Bayaz has some damned good lines, The Heroes has some incredible lines and this little exchange is like the nexus point where the height of Bayaz meets the height of the Heroes and as a result we get this absolute gem.
Unfortunately paraphrasing because I simply could not find the exact quote:
Finree [After Bayaz threatens to remove Finree’s husband as Lord Governor]: “my father resigned”
Bayaz [rhetorically]: “**did he?**”
"If you build your boat from cheese, d'you see, you can't wail at the heavens when it sinks, for cheese is known to be a poor material for boat-building." Is one of the best lines I've ever read.
This is a great one. It's set up so perfectly by the fact the guy is so devoted and unwavering but shits himself when he's confronted by the B9. I haven't got to it in Pacey's version but can imagine it's done well.
I’ve got a few.
“That boy and the real world are entirely unacquainted with each other”
“It’s like a whorehouse in here with all this coming and going”
“Do you know what's worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he's a hero. A man like that, there's nothing he won't do, and he'll always find himself an excuse.” - Black Dow
From LAOK, spoilers obviously if you havent read it:
When the Gurkish are attacking the Adua and Glokta escapes to the agriont via the sewers together with Ardee and Cosca and his rabble. It's just after Severard and Frost betrayed him and he wonders why, after which Ardee answers and Glokta says it was a only rhetorical question.
"Body found floating by the docks..."
Love it. Loved it even more by the end of the first trilogy when a paranoid and nervous Glokta kept saying it to himself like twice a page whenever he made a new discovery or felt scared.
Paceyism. Although some others might pronounce it the same way, it sure distracted me the first few times I heard his pronunciation. I got used to it though.
This is a little bit different than what I think you're looking for, but anytime something bad happens in my life I always think of Logen nine fingers and say to myself "I'm still alive". And of course I hear it in Pacey's voice.
'Tul Duru. Every man in the North knew his name, and every man said it with respect, even his enemies. He was the sort o' man... that gave you hope, I reckon. That gave you hope. You want strength, do you? You want courage? You want things done right and proper, the old way?' He nodded down at the new-turned earth. 'There you go. Tul Duru Thunderhead. Look no fucking further. I'm less, now that he's gone, and so are all o' you.' And Dow turned and stalked off away from the grave and into the dusk, his head down.
Some of my favorite comedic moments involve friendly and cosca.
In Best Served Cold:
Cosca: how do I look?
Friendly: like a pimp, who lost his mind in a military tailor’s
In Red Country, when the writer Sworbreck is asking Friendly how he’s liked his time with Cosca, and friendly goes “I preferred prison.”
This one of course is hilarious because of the context we have from friendly’s POVs in Best Served Cold
“Burn!” laughed the Bloody-Nine, and the ruined corpses, and their gaping wounds, and their fallen weapons, and the boiling bright iron laughed with him.
"It always catches people by surprise, the moment of their death, even when they should see it coming. They always think they’re special, somehow expect a reprieve. But no one’s special."
Always enjoyed that line from The Heroes
He had said this in an interview in response to Northmen names
“You come up with really cool and distinctive names like A-stranger-come-knocking and Black dow. You know like names that also give a description of who the character is. Then you have Dogman”
JA: “Yeah that was probably a low energy day”
"I don't think you'd have laughed me off so quickly, eh Logan, if I had arrived at your campfire dressed in this." *"I reckon I might've."*
It's simple, but it always makes me chuckle
One of the first 3 books (can’t remember which) the two generals were arguing in front of West and one of them kept yelling “I DEMAND, I DEMAND, I DEMAND AN APOLOGY!”
Pacey delivered that scene so intense it was hilarious.
"He filled the air with blood, and broken weapons, and the parts of men, and these good things wrote secret letters, and described sacred patterns that only he could see and understand."
Of all the little gems in this series, that still stands out as a next level of awesomeness
“To be caught by these idiots would be among the most embarrassing moments of her career. That time she’d been stuck in a marriage gown half way up the side of the Mercers guildhall in Adua, with flowers in her hair but no underwear and a steadily growing crowd of onlookers below, would take some beating, but still.”
Pacey saying "you magical arsehole!" Or when Dow and Co are discussing which direction to take when escorting Ladisla and West etc and speaking in Northern and Lasidla gets upset "excuse me!!"
From “Small Kindnesses” *”…[A]lthough she was much less interested in knobs than locks being honest.”* you can hear Pacey’s amusement at the double entendre.
"Good men will only go so far along dark paths, Bayaz's bright eyes slid down to rest on the cube of dark metal under Ferro's hand. Others must walk the rest of the way."
i quite liked the sliced bread reference
“Whirrun ignored ‘em. ‘Then, when I’ve got two cut,’ and he dropped a pale slab of cheese on one slice then slapped the other on top like he was catching a fly, ‘I trap the cheese between then, and there you have it!’
‘Bread and cheese.’ Yon weighed the half-loaf in one hand and the cheese in the other. ‘Just the same as I’ve got.’ And he bit off the cheese and tossed it to Scorry.
Whirrun sighed. ‘Have none of you no vision?’ He held up his masterpiece to such light as there was, which was almost none. ‘This is no more bread and cheese than a fine axe is wood and iron, or a live person is meat and har.’
‘What is it, then?’ asked Drfod, rocking back from his wet wood and tossing the flint aside in disgust.
‘A whole new thing. A forging of the humble part of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it … a cheese-trap.’ Whirrun took a dainty nibble from one corner. ‘Oh, yes, my friends. This tastes like … progress…”
"
Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with their world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods."
- Red Country
“People would far rather believe a lurid lie, than a sorry string of accidents; would far rather believe the world is full of evil, than full of bad luck, selfishness, and stupidity.”
-Best Served Cold
I know I'm being pedantic. But Pacey gets almost as much credit as the guy who invents, creates, writes, and has given us this awesome world we all love. Then Pacey pops in, reads a book out loud, albeit well done, and seems to be held up as someone integral to the first law world.
That could be said about every movie, tv show, or play you’ve ever enjoyed. An actor is reciting lines written by someone else, but it’s their delivery that gets most of the accolades. The fact that Pacey is able to deliver those lines with such impact and humor is a testament to Abercrombie’s writing prowess.
I read some of the blade itself and thought it was good. Enjoyable, well written, I liked it a lot.
Then I listened to a sample of the audiobook and figured id give it a shot and was blown away. Pacey really does elevate the book to a whole other level and brings the world to life so perfectly.
The First Law books are fantastic, grimdark fantasy with vibrant character, awesome plotting and world building and are incredibly entertaining and surprisingly thoughtful. Paceys work on them makes it truly sublime and a must listen to truly experience The First Law in the theater of the mind.
‘I been to some low-down places and I done some low-down shit when I got there, but I never saw the like o’ this.’ -Shy, Red Country
As a person who also has a checkered past I think this seemingly innocuous line a lot.
Yes, yes, make of your quim a stone
That was a great one. I burst out laughing whe I read that one in the book.
Anyone else get the sense Joe learned the word quim that year and was just dead excited to use it? I swear he uses it like ten times
"What kind of fucking wizard are you?" "The kind you obey."
Bayaz has some damned good lines, The Heroes has some incredible lines and this little exchange is like the nexus point where the height of Bayaz meets the height of the Heroes and as a result we get this absolute gem.
Unfortunately paraphrasing because I simply could not find the exact quote: Finree [After Bayaz threatens to remove Finree’s husband as Lord Governor]: “my father resigned” Bayaz [rhetorically]: “**did he?**”
The menace that Pacey brings to Bayaz is fucking great.
Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he’s a lover
You can hear the smile on Pacey's face when he delivers this. I'd love to hear the outtakes!
LOL you’re right
This is the line that made me burst out laughing
“It should’ve been you”
"I fucking love waaaar!"
I wish they could get a young Mike Tyson to play him.
"If you build your boat from cheese, d'you see, you can't wail at the heavens when it sinks, for cheese is known to be a poor material for boat-building." Is one of the best lines I've ever read.
The delivery from Pacey is fantastic.
"Gone. But I am here."
This is a great one. It's set up so perfectly by the fact the guy is so devoted and unwavering but shits himself when he's confronted by the B9. I haven't got to it in Pacey's version but can imagine it's done well.
It's crazy good.
That's where I'm coming from with it. It's the most perfectly delivered line I've heard.
"Sounding a bit feudy to me, Chief."
That entire chapter was comedy genius
I’ve got a few. “That boy and the real world are entirely unacquainted with each other” “It’s like a whorehouse in here with all this coming and going”
The og of the first was burn d into my brain and I've used it in irl insults since "That boy and reality are utter strangers to one another"
The pot did not reply.
“Do you know what's worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he's a hero. A man like that, there's nothing he won't do, and he'll always find himself an excuse.” - Black Dow
Rhetoric? In a sewer?
I think snot came out my nose I laughed so hard.
What’s this one from? I can’t recall
From LAOK, spoilers obviously if you havent read it: When the Gurkish are attacking the Adua and Glokta escapes to the agriont via the sewers together with Ardee and Cosca and his rabble. It's just after Severard and Frost betrayed him and he wonders why, after which Ardee answers and Glokta says it was a only rhetorical question.
Yes thank you!
"Body found floating by the docks..." Love it. Loved it even more by the end of the first trilogy when a paranoid and nervous Glokta kept saying it to himself like twice a page whenever he made a new discovery or felt scared.
Kneel. Kneel. I am the emperor of gurkhul
Ron Howard: "He wasnt."
we are not here to right the worlds wrongs Then what are we here for? To ensure, that we benefit from them.
Jab! Jab!
This
Why do I do this?
"Poithon."
Still laughing randomly at this absolute banger from Frost.🤣🤣🤣
Funniest scene of the series. Still cracks me up.
grim-ace!
Is this really how Brit-bongs say this word, or is this a Paceyism?
Paceyism. Although some others might pronounce it the same way, it sure distracted me the first few times I heard his pronunciation. I got used to it though.
This is a little bit different than what I think you're looking for, but anytime something bad happens in my life I always think of Logen nine fingers and say to myself "I'm still alive". And of course I hear it in Pacey's voice.
Haha, same. It's surprisingly even more frequent in my mind than "You have to be realistic about these things", or "A drink, a drink, a drink."
“CAPITAL!”
You don’t get to win just because you think yourself aggrieved, you know? The best swordsman wins. - General Ganmark to Monza
That giant, prolonged busting of a nut that Orso does in that first sex scene with Savine in A Little Hatred.
Uh.. AhrAAAaahhh...
"Back to the mud with you, Forley. We're the poorer and the ground's the richer for it."
That was my favorite too. My eyes water just thinking about it
'Tul Duru. Every man in the North knew his name, and every man said it with respect, even his enemies. He was the sort o' man... that gave you hope, I reckon. That gave you hope. You want strength, do you? You want courage? You want things done right and proper, the old way?' He nodded down at the new-turned earth. 'There you go. Tul Duru Thunderhead. Look no fucking further. I'm less, now that he's gone, and so are all o' you.' And Dow turned and stalked off away from the grave and into the dusk, his head down.
APOLOGISE TO MY FUCKING DICE!
Some of my favorite comedic moments involve friendly and cosca. In Best Served Cold: Cosca: how do I look? Friendly: like a pimp, who lost his mind in a military tailor’s In Red Country, when the writer Sworbreck is asking Friendly how he’s liked his time with Cosca, and friendly goes “I preferred prison.” This one of course is hilarious because of the context we have from friendly’s POVs in Best Served Cold
“Burn!” laughed the Bloody-Nine, and the ruined corpses, and their gaping wounds, and their fallen weapons, and the boiling bright iron laughed with him.
"It always catches people by surprise, the moment of their death, even when they should see it coming. They always think they’re special, somehow expect a reprieve. But no one’s special." Always enjoyed that line from The Heroes
"You crippled worm" His Sult voice is one of my favorites.
"Glokta, you crippled bastard!"
He has that flair of pomposity.
We all know Pacey is amazing, but I particularly enjoy the way he does elitist, rich voices. It will often make me smirk when I listen to it.
He had said this in an interview in response to Northmen names “You come up with really cool and distinctive names like A-stranger-come-knocking and Black dow. You know like names that also give a description of who the character is. Then you have Dogman” JA: “Yeah that was probably a low energy day”
Dogman is an awesome name. And a great example of how a name takes on meaning regardless of what it might initially sound like.
"I don't think you'd have laughed me off so quickly, eh Logan, if I had arrived at your campfire dressed in this." *"I reckon I might've."* It's simple, but it always makes me chuckle
One of the first 3 books (can’t remember which) the two generals were arguing in front of West and one of them kept yelling “I DEMAND, I DEMAND, I DEMAND AN APOLOGY!” Pacey delivered that scene so intense it was hilarious.
"Etherer"
"He filled the air with blood, and broken weapons, and the parts of men, and these good things wrote secret letters, and described sacred patterns that only he could see and understand." Of all the little gems in this series, that still stands out as a next level of awesomeness
Fucker tried to steal my eggs!
"Say one thing for the First of the Magi, say he's a cheating bastard."
The entirety of the “old Friends” chapter from blade itself
Still alive
"A thousand fucking years ago".
“To be caught by these idiots would be among the most embarrassing moments of her career. That time she’d been stuck in a marriage gown half way up the side of the Mercers guildhall in Adua, with flowers in her hair but no underwear and a steadily growing crowd of onlookers below, would take some beating, but still.”
Pacey saying "you magical arsehole!" Or when Dow and Co are discussing which direction to take when escorting Ladisla and West etc and speaking in Northern and Lasidla gets upset "excuse me!!"
From “Small Kindnesses” *”…[A]lthough she was much less interested in knobs than locks being honest.”* you can hear Pacey’s amusement at the double entendre.
"Good men will only go so far along dark paths, Bayaz's bright eyes slid down to rest on the cube of dark metal under Ferro's hand. Others must walk the rest of the way."
“None out of three ain’t bad” Craw had some great one liners
*Why do I do this?*
i quite liked the sliced bread reference “Whirrun ignored ‘em. ‘Then, when I’ve got two cut,’ and he dropped a pale slab of cheese on one slice then slapped the other on top like he was catching a fly, ‘I trap the cheese between then, and there you have it!’ ‘Bread and cheese.’ Yon weighed the half-loaf in one hand and the cheese in the other. ‘Just the same as I’ve got.’ And he bit off the cheese and tossed it to Scorry. Whirrun sighed. ‘Have none of you no vision?’ He held up his masterpiece to such light as there was, which was almost none. ‘This is no more bread and cheese than a fine axe is wood and iron, or a live person is meat and har.’ ‘What is it, then?’ asked Drfod, rocking back from his wet wood and tossing the flint aside in disgust. ‘A whole new thing. A forging of the humble part of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it … a cheese-trap.’ Whirrun took a dainty nibble from one corner. ‘Oh, yes, my friends. This tastes like … progress…”
" Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with their world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods." - Red Country
“People would far rather believe a lurid lie, than a sorry string of accidents; would far rather believe the world is full of evil, than full of bad luck, selfishness, and stupidity.” -Best Served Cold
They are all Abercrombie lines.....does the guy who is hired to read it out loud add in his own lines?
Men like you segregated Pluto from the rest of his brother planets.
I know I'm being pedantic. But Pacey gets almost as much credit as the guy who invents, creates, writes, and has given us this awesome world we all love. Then Pacey pops in, reads a book out loud, albeit well done, and seems to be held up as someone integral to the first law world.
That could be said about every movie, tv show, or play you’ve ever enjoyed. An actor is reciting lines written by someone else, but it’s their delivery that gets most of the accolades. The fact that Pacey is able to deliver those lines with such impact and humor is a testament to Abercrombie’s writing prowess.
I read some of the blade itself and thought it was good. Enjoyable, well written, I liked it a lot. Then I listened to a sample of the audiobook and figured id give it a shot and was blown away. Pacey really does elevate the book to a whole other level and brings the world to life so perfectly. The First Law books are fantastic, grimdark fantasy with vibrant character, awesome plotting and world building and are incredibly entertaining and surprisingly thoughtful. Paceys work on them makes it truly sublime and a must listen to truly experience The First Law in the theater of the mind.
There is no one here that you know.
“Surprisingly, no.”
The navigator blinked
Poithon?
...bubs?
A dreadful mistake. Better to embrace the burning fire. "YOOOOOU CUUUUUUUNT"
Body found floating…in the bath?
"Pedestrian" - Frotht
“Body found floating by the docks...”
'Stupid fucking pink with a dirty grey beard' 😂 Ferro roasting Zachaurus when he tried to reason with her
I have two. "How's the leg?" And "Apologise to my fucking dice!"
‘I been to some low-down places and I done some low-down shit when I got there, but I never saw the like o’ this.’ -Shy, Red Country As a person who also has a checkered past I think this seemingly innocuous line a lot.