I suppose it's a sign of age that I'm starting to prefer shorter books - or maybe that I've finally admitted to myself that I do. No longer do I long to set out on a voyage across millions of words, but rather I hanker for tighter, leaner, shorter books. I'll be first in line for Martin's next ten-thousand page volume, but overall, thinner is better.

And here we have an epic fantasy trilogy of thinner books - well, this one is 480-odd pages, but 480-odd pages doesn't mean so much any more - and I must say it works a treat. Half The World, another self-contained volume that is also part of the larger story of the Shattered Sea Trilogy. Thorn and Brand are a pair of young warriors. Brand, unfortunately, does not have a taste for killing and does have an unfortunate bent to do good. Thorn is a savage fighter, but is roundly despised because she's a girl. At their final testing, a boy dies, and this sets in motion events that will send them off on a voyage to the far side of the world under the cunning and watchful eye of Father Yarvis, who plans to win peace for his country at any cost, and Brand and Thorn will play their parts.

It's rough and tough, grimy and grungy. That it's unsentimental and even cynical will come as no surprise, that Abercrombie has matured enough as a writer to leaven the grimdark with humanity will come as a pleasant one, though perhaps we should wait until the final volume to make a final judgment there. The writing is superb, muscular and hard-boiled, the vaguely Viking/Anglo-Saxon language drawling and natural. But it's the plotting that Abercrombie always excels at, plots within plots, setbacks and reversals and ironic twists and turns keep things lively and compelling, while the action is brutal and the politics nasty.