Title: The Blade Itself

Author: Joe Abercrombie

Series: First Law #1

Genre: Fantasy

The Overview: 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 Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, 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 Glokta 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. -Goodreads

The Review:

After finishing my second read-through of The Blade Itself, I’m finally ready to share my thoughts on it.

The book is a slow burn, which should not be confused with “boring.” Slower pacing can be incredibly effective if all the scenes have great character development and purpose. This tale took its time, and it was mostly time well used. The first time through, I found myself constantly distracted during one section of the book (about 20% shortly after the halfway point). At the time, I chalked it up to a mood thing on my end. After losing interest at the exact same section during this read, I can trust that something about that part just didn’t work for me. It was a small struggle to get through, but not enough of one to steal my enthusiasm for the rest of the book. Another thing I’ll point out is that I reread the book because I couldn’t remember very many pivotal plot-advancers and I wanted a refresher before continuing. As it turns out, I recalled most of it really well, there just aren’t that many things that happen in the whole book lol. What I’m getting at is, it’s an excellent book (among what I would call the staples for the genre), but it’s definitely not for the reader who needs a ton of action scenes.

It’s a multiple POV story. If you read my reviews for McClellan’s Powder Mage trilogy, you’ll recall how highly I praised the characters for playing so well off of one another (the relationships are everything). These characters weren’t quite as brilliant as those, but were still incredibly strong and memorable. And for a story with not much pacing and a fairly narrow focus, I think good character development is the main reason most people rave this series. I’m especially excited to see how they develop in future books because there’s definitely a ton of growth potential there.

Can we talk specific characters for a minute? Notably the brilliance that is Sand dan Glokta? If you want a master class in how to develop characters with duality and depth, study Glokta. Even though the character’s physicality is repulsive, and his profession as torturer for the crown deplorable, it’s his frank way of seeing the world and sardonic dialogue that still manages to make him one of the most likable characters I’ve ever come across. I’m thrilled to read more, if only just to spend more time with him.

I’d been eyeballing this series for years, but hesitated to pick it up in my younger days because of how often I heard about the gritty nature of the story. You’ll often hear it described as one of the original Grimdark novels…. which might be true, but I have some hesitations selling it with that impressions. Series like Malazan, GoT, and Sword is Truth we’re already on the market, and, in my humble opinion, contained scenes that were significantly darker and grittier than I’ve read here (so far). So for anyone hesitating to read it because of what you’ve heard about the content, it’s not that bad. Comparatively, anyway. It’s still torture lol.

Recommendations: as a (well-deserved) staple in fantasy, I highly recommend The Blade Itself to anyone who wants to experience the best of the genre (based on mass appeal and quality of content, not necessarily on my own personal top books list). So far its Grimdark appeal has been surprisingly moderate, so I think it would appeal to a wider range of readers than I initially predicted. It’s packed with great characters, and I can’t wait to see what happens next!

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