Product Description

Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled and increasingly bitter relic of the last war, former fencing champion turned torturer extraordinaire, is trapped in a twisted and broken body - not that he allows it to distract him from his daily routine of torturing smugglers. Nobleman, dashing officer and would-be fencing champion Captain Jezal dan Luthar is living a life of ease by cheating his friends at cards. Vain, shallow, selfish and self-obsessed, the biggest blot on his horizon is having to get out of bed in the morning to train with obsessive and boring old men. And Logen Ninefingers, an infamous warrior with a bloody past, is about to wake up in a hole in the snow with plans to settle a blood feud with Bethod, the new King of the Northmen, once and for all - ideally by running away from it. But as he's discovering, old habits die really, really hard indeed . . . . . . especially when Bayaz gets involved. 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 Glotka, Jezal and Logen a whole lot more difficult . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49437 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent debut novel.
At first glance The Blade Itself is pretty old-school: it's book one of a trilogy (entitled The First Law; the second volume, Before They Are Hanged, is out now, to be followed by The Last Argument of Kings in March 2008), it features an old wizard mentor character and a barbarian hero as well as an untried youth, a feisty young woman and an army of nasty barbarians on the march in the north, whilst a resurgent desert empire threatens our heroes' homeland - the Midderland Union - from the south. There's also the threat of a non-human species gathering its forces beyond the northern-most reach of humankind's lands (isn't there always?).

Yet Abercrombie invests these storylines with vigour and energy. None of our heroes are quite what they first appear to be and the author expertly deconstructs them throughout the book, revealing their true motivations when you last expect it. Abercrombie is also a dab hand are writing excellent battle scenes and swordfights. There is also a hint of otherwordly alieness in this book, such as the scenes set in the House of the Maker which are quite memorable. The only major complaint I had about the book is the lack of a map. Most fantasy novels with a map don't really need them, but with military campaigns getting underway it would be nice to tell exactly where Adua is in relation to the Northlands, and where both are in relation to Dagoska, for example. But this is a minor complaint at best.

By the end of the book the pace has been ramped up to a compelling level, as our heroes depart in different directions to face their various destinies and full-scale war seems about to erupt on all sides. The Blade Itself is a tremendously enjoyable novel and I count myself fortunate to have read it late enough in the day to only have a brief wait for the second book.

An absolute must-read!
I admit it - I bought this book purely because I liked the cover. It's a bad habit I have, and it doesn't often pay off, but this time it really, truely did. I was stunned to discover I'd just bought one of the finest fantasy novels I've read to date. Abercrombie's prose is deceptively simplistic, but under the surface is an elegance of style that makes it not only easy to read, but pure fun as well.

The Blade Itself boasts the most interesting cast of characters I have come across in a long time. Despite fitting into familiar stereotypes, Logen Ninefingers, Bayaz, and Luthar are still fascinating and fun, but it's inquisitor Sand dan Glokta who really steals the show with his dry cynicism and refreshing honesty. Some of his chapters are startlingly grusome, but I challenge anyone to put the book down in the middle of a hair-raising torture scene. The secondary characters - including Major West and his sister, and Logen's band of barbarians - all have their own stories and voices that make for an addictive tale of swords, sourcery and cynicism.

I'm giving The Blade Itself four stars because, despite its brilliance, it only tells a fraction of the story, and it is impossible to judge the entire saga from the first installment. I look forward to finishing Before They Are Hanged, but I've no idea how I'll wait another year to find out what happens next!

A blade in need of sharpening.
'The Blade Itself' is a solid opener for a début series, but is a little too long-winded, and in places, rather dull. Abercrombie uses the in-vogue device of drawing separate diverse characters together, into a party of disgruntled associates, working together out of necessity rather than friendship. There are two problems with this; firstly, it takes the entire book for them all to meet, and second, the author has worked so hard on ensuring his characters 'real' and 'troubled', they've all turned out detestable. It's hard to care whether they succeed or not.

Two further gripes; some of the plot threads are shoe horned-in, featuring characters that aren't in the main parts of the book. These sections stick out like a sore thumb, as only being included in order to push on the story and feel very clumsy. Possibly most irritating of all, (and this is possibly entirely personal to me) one of the characters has a internal monologue, which is written in italics within in the main text. After a while I found it extremely annoying.

The Blade Itself does have some strong points. Abercrombie's world is vivid and well constructed; many hours work must have been put into creating realistic races, history and politics, for his world. The author has also generated an interesting, (and in this first installment, ambiguous) set of rules for magic; the sections that deal with the Magi and their battle with the mysterious 'Maker', are the some of the novel's strongest. Abercrombie's fight scenes are also some of the most disturbingly realistic the genre has seen.

The end of the novel is exciting and left open ended for the next instalment, where it seems the true quest will begin. My initial reaction was that the strength of description and solidity of Abercrombie's world would tempt me to pick up volume 2. On reflection though, with so many books out there waiting to be read, I'm not sure I'll ever get around to it.