Book Review: The Cold Commands, The Dark Defiles (A Land Fit for Heroes Books 2/3)

Okay, so I read through the second book and third of Richard K. Morgan's A Land Fit for Heroes series (of which I reviewed the first book, The Steel Remains, in a previous post).  I'd have to say, iiiiiit's AMAZING!

Not so much the second book -- it had the unfortunate burden of setting things up for the third and, supposedly, last book.  I couldn't be bothered to come up with a review for The Cold Commands (Book 2), because, well, Skyrim happened :P, but I did go straight to the third book, The Dark Defiles.  It's been over a week and I still find myself wishing there's more to the series, though I think we should just leave it at that (since we usually regret getting what we ask for).

So, in a sentence, the Dark Defiles is everything that makes Richard K. Morgan great in his earlier works, particularly Altered Carbon.  You can almost think of Ringil Eskiath, the main protagonist in this particular series, as a dark fantasy 'faggot' (in his own words) analogue for the sci-fi body swapper Takeshi Kovacs.  The rage is there, the sociopathic, watching-the-world-burn-because-I-could attitude, and the well-hidden heart and sentimentality at its core.

The whole novel is a roller coaster ride, with victories, defeats, deaths, near-deaths and everything else in between.  Up until the end I wasn't sure how things would go, and even after putting the book down, you're pretty sure things are still going on in that world of theirs.  Not the best world building out there, but it's solid and everything makes sense, more or less, in the end.

The ending was satisfying and pretty fitting -- it wasn't some tacked-on, happily ever after piece of fiction made to please readers.  It was what the character wanted, and deserved. It was awesome :D

In the end, I'm glad Richard K. Morgan remembered how to write as Richard K. Morgan.  For a while there (a long while, it was book 1 and most of book 2) I felt that the author was trying to be clever for its own sake.  But the deconstructionist nature of his work works, and while you can feel that the author is trying too hard not to fall into the usual high/low/dark/light fantasy tropes most of us find ourselves reading, reading the work in its entirety justified his approach, made me feel (at least) that he wasn't being too self-indulgent and ultimately comes up with a work worthy of his skill and vision. Blah blah blah.

Listened to all three books in audiobook format.  Simon Vance is my favourite narrator :D (Just not for Aubrey Maturin)

So verdict: 4.5/5 for The Dark Defiles, 4/4 for The Cold Commands and 4/5 for the Land Fit for Heroes series.

TL;DR:
++ Great ending, made all the doubt and annoyances of the earlier books worthwhile
++ Explanations and rationale galore, a lot of the mysteries and histories were made clear, without being too big an infodump
++ Author seemed to have loosened up and had a bit more fun with the last book than with the first two.
-- SPOILER of a sort : Someone died :(

Details:
Author: Richard K. Morgan
Genre: Fantasy, Noir
Book Length: The Cold Commands 512 Pages, The Dark Defiles 560 Pages (Hardcover Version)
Published: The Cold Commands October 11, 2011, The Dark Defiles November 20, 2014
Amazon Link:  The Cold Commands, The Dark Defiles