Tough Times All Over

The First Law

by Joe Abercrombie

Carcolf, courier and operative, is transporting a package through the underbelly of Sipani, a city in Styria, where the novel Best Served Cold is set when Carcolf is quickly set upon by a street bandit who takes the package without any concept of its value.

For the dedicated Abercrombie fans there are easter eggs aplenty in “Tough Times All Over", a short novella that explores a few side characters from the world of the First Law.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Crime

42 pages, ebook

About the author

Joe Abercrombie was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, where he studied psychology. He moved into television production before taking up a career as a freelance film editor. During a break between jobs he began writing The Blade Itself in 2002, completing it in 2004. It was published by Gollancz in 2006 and was followed by two other books in The First Law trilogy, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings. He currently lives and works in London with his wife and daughter. In early 2008 Joe Abercrombie was one of the contributors to the BBC Worlds of Fantasy series, alongside other contributors such as Michael Moorcock, Terry Pratchett and China Mieville.

Reviews

[Sherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this from the short story collection Rogues and so far this one was the best of the bunch. It had 2 of my favourite characters that Abercrombie has written, Javre and Shev, from the short story collection, Sharp Ends. Every scene Javre is in slays me. She is so funny and so I enjoyed this very much.

[Shreyas · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Tough Times All Over' (The Tales of Javre and Shev #5; First Law World #6.2) by Joe Abercrombie.


Without needing to look she felt each person about her, judged their threat, predicted their attack, imagined her response, the air around her alive with calculated possibilities, the surroundings mapped, the distances known, all things of use noted. The sternest tests are those you do not see coming, so Javre was the weapon always sharpened, the weapon never sheathed, the answer to every question.


Rating: 3.0/5.


Review:
This short story is set in the province of Sipani about five years after the events of "Three's A Crowd". I think the Javre and Shev storyline hit its peak when they met Cracknut Whirrun in "Two's Company", but every short story after that has been less entertaining.

After the events of the last short story, I found it quite frustrating that Shev has gotten back into an abusive relationship with the manipulating Carcolf. I thought Shev would have moved on after the betrayal in the previous short story, but I guess some people just don't learn what's good for them. Sigh.

Coming back to the story, there's barely a plot here. The basic premise involves a stolen parcel and is told from the viewpoints of different characters who somehow get it in their possession. This narrative structure is reminiscent of the 'Casualties' chapter in 'The Heroes', where there is a somewhat similar switching over of viewpoints, but in a war setting. We don't ever get to know what is in the stolen package and why are so many different factions interested in it. I hope it will come into play in the sequel trilogy.

There are also some interesting cameos from the characters from the earlier books - Kurtis, Friendly, Shallow and Deep, Fallow, and Ishri, to name some of them. Seeing some of these old faces again made the otherwise tedious short story somewhat interesting.

[Merle]

I read this as part of the short story collection “Rogues” and was so confused 😬
I have never read anything in the first law universe and was tossed around from character to character until my head spun. I don’t think I understood anything about the plot or characters but loved the writing anyway. Even though this story certainly wasn’t intended for me, now I really want to understand what was going on there and will move “the blade itself” up on my TBR.

[Tyrell ⚔️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a short story in the Rogues anthology.

The writing was excellent as always, with plenty of Abercrombie's character shining through. I do think some of the plot went a bit over my ahead due to the jumps between characters POV's so often. It was an incredibly unique story due to the switch in POV, similar to the POV switches in The Heroes.

Definitely recommend for any Abercrombie fans!

[Nell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read the series that these characters are from, but this makes me want to

[Storm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collected in Sharp Ends, Rogues and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 9. It's a tough, rough city for a courier to try getting an item to its intended destination! This story, the first story in Rogues, epitomizes the saying

[Chelsea Hagans · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is wonderful; however I think some of it is lost in the way it jumps between characters so much. I understand it needed to happen but I think it EASILY could have been a 4 or a 5 for me if we would have stuck with Carcolf and only jumped a small handful of times. This was my first time reading his work and it definitely intrigued me to more. Solid read.

[Reid Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still single-handedly my favorite short story ever read. This is probably my third or fourth reread and it delivers a different captivating experience each time. Believe it or not this was the very first First Law universe story I read and it send me careening down a very bizarre reading order (Red Country, Best Served Cold, Heroes, THEN the original trilogy). It is fascinating to reread the story and see the new intersection points with a different weight (Ishri and "the bald boss" are 1000x more ominous on reread).
I have this logged as a masterclass on quick, impactful, and distinct characterization. I think it speaks volumes that I enjoyed it just as much before I knew any of the characters or the world and after having toured all the dark crevices of it.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short story that goes from POV to POV following the (re)theft of a package with some of them being familiar characters and some new. The POVs go from one to the other in the usual excellent way that Abercrombie has such a skill for. My main problem was that I did not understand how the sequence of getting the package back was set up so quickly after the theft - it seemed immediate but maybe I missed something.

[Mariano Baraldi · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Rogues #1) La historia es llevadera. Me gustó la forma de escribir del autor y de presentar los personajes, seguramente busque algo más de él en el futuro.

[Ty Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the perspective changes made more than readable with the unique narrative voices for each character. Great worldbuilding

[Leonie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This lacked plot and the writing was below par for Abercrombie.

[WriterDamon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story made me like the author and pushed me to read his other works ASAP!

[Isaac · Rating 2 out of 5]

very interesting until it decided to drag on

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

A McGuffin is stolen a dozen times in 20 pages, but without having read anything else in the First Law, the lore and Easter eggs are totally lost on me

[Zumzaa · Rating 1 out of 5]

2/10
(*3)
Too many characters because there were some entirely uninteresting and others with better concepts but not given any room to let the ideas at all breathe. And they certainly weren't of a smacking sort either if one could even venture to produce such a defence. Collectively though a sense of the greedy dinge of the city was established but not exactly deftly felt.

[Ahmed El-Sharawy · Rating 2 out of 5]

i liked it somewhat but it just didn't go anywhere with its plot

[Meghana · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.65