Joe Abercrombie

The First Law — (2006-2008) Publisher: Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he's on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian - leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies. Nobleman, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, Captain Jezal dan Luthar has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules. Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it. Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glotka a whole lot more difficult. Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood.

The Blade Itself

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. I read the blurb from the back and nearly turned away after reading only half of the summary. But something made me open it up and try the first few pages—and I was hooked. It starts with an action scene—like most fantasy novels—and it is described so well. It is realistic without splattering gore in your face. I can't think of any other author who treads that line so well as Joe Abercrombie does in The Blade Itself.

I didn't find this a funny book, overall. It's not a comedy at all. But there are several moments where I did laugh out loud as I read some clever description or a reaction of one of the characters. In fact I think I found more to smile at in this book than most other novels that are specifically tagged as being funny or humourous. The humour here isn't forced. I didn't feel like the author was trying to be funny. It was more like the humour you might find in casual conversation with a friend.

This book moves along at a good pace. It is one of those books where you want to keep reading to find out what happens, but, unlike many other page-turners, things actually happen in this one! I hate books that promise action or resolution just over the next page, just another page, one more page, and before you know it you've read half the book and still nothing's happened. This is definitely not a one-trick pony of a book. Each character is well developed and the plots intertwine naturally.

What this book doesn't contain are tired old writing techniques. Well, it's not perfect, but it's as close as I've come across in 15 years. Anyway, there are no stereotypical clichéd fantasy characters. The author doesn't end each chapter on a contrived cliff-hanger and then talk about another character's life for ten chapters before returning to the cliff-hanger. He doesn't especially dwell on the gruesome details of battle, but he writes it as realistically as you'd want. Perhaps not super-realistic—this is a fantasy, after all—but it's not nearly as predictable as many.

Something else I noticed about the writing style is that Joe Abercrombie will change his writing a little to suit each character. So each time he changes the perspective to a new character, the way he describes the scenes changes, too. It's like he's letting us look through each of their eyes, rather than just giving us a homogenous narration throughout. They're not jarring transitions by any means, though. For me they really added to the story and made it all the more absorbing.

This is by far the most absorbing novel I have read for many years.  —M.P.

The Blade Itself: Fantasy noir and cutting edge sword-and-sorcery too!

I haven't been this excited about a book since I read George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones! Speaking of which, be careful stacking Joe Abercrombie too close to GRRM or Steven Erikson, because even though it's less-than-half their size, The Blade Itself may knock them right off the bookshelf!

Finally, a talented writer has combined the straight-forward, character driven adventure tales of old school sword-and-sorcery with the depth and multi-person-point-of-view of the modern epic fantasies.

This world is ruled by a centuries-old empire that's oblivious to its rotting core and too arrogant to realize how easily its barbaric enemies may be more than it can handle. Also, it seems that a dark force may be rising that is the bigger threat. All this is just the back-drop for a truly character-driven tale. I haven't liked a barbarian as much as Logen Nine-fingers and the Named Men since REH's Conan. Inquisitor Glotka, despite his crippling and the disfiguring POW injuries, may be the most dangerous ally or enemy. Those are a couple of players in a story that has some of the most interesting and charismatic characters in the genre. Despite that this is a multi-person-point-view tale, the characters are refreshingly kept to a manageable number.

Be prepared to hit-the-ground running from the first page and be pulled along till the last. And this bone-jarring pace is not all due to the two-fisted action. Mr. Abercrombie has a knack for dialog that's unprecedented in the genre. You'll find yourself snickering or blown-away by the witty banter and one-liners as much as you'll be grabbing the edge-of-your-seat during a running fight.   —G.H.

The Blade Itself: Unfocused, hard-boiled, sword-and-sorcery debut

Logen Ninefingers is a homeless, battle-scarred barbarian, hoping to live one more day. Jezal dan Luthar is a conceited rake with the vague ambition of winning an annual fencing contest. Sand dan Glotka, who won such a contest years ago, is a torture-crippled torturer in the Union's Inquisition, rooting out whatever truths or half-truths will please his superiors (if not the Union's senile king). Ferro Maljinn is an escaped slave, lean and feral, seeking vengeance against the empire that destroyed her people.

Against the backdrop of the mysterious agenda of the wizard Bayaz and an invasion by a new barbarian king, first-time author Joe Abercrombie slowly weaves together the violent lives of these four to open his First Law trilogy. It's difficult to elaborate further without providing spoilers, but suffice it to say that so much of the story remains in the shadows that readers seeking closure may wish to wait until the trilogy is completed.

The Blade Itself—its title taken from a quotation attributed to Homer—is reminiscent of two other recent debuts by young authors: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. All three are lengthy, unfinished tales with competent writing and world-building, as well as displays of intelligence by the authors in striving to avoid, or at least execute freshly, fantasy clichés. That said, even taking into account Joe Abercrombie's hard-boiling of his prose to evoke the grit of his characters and their surroundings, The Blade Itself is distinctly the least well-written and -imagined of the three. (With regard to world-building, a map would have helped.) Mr. Abercrombie shows a knack for portraying hard-edged, brutally realistic characters scarred by their pasts—Logen, Glotka, Ferro—but his portrayal of the naive Jezal pales by comparison. On the other hand, a few displays of humanity throughout the tale are surprising and well-executed, as are some instances of dialogue and the repetition of certain phrases. As a final note, this reader found the liberal use of real-world profanities and grammatical errors distracting. If it were a restaurant, The Blade Itself would never be mistaken for a fine-dining establishment, but it stands up well as a bar and grill welcoming to guys and gals with the time to overlook slow service and who enjoy plenty of red meat and peanut shells on the worn, wooden floor. Recommended as a library loan for everyone else. 3-1/2 blood-and-mud-crusted stars. —R.R.

Last Argument of Kings

This is not a happy book. The first two had their dark moments, but they also had their moments that made me chuckle. The first two had more hope. The first two, though occasionally violent, were tinged with excitement, while this one tends more towards a harsher reality and bleakness. It is, in fact, almost unpleasant — like being invited to dinner and then sitting through an evening while your hosts spitefully snipe at each other and talk of divorce.

However, even with all of that, it is still a very well-written book. It will appeal to lovers of gritty fantasy and fans of sagas such as A Song Of Ice And Fire. Indeed, Joe Abercrombie’s writing in no way suffers for the comparison; it is as good as GRRM’s at his best. At least in my opinion. :)

A quick point to those who like to know these things: the first few chapters feature two sex scenes of a fairly graphic nature. There’s another one towards the very end of the book as well. Again, these are more along the lines of what GRRM might write than what you would find from a more romantically-inclined author.

There is a lot of grimness to this story, but much of it is quite realistic. In fact, the machinations of power and politics illustrated in these pages certainly reflect my understanding of the way our world works, and some aspects of the plot remind me of world events of the last decade. But don’t think that it is a bare-faced allegory; perhaps I’m reading more in to it than I should. It is definitely a very interesting and original tale in its own right.

As I said though, there is a dark undercurrent in this book. It’s like the emails I write to friends when I’m feeling down; though I try not to bring them down there’s a distinct lack of positivity in what I write and there’s an air of frustrated despair. The book seems to get progressively more gloomy as it goes, because it starts with a fairly similar tone to the first couple of books. I wonder if Mr Abercrombie changed his outlook on life as this was written or whether he always had things planned this way. Some of the plot revelations towards the end of the book and some of the characters seemed to shift a bit from how I remember them from the previous books. I will have to go back through the first couple some time to see if there are actual discrepancies or whether they were consistent but I just saw them in a different light then.

The ending is not very satisfying to me. Even taking into account the shift in tone, I still felt like it was a setup for another novel, rather than properly tying up the loose ends of the trilogy. I know that’s not the case, though. I know that the ending was deliberately open-ended to reflect a sort of continuity of life. It wasn't a weak ending, necessarily, nor one of those disorganised info dumps that finally reveal how the butler did it in the parlor with the candlestick. I’d just say that I had hoped for more — for an ending that would make me feel good. Maybe that’s what it lacked: feel-good moments. In fact, there isn’t just a dearth of feel-good moments; they have been ruthlessly expunged from existence.

Not that the book is really dark, per se; it’s cynical. I can’t really say more than that without giving too much of the story away. And, besides, I’m beginning to repeat myself. :) There is still some hope and light, but just a very little. Not really enough to make me smile, but a more realistic measure considering the circumstances of the characters. A sort of governmental subsistence of hope, rather than a rich outpouring. Hope on welfare.

Anyone who has read my reviews knows that I enjoy books with positive vibes. This book undoubtedly fails to meet that measure and yet I can unreservedly recommend it. It is remarkably well written, mostly not predictable—and that is coming from someone who finds nearly all novels easily predictable—and honest in its depiction of how people act in real life.

I give it four stars. After all, you have to be realistic.  —M.P.