The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

 

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie is the first book in The First Law trilogy.  I'm going to be honest with you and tell you that I'm looking for something to fill the Realm of the Elderlings (ROTE)-sized hole in my heart now that I've finished the entire saga. I want a sweeping fantasy epic with well-developed characters I can root for, a world so immersive I temporarily forget it's not real, and I would prefer some sort of magical creature(s), but I'll let that last element pass if I must. I want ROTE, I want the Temeraire series, I want to be immersed.  Fantasy book people say that I must read Abercrombie.  He is the ruling author of fantasy now that Rothfuss and Martin have been demoted due to their inabilities to meet deadlines.  

So I read Abercrombie.  

We follow a gazillion four (five? six? eight hundred?) different narrators as they each live in this world - a world that's divided by north and south, always at war, and has zombie-like creatures that eat people and seem to be almost impossible to kill. There's a nobility structure and great inequality and a jousting Contest that seems to be a big deal.  Eventually the four people we're following end up in the city center together for the "peak" of the "action."

Look.  I know, I know. People love this book.  People love Joe Abercrombie. I'm not going to take it away from them.  But this book. It's not good. I don't really know what the plot is, I don't know why I should care about these people, who are depicted as very bad, maybe even evil in some cases. I'm certainly not rooting for them. I don't think the world was explored deeply enough to immerse me in it. There's not so much as a pet cat to fill the dragon-shaped hole in my heart.

In the end, I want my fantasy to have stakes, but I want to feel somehow buoyed by the experience of reading it.  Yes, there is death, torture, and villainy in ROTE, but the end of every mini-series was a hopeful note for the future. Sure, Temeraire is about the Napoleonic wars, but the ending was satisfying and it was not constant grimness from the start to the end. The Blade Itself is just relentlessly brutal and dark. There are no happy scenes in which someone is happily cozied up with a tankard of ale in front of a fire or is dancing with a partner and imagining a contented life.  There's nothing but bleakness, anger, and confusion.

If that's your jam, awesome. Joe Abercrombie is for you. If that's not your jam, don't read this book. I will not be reading further into the series and doubt I will pick up any additional books by this author.