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The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie
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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. Unpredictable, compelling, wickedly funny, and packed with unforgettable characters, The Blade Itself is noir fantasy with a real cutting edge.
- Sales Rank: #1262323 in Books
- Published on: 2007
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 527 pages
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
"But some things have to be done. It's better to do them, than to live with the fear of them."
By Peter Carrier
**** SPOILERS ****
Abercrombie offers his take on a familiar fantasy yarn, with subtle distinctions and twists to make it his own. While he introduces us to his intriguing setting, more overt world-building seems to be the province of later volumes. In "The Blade Itself", Abercrombie demonstrates a knack for another staple of great fiction: compelling, relatable characters. They are sometimes archetypes, sometimes novel, but they are never boring. Also, they all come with some kind of delicious twist.
Take Glokta, for example. He started out as a Contest champion who was commissioned as one of the King's Own, then captured in battle during the Union's war with Gurkhul (where he was making a heroic sacrifice of himself so other soldiers could escape) and tortured by the enemy for two years. He returns to the Union but, due to the injuries he sustained during his years as a prisoner, he cannot resume his military post. Instead of giving up and going home to become a burden to his family, he joins the King's Inquisition and becomes a torturer himself. While there are certainly other allegories that could be made for the arrival of a man into middle age, Glokta himself summarizes the sentiment quite succinctly: "What a place. Glokta stifled a smile. It reminds me of myself, in a way. We both were magnificent once, and we both have our best days far behind us."
Would this man need to be an Inquisitor to feel isolated or outcast? Of course not; his physical debilitation already confers him that status. How Abercrombie relates Glokta's distaste for everyone else around him is uncanny. Be it Luthar (whom Glokta might well be jealous of anyway, simply due to Luthar's youth) or his old 'friend' West (a man he resents for living, even though that was exactly what Glokta's 'sacrifice' was intended to win) or the head of his own order (Sult is a very special kind of d*ck and it should come as no surprise the highest-ranked inquisitor would force a crippled man to climb several flights of stairs for information easily disseminated by other means).
This is but an example, a single emotional step in ONE character. Abercrombie presents several similar facets in several different characters. True, not every character is this nuanced or developed (not in this first book, at any rate), but that the author presents this ability so effortlessly is... staggering and humbling.
If the characters were not engaging enough to hold interest, Abercrombie makes some quality observations. A few noteworthy quotes:
"Hard words are for fools and cowards."
"That got him to thinking about his life. It seemed a bitter, pointless sort of life now. No one was any better off because of it. Full of violence and pain, with not much but disappointment and hardship in between."
"It could be worse, believe me. It's when you come out before you went in that you really start to worry."
TLDR: a very enjoyable romp. Quite spellbinding, even with occasionally formulaic elements and presentation. The next part of the series is already on the short list of "must read" books.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Think George RR Martin with a bit more humor and the barest hint of hope
By Josh Mauthe
There’s little way to read The Blade Itself and not think of Game of Thrones. I hate to say that, but it’s true. Abercrombie’s rich fantasy world owes a lot of debt to Martin’s. After all, both series are ones in which magic is largely pushed to the background and minimized; both focus on anti-heroes (at best) and misfits; both juxtapose court intrigues and political scheming against much larger threats that could unravel the world as the characters know it. But more than anything else, there’s the sense of cynicism towards the genre that underlies both series. These are worlds in which traditional heroism barely matters, where old school honor and chivalry are a way to death – if you’re lucky.
And yet, to rely too heavily on that comparison is to miss out on all the ways in which The Blade Itself absolutely soars and stands on its own two feet. Over the course of this first novel of The First Law trilogy, Abercrombie sets up a fascinating world, but more than that, he dives deeply into their psyches, giving us a sense of these broken people. Our three main characters – Logen Ninefingers, Sand dan Glokta, Jezal dan Luthar – Abercrombie brings them to rich, detailed life, letting us see their scars, their psychic baggage, their complex motivations. But more than that, rather than embracing the nihilism and selfishness of the men, Abercrombie pushes them farther than that, finding an inner core of decency. It may be small, it may be only a piece of their cruelty or motivations, but it’s there. And that alone makes The First Law stand apart from Martin’s bleak, hopeless world where nothing – and no one – good can last.
More than that, though, Abercrombie brings a sometimes dry, sometimes dark, but sometimes genuinely funny sense of humor to the story, allowing his characters to be more than just another grim, broken-down soul. That’s maybe most true of Bayaz, the wizard figure around whom much of the book orbits. Bayaz is no one’s idea of a typical wizard, and that jarring inability to fit expectations pays off wonderfully again and again in the book, as Bayaz demonstrates both his ability and his willingness to use them as he sees fit. In other words, it’s all of Martin’s knack for turning the genre on its head, but done with a little more heart, a bit more humor, and every bit the imagination and talent.
If there’s a knock on The Blade Itself, it’s the sense that it’s an intentionally shapeless story at times, one where the lack of predictability makes it hard to make sense of at times. Is this the story of an impending war between the nations? Are the Flatheads a sort of White Walker analog – a monstrous “other” that lurks nearby? How does Ferro and her story tie in with everything going on around Adua? It’s hard to tell until near the end of the book, and even then, it’s a bit hard to get a sense of the bigger picture and how this will come together. But given how engaging, deep, and complex the characters are, how fascinating the world is, and how deep and layered the story is, I’m okay with that. I’m on board to see how this all fits together, and to see what else Abercrombie has going
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
The Anachronism Itself
By Michael
Just to preface this... I'm not a particularly avid fan of the fantasy genre. I picked this up because, having just finished the fifth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, I saw it on a lot of 'recommended if you like' lists... and... well... at $2.99, it was worth giving a shot.
I enjoyed it enough to perhaps pick up the other books in the series at some point, but not enough to recommend. Coming back to the item page to write this review I noticed for the first time Abercrombie has a background in film editing.. this made perfect sense in retrospect because the work has a very cinematic sensibility. The way the action sequences are written feel like notes from a screenplay and a much of the dialogue has a buddy-comedy feel. The wry tone of many of the primary (POV) characters (relative to the bumbling secondary and tertiary characters) along with some informal language and sight-gag tropes ("err," "and so on," a nervous man fussing with his glasses, one of the main characters pulling a hulk-hogan) tended to run roughshod over my ability to suspend disbelief and take the events in the story as they came. It was like having a conversation with someone who uses text message shorthand in their speech. duh-buhl-yoo tee eff.
The story was generally entertaining, though (going back to the cinematic sensibility) this felt like the first act. The players were introduced and the conflict established but it didnt feel like much happened beyond getting various pieces in place. There were a few action sequences, none of which did much to advance the plot. Its is perhaps just enough to keep you reading... but any comparison to George RR Martin's works (or Tolkien's) is unfair. Abercrombie's world just isnt as well developed, complex or immersive.
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