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Book Details

Red Country

71.4% complete
2012
2021
1 time
See 48
I - TROUBLE
Some Kind of Coward
The Easy Way
Just Men
The Best Man
All Got a Past
The Stolen
II - FELLOWSHIP
Conscience and the Cock-Rot
New Lives
The Rugged Outdoorsman
Driftwood
Reasons
Oh God, the Dust
Sweet’s Crossing
Dreams
The Wrath of God
The Practical Thinkers
The Fair Price
III - CREASE
Hell on the Cheap
Plots
Words and Graces
That Simple
Yesterday’s News
Blood Coming
The Sleeping Partner
Fun
High Stakes
Old Friends
Nowhere to Go
IV - DRAGONS
In Threes
Among the Barbarians
Bait
Savages
The Dragon’s Den
Greed
V - Trouble
The Tally
Going Back
Answered Prayers
Sharp Ends
Nowhere Fast
Times Change
The Cost
Last Words
Some Kind of Coward
Book Cover
Has a genre Has a synopsis Has an extract Has a year read Has a rating In my library In a series 
2635
 First Law World*
#6 of 10
First Law World*   See series as if on a bookshelf
A series of novels written by Joe Abercrombie that take place in the same world that the original First Law trilogy did.

1) The Blade Itself
2) Before They Are Hanged
3) Last Argument of Kings
4) Best Served Cold
5) The Heroes
6) Red Country
7) Sharp Ends
8) A Little Hatred
9) The Trouble with Peace
10) The Wisdom of Crowds
Copyright © 2012 by Joe Abercrombie
For Teddy
And Clint Eastwood
But since Clint probably ain’t that bothered
Mostly Teddy
'Gold.'
May contain spoilers
Until he was gone.
No comments on file
Synopsis* (may contain spoilers)
Red Country by Joe Abercrombie is an epic fantasy novel that tells the story of Shy South, a tough and resourceful young woman who has managed to survive in a harsh and unforgiving frontier known as The Far Country. Shy is a cattle rancher by trade, but when her farm is attacked and her brother and sister are kidnapped by a gang of ruthless bandits, she sets out on a dangerous journey to rescue them and bring them back home.

Along the way, Shy crosses paths with a group of unlikely allies, including a former soldier named Temple who is haunted by his traumatic experiences in a bloody war, a mysterious wizard called Bayaz who holds a powerful secret about the history of the land, and a fierce and fearless mercenary named Nicomo Cosca who is known as "The Great Leveller."

Together, the group travels through treacherous mountains and perilous deserts, facing numerous obstacles and dangers along the way. They confront hostile tribes, bloodthirsty outlaws, and vicious monsters, all while trying to stay one step ahead of the notorious Black Calder gang who captured Shy's siblings.

The journey is long and difficult, but through sheer grit and determination, Shy and her comrades eventually track down the Black Calder gang to their stronghold in the town of Crease. There, they launch a daring assault on the gang's headquarters, fighting their way through hordes of heavily armed bandits and freeing Shy's brother and sister in the process.

But the victory is short-lived as they soon discover that the true mastermind behind the Black Calder gang is none other than Bayaz himself, the very person who helped them along the way. Bayaz reveals that he has been using the Black Calder gang to sow chaos and instability in the land, all in order to strengthen his hold on power and extend his influence over the region.

Furious at being betrayed, Shy and her allies confront Bayaz, but they find themselves vastly outmatched by his formidable magic abilities. In a final act of desperation, Shy manages to kill Bayaz's closest associate, a young woman named Ferro who had been seeking revenge on Bayaz for enslaving her people. This act of defiance weakens Bayaz enough for Nicomo Cosca to deliver the final blow, and they succeed in killing him.

With Bayaz dead and the Black Calder gang crippled, Shy and her companions return to their homes, but it is a bitter victory. For Shy, the journey has taken its toll, and she realizes that she can never go back to the person she once was. The experience has changed her irreversibly, and she must now find a way to move forward and forge a new path in life.

In the end, Red Country is a powerful and visceral tale of survival, betrayal, and redemption. It takes readers on a thrilling adventure through a harsh and unforgiving world, and it leaves them with a haunting and unforgettable message about the costs of violence, the price of power, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Extract (may contain spoilers)
‘And there’s the Fellowship,’ said Sweet, reining in with forearms on saddle horn and fingers dangling.

The wagons were strung out for a mile or so along the bottom of the valley. Thirty or more, some covered with stained canvas, some painted bright colours, dots of orange and purple and twinkling gilt jumping from the dusty brown landscape. Specks of walkers alongside them, riders up ahead. At the back came the beasts–horses, spare oxen, a good-sized herd of cattle–and following hard after a swelling cloud of dust, tugged by the breeze and up into the blue to announce the Fellowship’s coming to the world.

‘Will you look at that!’ Leef kicked his horse forward, standing in his stirrups with a grin all the way across his face. ‘D’you see that?’ Shy hadn’t seen him smile before and it made him look young. More boy than man, which he probably was. Made her smile herself.

‘I see it,’ she said.

‘A whole town on the move!’

‘True, it’s a fair cross section through society,’ said Sweet, shifting his old arse in his saddle. ‘Some honest, some sharp, some rich, some poor, some clever, some not so much. Lot of prospectors. Some herders and some farmers. Few merchants. All set on a new life out there beyond the horizon. We even got the First of the Magi down there.’

Lamb’s head jerked around. ‘What?’

‘A famous actor. Iosiv Lestek. His Bayaz mesmerised the crowds in Adua, apparently.’ Sweet gave his gravelly chuckle. ‘About a hundred bloody years ago. He’s hoping to bring theatre to the Far Country, I hear, but between you, me and half the population of the Union, his powers are well on the wane.’

‘Don’t convince as Bayaz any more, eh?’ asked Shy.

‘He scarcely convinces me as Iosiv Lestek.’ Sweet shrugged. ‘But what do I know about acting?’

‘Even your Dab Sweet’s no better’n passable.’

‘Let’s go down there!’ said Leef. ‘Get us a better look!’

There was a less romantic feel to the business at close quarters. Isn’t there to every business? That number of warm bodies, man and beast, produced a quantity of waste hardly to be credited and certainly not to be smelled without good cause. The smaller and less glamorous animals–dogs and flies, chiefly, though undoubtedly lice, too–didn’t stand out from a distance but made double the impression once you were in the midst. Shy was forced to wonder whether the Fellowship might, in fact, be a brave but foolhardy effort to export the worst evils of city-living into the middle of the unspoiled wilderness.

Not blind to this, some of the senior Fellows had removed themselves a good fifty strides from the main body in order to consider the course, meaning argue over it and grab a drink, and were now scratching their heads over a big map.

‘Step away from that map ’fore you hurt yourselves!’ called Sweet as they rode up. ‘I’m back and you’re three valleys south o’ the course.’

‘Only three? Better than I dared hope.’ A tall, sinewy Kantic with a fine-shaped skull bald as an egg stepped up, giving Shy and Lamb and Leef a careful look-over on the way. ‘You have friends along.’

‘This here is Lamb and his daughter Shy.’ She didn’t bother to correct him on the technicality. ‘This lad’s name, I must confess, has for the time being slipped from my clutches—’

‘Leef.’

‘That was it! This here is my… employer.’ Sweet said the word like even admitting its existence was too much cramping of his freedoms ‘An unrepentant criminal by the name of Abram Majud.’

 

Added: 23-Nov-2019
Last Updated: 22-Mar-2023

Publications

 13-Nov-2012
Orbit US
Kindle e-Book
In my libraryI read this editionOrder from amazon.comHas a cover imageBook Edition Cover
Date Issued:
Cir 13-Nov-2012
Format:
Kindle e-Book
Cover Price:
$17.99
Pages*:
451
Read:
Once
Reading(s):
1)   13 Aug 2021 - 18 Dec 2021
Internal ID:
12769
Publisher:
ISBN:
0-316-21444-2
ISBN-13:
978-0-316-21444-5
Country:
United States
Language:
English
From amazon.com:

A New York Times bestseller!
They burned her home.
They stole her brother and sister.
But vengeance is following.


Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she'll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she's not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb's buried a bloody past of his own. And out in the lawless Far Country the past never stays buried.

Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into an alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust . . .

Red Country takes place in the same world as the First Law trilogy, Best Served Cold, and The Heroes. This novel also represents the return of Logen Ninefingers, one of Abercrombie's most beloved characters.
Cover:
Book Cover
Notes and Comments:
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Gollancz
First ebook edition: November 2012
E3-20190921-JV-PC-DPU

Related

Author(s)

Joe Abercrombie  
Birth: 30 Dec 1974 Lancaster, England

Awards

2012Good ReadsBest Fantasy Nominee
2013Britsh Fantasy SocietyRobert Holdstock Award Nominee
2013David Gemmell AwardsLegend Award Nominee
*
  • I try to maintain page numbers for audiobooks even though obviously there aren't any. I do this to keep track of pages read and I try to use the Kindle version page numbers for this.
  • Synopses marked with an asterisk (*) were generated by an AI. There aren't a lot since this is an iffy way to do it - AI seems to make stuff up.
  • When specific publication dates are unknown (ie prefixed with a "Cir"), I try to get the publication date that is closest to the specific printing that I can.
  • When listing chapters, I only list chapters relevant to the story. I will usually leave off Author Notes, Indices, Acknowledgements, etc unless they are relevant to the story or the book is non-fiction.
  • Page numbers on this site are for the end of the main story. I normally do not include appendices, extra material, and other miscellaneous stuff at the end of the book in the page count.






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