Review: The Blade Itself

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have always struggled a bit with Fantasy novels. As a pre-teen I discovered Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian by way of Marvel's Roy Thomas and John Buscema and proceeded to read everything I could find. I to see the Arnie movie version two nights in a row. But I couldn't get to grips with Tolkien and, although I later read and enjoyed the Lord of the Rings, it is still somewhat po-faced and humourless, not to mention full of irritating diversions with the likes of Tom Bombadil. Game of Thrones was a revelation and, after watching the first episode of the TV series, I read the first volume of George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' in a week and quickly caught up with the those who had been reading the books for ten years.

GRRM also inspired Joe Abercrombie to begin his First Law saga, and it is a saga, a return to the days when Fantasy was still called Sword & Sorcery. It has barbarian heroes (at least I think they are heroes), powerful wizards, women who can hold their own with the men, politics, warmongering and generally a lot of strange goings on. But just as importantly, 'The Blade Itself' has a sense of humour and a huge amount of fun. It was the humour in Howard's work that kept me reading Conan's adventures and it is the playfulness in Abercrombie's writing that will keep me coming back. His cast may be archetypes but they are written as real people, three dimensional characters with understandable, if sometimes contradictory, motivations, not a few faults and insecurities. We have Logen Ninefingers, the Bloody Nine, the Conan character, a legendary but tired killer who questions his black legacy and whose berserker rages are ferocious; Jezal dan Luthar, a nobleman whose snobbery forms his world view and who may be really out of his depth; and Bayaz, First of the Magi, a possibly centuries old wizard, whose sardonic wit is a source of much of the early humour in the book.

Abercrombie has a real talent for naturalistic dialogue, profanity and bloodshed. 'The Blade Itself' is very entertaining; I loved it and the second book in the series has just moved up a few places in my 'to-read' list....

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