Shattered Sea

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Shattered Sea
First editions (UK hardback)

  • Half a King
  • Half the World
  • Half a War

AuthorJoe Abercrombie
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreFantasy
Publisher
Published2014 – 2015
Media typePrint

Shattered Sea is a young adult fantasy series written by the British author Joe Abercrombie,[1] a trilogy of novels published by Del Rey in the United States and Harper Voyager in the UK.

Novels[edit]

The trilogy
# Title Pages UK release UK hardback ISBN
1 Half a King 384 3 July 2014 ISBN 978-0007550203
2 Half the World 496 15 February 2015 ISBN 978-0007550234
3 Half a War 512 16 July 2015 ISBN 978-0007550265

Plot[edit]

The story follows the exploits of Yarvi, a young prince of Gettland with a disabled hand. When his father dies, Yarvi is elevated to the throne but faces a struggle to keep it as others conspire to take it from him.[2] Initially, the main point of view character, the second book moves to two new characters, Thorn and Brand, while Yarvi remains as a central character.[1] In the third book, three new point of view characters (Princess Skara, the Vansterland warrior Raith and Father Yarvi's apprentice Koll, who features throughout the second book also) are introduced.

Setting[edit]

The trilogy is set in what is at first glance an epic fantasy world, but is later shown as a Dying Earth-type post-apocalyptic Scandinavia, seemingly thousands of years in the future.[3] Society has regressed to a medieval-equivalent level after a cataclysm of some kind, and the remnants of past are known as "elf-ruins".[4]

The map of the Shattered Sea tallies closely with that of the current day Baltic Sea, the main three countries of the book, Gettland, Vansterland and Throvenland seem to make up most of what is a modern-day Sweden.[5]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Fiction Book Review: Half a King". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
  2. ^ Firebird (27 July 2014). "Half a King by Joe Abercrombie - review". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
  3. ^ "Half a King by Joe Abercrombie". Fantasy Book Review. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
  4. ^ Luke Brown (16 September 2015). "Half a War by Joe Abercrombie (Shattered Sea #3)". SFF World. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
  5. ^ Adam Whitehead (4 March 2015). "Decoding the map of Joe Abercrombie's Shattered Sea". The Wertzone. Retrieved 10 August 2015.[unreliable source?]

External links[edit]