This was a hugely enjoyable completion to the trilogy. What else is there to say? Okay: great characters I really cared about, pain that really hurt, the dirt blood and reality of battles in which people are hacking at each other with effing great meat cleavers and, very very loosely paraphrasing Arthur C Clarke, magic with the drawbacks of technology, especially the kind of technology that appeared at the end of the cold war and has haunted us ever since. I also have to acknowledge wry hat-tips here, and in the other books, to various, ahem, famous speeches and scenes both in reality and fiction. Immediately springing to mind from the last book are The Caves of Moria, whilst in this one we have Churchill… And for me, it’s been wonderful to discover that I still like fantasy, or rather, I like fantasy that’s done well. Nice one Mr Abercrombie.