What's in this book
- Joe Abercrombie's 2006 debut novel - first book of the First Law trilogy
- Canonical contemporary grimdark fantasy; defined the post-Martin grimdark subgenre
- 515 pages of patient four-POV ensemble across the Union, the North, and the South
- Series continues across Before They Are Hanged (2007), Last Argument of Kings (2008), and the Age of Madness trilogy (2019-2021)
- Steven Pacey audiobook is the definitive audio production
- For readers of A Game of Thrones, The Way of Kings, The Fifth Season, and canonical contemporary grimdark fantasy
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I came to The Blade Itself late, after every friend with a fantasy shelf told me I had to. The standard pitch is that Abercrombie reinvented the genre in a darker, more morally complicated direction, and that is true, but the standard pitch undersells the book's real magic, which is the dialogue. Almost every chapter contains at least one exchange so sharp you read it twice.
The cast is the engine. Logen Ninefingers is the barbarian who has run out of people to kill and would very much like to stop. Glokta is a torturer with a ruined body and a worse conscience, and somehow he is the most magnetic character in modern fantasy. Jezal dan Luthar is a vain little aristocrat being slowly forced to become a person. None of them are who they pretend to be, including to themselves.
The plot, in classic first-book-of-a-trilogy fashion, is mostly setup. Things happen, the world widens, magic shows up in glimpses, and then it ends without much resolved. That bothered me less than I expected. The pleasure of the book is being in these heads, not racing to a finish.
If you want fantasy that takes its violence seriously and its banter even more seriously, this is the one. Five stars, with the warning that you will absolutely have to read the next two.
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If you liked The Blade Itself
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The second First Law novel. Three plot threads in three different countries, all going progressively worse. Abercrombie at his peak.
Last Argument Of Kings
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The final First Law book. Abercrombie sticks every landing he had been setting up for two books, and the result is bleak in the best way.
A Clash of Kings
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A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin 1998 review. Five claimants vie for the Iron Throne while a comet crosses the sky over Westeros. The middle volume of A Song of Ice and Fire and the one most committed Martin readers consider his peak.
A Game of Thrones
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A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin 1996 review. The book that rewrote what epic fantasy was allowed to do. Westeros, the Iron Throne, the deaths nobody saw coming. Required reading.
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