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215 of 225 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing, July 5, 2006
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 cliched 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 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. And this is the most glowing review I have given any book on Amazon!
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87 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A series and author worth reading, September 25, 2007
Long on intrigue, stark and direct, from a quality standpoint Abercrombie's debut fits well within the upper reaches of the fantasy genre and produces a number of decent mysteries for books two and three of the trilogy. Abercrombie has put a new spin on the typical medieval fantasy fare.
First, his main characters are both archetypal, and not. There are six primary ones: Collem West, the low-born, capable, hardworking warrior who has accomplished a great deal in the caste-bound military system of the main setting for the novel, the empire known as the Union; Ferro Maljinn, a warrior woman from the south who has seen war, death, and an existential threat to all mankind but knows only hate; Jezal Luthar the gifted swordsman who typifies the courtier-set until his mindset is changed by a no-nonsense love interest; the Dogman, a Norse-type warrior from the North who fights with a perpetually feuding band of brothers that wishes to save the world from two horrible dangers; Logen Ninefingers, a barbarian warrior who has far more human frailties than Conan; and Sand dan Glokta, the Inquisitor.
Glokta is Abercrombie's best character -- a hero of the Union, champion swordsman, he was captured during a previous war and physically shattered such that as a 35-year old man, his appearance and motor skills are closer to someone three times his age. But his mind works well -- he is sharp, biting, cruel, courteous, and bitter by turns.
This volume has some action (fights, duels, small battles, some magic), and hints at the overall plot (the plot points are really a bunch of dots on paper, without a lot of connecting lines yes), but primarily sustains its momentum with intrigue and detail to set up the remaining books. Abercrombie's writing is direct, coarse (lots of epithets), frequently funny, and often dark.
All told, a fine beginning.
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204 of 252 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unfocused, hard-boiled, sword-and-sorcery debut, December 28, 2007
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 cliches. That said, even taking into account Mr. Abercrombie's hard-boiling of his prose to evoke the grit of his characters and their surroundings, TBI 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, TBI 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 peanut shells on the worn, wooden floor and plenty of red meat. Recommended as a library loan for everyone else. 3-1/2 blood-and-mud-crusted stars.
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