins to utterly lose touch with reality. While he will never be rich and was not born into nobility, de Chirolo believes he can still win her hand in marriage through some act of great heroism; late in the book he does, in fact, save her life by slaying a ‘dragon’ (one of the large “ancestral animals” or dinosaurs that populate the surrounding countryside). In the process he accidentally uncovers what seems to be an affair between Armida and his best friend; de Chirolo ignores the obvious implications and chooses to give them the benefit of the doubt, thinking his jealousy unjust. This mimics the events of the play, but in Aldiss’s typical ironic fashion, de Chirolo is living out the role opposite the one he takes on in the play, the cheated rather than the cheater. After a lengthy convalescence from his dinosaur injuries, he confronts Armida and her father at a large party, naively believing that by having saved the princess from the dragon he has automatically earned her hand in marriage, as in a traditional fairy tale. In quick succession he learns that his dreams were in fact delusions; the social gulf between them is too wide to ever truly be crossed, and in the process of improving his own moral character and taking his love for Armida seriously, he lost the roguish characteristics that piqued her interest in the first place. A cruel and poignant irony, to be sure. Instead, she has in fact turned her affections to his best friend, who has remained an unrepentant rogue while de Chirolo changed; again there is irony, for earlier de Chirolo slept with his best friend’s mistress, a betrayal he hardly repented of himself at the time (and which his friend holds him blameless for). Earlier he cheated on Armida whenever he got the chance, something he thought secret but wasn’t; thus his subsequent internal, honest efforts to reform go unnoticed by Armida and are overshadowed by those earlier infidelities; thus she feels perfectly justified in cheating on de Chirolo with a man who is essentially an earlier image of himself. Over the course of the book de Chirolo’s morals have moved away from those of his friends, something they take as a poor joke or hypocrisy on his part, rather than recognizing it as a genuine change for the better. He is made to feel alone and in the wrong, though he is perhaps the most blameless in the whole situation. This crisis is the climax of the novel, leaving him broken and contemplating suicide.

Running alongside the tragic romantic themes, de Chirolo is regularly exposed to the radical politics of his employer Bengtsohn and his comrades, who seek to overthrow the Malacian status quo; though de Chirolo is clearly a member of the lower classes, he refuses to listen despite the progressives’ claims that he is a victim of oppression the same as them. He half-believes that he will find his own wealthy patron, and later that he will marry into wealth, and is largely ignorant of the plight of others, more or less content with his own poverty. After the climax has stripped him of his contentment and his illusions regarding the fairness of his world, he is finally convinced to attend one of the radicals’ political meetings. The ending leaves his actual political conviction in doubt, but given the momentum of his character development it seems clear that he will join the progressives in earnest. There is some debate as to this, but de Chirolo simply has no other recourse save suicide, an option he rejected earlier, or a return to his former life, which seems highly unlikely given his irrevocable break with his former friends.

As art imitates life and life imitates art, there are various hints that Malacia itself is a living work of art; a tapestry in a literal sense. The city’s founder, who cast the blessing or curse that promised that Malacia would never change, could be seen as an artist in this sense. Is the progressives’ quest to change the status quo thus doomed to failure? Does art change, either as a whole or in specific instances, perhaps through evolving interpretation? Can human nature change? I don’t know! Aldiss keeps his cards close to his chest on this one, and really The Malacia tapestry is a book that not only rewards a second reading but almost requires it. A very complex work that succeeds on just about every level, and I could go on and on about it for pages. Instead I’ll just say that if Aldiss never wrote anything else on this level, I’ll be sorely disappointed.

The Unholy City by Charles G Finney

So, I finished Charles G Finney's The Unholy City.  It was a pretty short read, only around 120 pages, and I have to say I think I liked it more than his much better-known novella The Circus of Dr. Lao, which I also liked quite a lot.  Though both are clearly written by the same man and share his odd sense of humor, the two books are quite different in execution; while Circus is set in a realistic version of Abalone, Arizona, and depicts the reactions of its everyday residents to the fantastic and magical traveling circus as it visits Abalone, The Unholy City is the exact reverse.  Captain Malahide, resident of Abalone, sets out on a round-the-world trip, only for his plane to crash in a strange place, leaving him as the only survivor.  He immediately loots the wreckage and finds himself in possession of a sizable sum of money, though practically nothing else.  Soon after departing the crash site he comes upon a native, the loquacious Vicq Ruiz, who joins Malahide on his journey (once Ruiz realizes Malahide has a lot of money) with the intention of showing him around Heilar-wey, the titular city. 

 The city itself is not some fantastical fairy-city, however; it is essentially a bizarre parody of a modern metropolis, providing ample opportunity for Finney to mock various aspects of society.  However, as with Circus, his parody is complex, but while in that book it was subtle, gentle even, here it is much more biting.  One of the most powerful sequences is when Malahide and Ruiz sit in on a trial where a black man stands accused of murder; Finney initially describes him using exaggeratedly racist terminology ("paws" for hands, etc.), but when the man opens his mouth to testify he describes the events in question using the most poetic, vivid language possible, directly contradicting the initial impression of him as a big dumb brute (or Finney as a racist).  Both attorneys continually interrupt with objections of the most irrelevant sort, while the judge struggles to stay awake.  The sequence was certainly more relevant when it was written in the 1930s (lynching was still fairly common then), but I still found it quite tragic and darkly humorous at the same time.  It's easy for some to claim that racism has been stamped out, and that railing against it is beating a dead horse and preaching to the choir; ignoring that how thoroughly it's actually been stamped out is subject to debate, it's nonetheless important to regularly familiarize ourselves with the worst aspects of society.  That way we can learn to recognize and deal with them when they crop up in other forms (and believe me, in America we don't have to look very far to find them).  Make no mistake, the claim that racism (or sexism, or any other form of discrimination) doesn't exist anymore is a victory for racism. 

 Still, things are usually lighter in tone, showcasing a really bizarre but also dark sense of humor, similar to RA Lafferty but lighter on the zany and heavier on the irony.  While in Circus Finney kept his humor tightly reined in, here he really lets it run free.  The Unholy City is just a hell of a lot of fun to read, despite being rather depressing overall.  Malahide and Ruiz stumble through the surreal Heilar-wey in a seemingly eternal evening, drinking bottle after bottle of cheap liquor in bar after bar, and buying newspaper after newspaper without ever sleeping.  They're nominally bent on striving toward the zenith of human happiness, as Ruiz has a premonition that he will soon die, but happiness seems forever out of reach.  Meanwhile, various events are unfolding across the city, followed by the protagonists through radio and newspaper and rumor; civil war erupts as various social factions strive for dominance, and a giant tiger rampages throughout the city, characterized by Ruiz as "the wrath of God" (this despite the fact that he worships the Greek pantheon).  There's all manner of weird symbolism of that sort, some of which Finney spells out explicitly, but with more of a sad shrug than a knowing wink.

 In sum I would rate The Unholy City very highly; it tackles social issues with biting satire but in a complex enough manner that it never comes across as preachy or simplistic and it's often hard to determine what exactly Finney's position even is, if position he has at all.  The protagonist claims to be a neutral observer in Heilar-wey who does not take sides and does not judge (to the disgust of nearly everyone), and that's most likely Finney's position as well.  The edition I have includes Finney's The Magician of Manchuria, so that's what I'll be reading next.

 Also, as a side note, don't confuse Charles G Finney the author with Charles G Finney the evangelist, as the latter's works seem to come up in book searches as often as the former's.

The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie

Recently I finished the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, since I had gotten the impression it would be an A Song of Ice and Fire-style gritty fantasy with lots of political machinations and characters, and I wasn't sure it could play GRRM's game and come out ahead.  Now, it was still a gritty fantasy with lots of political machinations and characters, but with much more of a sense of humor than A Song of Ice and Fire has, of a very dark but no less amusing sort (not that I'm putting down ASoIaF).  This helps lighten the otherwise bleak and bloody tone.  Even though Abercrombie really isn't very good at coming up with names (Angland and the Gurkish Empire being two doozies), he still managed to create a believable world, and its ancient history was one of the most interesting parts, very Greek, yet he cleverly leaves many of its mysteries unsolved.  You get the idea that things probably didn't happen exactly as people believe.  The average person only half believes the old myths, yet at the same time many literally live in their shadow, as the empty and sealed house of the Master Maker still towers over the capital of the Union.  A symbolic juxtaposition.

The characters were also very well written, consisting mostly of violent, conflicted people with checkered pasts, but each is written quite differently with very different outlooks.  Abercrombie does a good job of making them sound genuine and varied from one another, among other things through their habits of using certain phrases and other such mannerisms.  There is angst, but honestly it was quite downplayed.  Unlike most of these "doorstopper" fantasy series, I actually liked almost all of the characters, and I didn't dislike any of them.  There weren't any POVs where I would read the first page and say "oh crap, not another so-and-so chapter," which is probably the most annoying part of most authors who employ the revolving POVs (even good ones, like GRRM).  Most of the characters themselves aren't very original in concept, but Abercrombie takes the fantasy archetypes (powerful old wizard; battle-hardened barbarian; dashing, pretty-boy fencer; physically deficient yet mentally proficient man caught in the web of court intrigue) and builds them in interesting and unusual ways.  The barbarian for example comes across as reasonable, level-headed, and sympathetic, despite being a generally murderous bastard.  The contrast between the way he comes across to the reader from inside his head and the way he comes across to the other characters is very well done.

As for style, well...as with most of these modern "doorstoppers", the style is somewhat lacking, though better I think than GRRM's.  The problem with these really long series I think is that consistently good style is very hard to sustain throughout, as it requires every single word to be selected with the utmost care.  Instead the style is closer to the "transparent", with workmanlike descriptions and metaphors and dialog that set the scene and get the ideas across, only very occasionally intruding into the reader's consciousness as being exceptionally good or bad.  The characters speak fairly believably, and he eschews made-up bullshit for real swearwords (fuck, shit, etc.), which seems to bother some people, but honestly I think that works out better in the end.  Otherwise he would have had to affect some nonsense, whereas the more modern diction allows us to grasp relative social context much more easily.  There are times though where the style falls a little flat, but with such a lot of material to cover I can forgive some editorial oversights.  Abercrombie's style is probably at its best in the voices of the various main characters, though I feel he does lean a little too heavily on certain repetitive idiosyncratic mannerisms to establish character.  One thing I did appreciate was how he invented his own sayings (or altered existing ones) for his universe, and rather than treating them as universally revered wisdom, characters react as you might if quoted an old chestnut like "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."  If the real world has its cliche sayings, why shouldn't an invented one?

The plot really kept me on the edge of my seat, and while I was able to call some twists, there were always more that I missed.  There were also some instances of intentional dramatic irony, where the reader is given clues to figure something out long before the characters do.  Abercrombie juggles a lot of balls as is expected from this style of fantasy, but he manages to keep them all in the air as we go from one end of the world to the other as the Union struggles to keep itself afloat as it's beset by enemies on both sides as well as from within.  More discussion of plot, but with spoilers:

*SPOILERS* 

Some people I think weren't satisfied with the way it played out, but honestly I thought the ending was excellent.  Logen for example managed to fuck himself around in a big circle into essentially the exact same position he was in at the very beginning, while Jezal got more or less what he wanted and then some, but it ended up being mostly a sham (even if he isn't aware of just how much of a sham it is).  Despite that he's probably most moral of all.  Ferro got some of her vengeance and the tools to get more, but basically chose the vengeance over everything else.  Glokta probably gets the most undilutedly "happy" ending of all, while also being one of the least deserving from a moral standpoint.  Of course the "big reveal" at the end is how much control Bayaz has over everything, the Union being essentially his puppet in his fight against Khalul (with the Gurkish Empire as his puppet), with economics being Bayaz's method of control and religion being Khalul's.  A lesser author might have tried to kill Bayaz off and end his questionably evil tyranny, but instead the wizard reestablishes his iron grip.  I called early on that Bayaz would be trying to put Jezal on the throne, but I didn't guess that he would be behind Valint and Balk and through them the entire Union, so that was cool.  It was a very unconventional and realistic ending for the series, without any kind of unconditionally positive or negative outcome for any of the characters.  Even West, though physically debilitated in a way similar to Glokta and possibly near death, is still a Grand Marshal. 

*END SPOILERS*

Overall I was very satisfied with the series, it was a rip-roaring read of exactly the sort I was looking for, but with the added bonus of having a better sense of humor than I anticipated, as well as more depth.  The backstory of the Magi, the Maker, Juvens, etc. was especially compelling, even more so because there were so many unanswered questions.  While I wouldn't rank it among my top favorites, the First Law trilogy definitely has its place on my bookshelf and I don't doubt I'll be re-reading it eventually.  It's nice to find a fantasy author still living and writing whose continued output I can look forward to.