Yes, absolutely.
I've just finished Joe Abercrombie's
Best Served Cold, which (in pure theory) could have a sequel, but doesn't. Which is good. Not because the book isn't good, but because a sequel wouldn't do it any good. It's blunt, brutal, direct and easily runs through its storyline while developing a group of borderline insane characters. It's an okay read. The characters are enticing, but it sort of stumbles through the pre-defined storyline, which focuses on betrayal and revenge, as the title already suggests. Gist of it: Main character attains glory through skillfully leading armies on their campaign... then gets betrayed, thrown off a mountain, barely survives, swears revenge on the seven people who did this to her and hilarity ensues.
Numbers are a big part of the story, actually, but I still think that choosing seven main targets was a bit too much.
And now I'm busy with Robert Sanderson's
Mistborn trilogy. It's way more lighthearted than
Best Served Cold and dives deeper into the whole fantasy business with it's own set of supernatural powers - rather refreshing, since
Best Served Cold only had one invincible character somewhere on the side and focused more on the grimy action and intrigues.
I rather liked how
Mistborn's story is set up. Some awesome great Hero of Ages goes on his prophetic quest, to battle the darkness and attain half-god powers as a bonus, but somehow... things do not quite turn out right. The story starts a thousand years after, in a dark world that is almost completely ruled and oppressed by this now-immortal "hero", along with his governmental system of ministries, nobility and slave classes. I like that. Always wondered what would happen to a world where that stupid "Main Quest for Awesomeness" thingy actually failed.
I'm in the middle of the first book and so far it's done well to keep me excited, mainly because it very slowly unfolds what really happened those thousand years ago, as a group of thieves and schemers struggles to oppose the Lord Ruler. Can't wait to read on to discover whether he'll turn out to be simply corrupted, or whether's he's more of the Leto II Atreides type... or maybe something different still.
This post has been edited by Gobbler: 02 May 2011 - 03:47 AM