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| The Blade Itself (The First Law: Book One) | 
 enlarge | Author: Joe Abercrombie
Publisher: Pyr
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $11.54
You Save: $3.46 (23%)
Buy New/Used from $9.79
Avg. Customer Rating:  (99 reviews)
Sales Rank: 4340
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 531
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 159102594X
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN: 9781591025948
ASIN: 159102594X
Publication Date: September 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 94 more reviews...
 If you only read three books this year, make it The First Law. Astonishingly good January 9, 2009
It has been a long time since I have written a review. I was writing them with every book I had read for a while, but it ended up that I was reading them so fast, that I just didn't have the time anymore and could not keep up. Since that time of my last review I have read probably in the hundreds of books. I have read many excellent ones from In the Name of the Wind, to the Mistborn trilogy, to the Locke La Morra novels, to the entire catalog from Raymond Feist. Many excellent novels indeed. But after reading this, I had to put my two cents in.
The Blade Itself is the first book of the First Law Trilogy by Joe Ambercombie. I won't summarize it here, since that has been done many times. But I will say that Joe Abercrombie is one of the best writers to emerge in many years, in fact, I would predict that he will go down as one of the best Fantasy writers of alltime. Much has been said about his excellent character development. He is a master of creating a believable character and bringing them to life. One thing that is hard for any writer is making characters that are clearly different from one another. Read any novel and you will see that most characters talk the same, and think the same, and act the same except on maybe the most superficial level. But in the First Law books, Joe has created a most eclectic and interesting set of characters as Fantasy has ever seen. The convention used by most fantasy writers to create different characters is usually to simply make them different races, thus they are superficially different, and they may use some different syntax but they aren't all that different. Not so here. These characters are all humans, but all different, unique and utterly real.
Abercrombie also succeeds in descrbing battle scenes as no other author I have ever read. In so many Fantasy novels, the battles are joined and the actions described. Emotions are only eluded to. One would think in reading these novels that Joe Abercrombie himself has been in combat, and not just any combat, but combat with swords axes, and hands. He succeeds in putting the reader right into the nightmare that must be hand to hand combat and ever so poignantly describes the emotions and thoughts that are occuring during the violence. Abercrombie has a strong grasp of the Human psyche, the Human Condition, and understanding of the soul, and what feeds the soul. His characters are imperfect, even abhorrent, but they have a soul, and they are yearning. Abercrombie knows what it takes to become a good person, the struggles to overcome narcissism and Moral decripitude, he knows what matters in life, and how for Good to triumph over Evil, sometimes difficult choices must be made, but for all of that there is a cost to be paid.
Whether intentionally or not, I see so many parallels in his book between "real life" and the setting of the book. Society's grown fat and happy, rampant complacency, an inability to distinguish good from bad, right from wrong. For in the world, as in his books, there is a very real struggle against evil, but those that are willing to sacrifice everything to overcome evil are few and often villainized, where people have become so spoiled, and so petty, and so morally confused, they can't recognize the enemy, they can't understand it, they don't have what it takes to fight it. At any rate, these books are great because of Abercrombie's characterization, because of the easily recognizable characters, because of the epic scope and applicable themes, and because he pays such a great attention to detail not only to battle scenes, but emotions and thoughts, and most of all its very Human soul.
Joe Abercrombie makes videos and documentaries for music in his day job.. but he has found his true calling in writing Novels. This is what he was born to do.
 Solid Fantasy Yarn January 6, 2009
Abercrombie doesn't push the envelope here with the established fantasy tropes, but he does breath life into his reluctant warriors, mysterious wizards, cocky youngsters, grizzled veterans by infusing them with some weaknesses and self-deprecation.
The writing is entertaining and amusing, almost winking at times, as if Abercrombie knows he's writing an adventure story and isn't taking it too seriously.
 Strong Finish December 29, 2008
As the author's first published work, it gets stronger as it goes along and by the end leaves the reader fully committed to the series. After I submit this review I plan to order the other two books in the series. As a stand alone I would give this book a 3, but by the end it was a 4 and I am optimistic the next two in the series will carry the momentum this one ended with.
 Random action, unlikeable characters, never gets to the point... December 11, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The biggest fault I had with this book was that it took almost the entire 500+ pages to truly (I think) start the story. The rest is about the meanderings (well ok, battle filled meanderings) of characters from a wide variety of areas. Probably the best comparison I can make is with "Fellowship of the Ring" by Tolkien. Both books involve a quest that is a major turning point in the characters' lives and the world (I assume so anyhow for "The First Law" series, not having read the latter two books). But whereas "The Fellowship of the Ring" places the start of the quest relatively early but after a buildup which makes the necessity and gravity of the quest apparent, "The Blade Itself" waits til the end and the quest appears to come out of nowhere with no indication as to why it's important.
The rest of the book comes across as a weak "Song of Fire and Ice" clone, with sections focusing on different characters from different political entities but none of these sections really grabbed me or made me care about what might happen to the characters. One is a bitter, crippled torturer. One is a pampered, spoiled, lovesick noble. One is a barbarian well known for his abilities in battle (I'll admit, this character did provide a rather well done plot twist at one point). One is a wizard who has an ulterior motive. Etc... The different political factions fight against each other, but I rarely got a sense as to why certain things were done. Battle scenes were thrown in pretty much at any opportunity. One of the characters is training for a contest, and those scenes seem nothing more than some medieval version of "Rocky".
The upshot is that for me, this novel was a slow read, punctuated by somewhat random (if reasonably well written) battle sequences, peopled by characters I couldn't empathize with, in a world with somewhat simplistic connections between the different factions, and left me just as confused as to where things were going at the end than at the beginning.
To be clear, I don't need to be hand-held when reading. I don't mind a bit of mystery, or surprising changes of direction. But for a change of direction to be surprising, there has to have been another solid seeming direction beforehand, and I never got this impression when reading.
I also didn't feel like I'd wasted my time after reading it, but it failed at its task of getting me interested enough to buy the next novel.
A wonderful book that you can lose yourself in December 10, 2008
The only criticism I have of this book is that it was so good that I gulped it down without taking time to savor it. I've just ordered "Before They are Hanged" and "Last Argument of Kings". I plan to devour them quickly as well and then reread the entire trilogy, slowly.
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