The Blade Itself: Book One Of The First Law (Gollancz S.F.) - Joe Abercrombie

Could be among the best

This first book of the series gets off to a good start. It is an amalgam of Gormenghast with a touch of Lord of the rings and Harry Potter. It should be excellent and yet I am slightly hesitant to say it is as the dialog is more often than not, not quite there. There are characters you instantly like and dislike and a number of semingly separate tales are woven together skillfully. It is always entertaining and makes you want to turn the pages. It becomes occasionaly formulaic and you want to give the characters a shake and tell them to shape up! This could be so very much better with more careful attention to dialog. The plot is good, characterisation is good, but overall not quite (just) as good as it could be. I very much look forward to the other books in the series. You will not be dissapointed with this one.

great triology

I've been reading quite a lot of fantasy books lately and as was looking for something with a little edge to it. I found it in this triology, great characters, good backdrop scenario, intense and dramatic story but above all - absolutely wonderful humor. Simply a priceless sense of humor.

if you read alot of fantasy, its a bit blah

some interesting characters, the key ones even have their own catchphrases which continue through the whole trilogy.
most irritating has to be that this isnt a trilogy, its one book cut in three.

there is no suitable end to this book.

it finishes with people already starting the next leg of their journey, as such there's no release from the story. theres no end.

so not liking to judge a book without having read the end i went and read the other two. its very easy to read, although the characters are more fleshy than some writers give you they are far flatter than most. alot goes on and there are some nice fights. there is constant reference to the history of the place, but instead of getting in depth info you get the same stuff over and over with a couple of "twists" that arent very suprising. the end was really very disapointing to me. A satisfying conclusion to make the whole rest of it make sense, no. A spellbinding extravaganza where everything is tied together making all the tedious bits worth while, nope. A beautiful and tragic ending where you cry and wonder, you guessed it, nah.

its all a bit blah really chaps nice for a holiday maybe.

Truly outstanding trilogy

A fantastically engrossing 1st book of what is a brilliant trilogy (or more precisely one long story divided into three books). I should point out no book I have ever read has made me feel like writing an online review, however given it was other reviews that tempted me to read this book I felt it was the least I could do to give it my ringing endorsement.

I would also like to stress fantasy is not usually my genre (with the exception of the dark materials trilogy) however these books drew me in effortlessly with fantastic characterisation and some delightfully twisted black homour.

In short buy this book and then look forward to enjoying the other two even more as the story crescendos.

Nothing really new. Not much Fantasy

I didn't really find that the story came to any conclusion, meaning that it was written with a trilogy in mind (which is given away in the titel - Book 1). I don't think any book should be written as such, because the seperate parts feel inconclusive.

There wasn't much in the way of fantasy either. Small, set pieces were thrown in here and there, but the plot was lacking and I won't be reading the rest of the trilogy.

The torture was the most enjoyable part of the book with some good bits of humor thrown in here and there. The fencing was just downright boring