Revelations pummel us as the true nature of Bayaz and his vast web of power - both financial and magical - are revealed. Bayaz is a villain, more dangerous and powerful than perhaps any other figure in the books.

There are warnings early on in the books, but our fantasy-addled brains convince us that while Bayaz may be a 'gritty' version of Gandalf, he's still a good guy. Bayaz, we learn in bits and pieces, is not the Gandalf figure we expected. In The First Law trilogy, the wise-old Wizard archetype is turned on its head. While this may be inevitable to some degree given the shared universe and common characters in these books, I still found it something of a let-down. Too much is cribbed from the First Law trilogy in terms of both theme and plot.

Where The Heroes fails is in its conclusion. Or horribly maimed, physically and psychologically. We swerve through both sides of the conflict, as one soldier falls we then follow his killer until that man dies as well, and so on and so forth in what is ultimately a pointless dance of kill and be killed. Likewise, the battle scenes Abercrombie paints serve as portraits of death for characters both minor and major. The world-weary veteran who must navigate events beyond the scope of his experience the new recruit with dreams of glory who becomes aware of his own cowardice too late the mysterious hero and his magic sword following his destiny, only to find he's been mistaken the whole time. Where The Heroes shines the most is in its examination of ordinary soldiers, both veterans and recruits, and their observations of both the war and one another.

The heroes by joe abercrombie