I should be working on a thesis paper or something, but I have the day off and I decided to toss my work on Henry James aside and enjoy some brutal fantasy instead. Joe Abercrombie's trilogy, The First Law, has proven to be an exceptionally enjoyable read. My friend recommended it and has yet again proven that we are on the same book wavelength. I finished The Blade Itself last night. The most dangerous thing about owning a Kindle is that I instantaneously bought the next book and was up reading well past 1 in the morning.
It seriously took me forever to finish The Blade Itself because my one class requires so much reading and writing that I had to dedicate my full attention to my assignments instead. I'm so happy I tackled all my work earlier this week so I could sit down and do some reading of my own accord!
Much like George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire these novels have chapters which shift between the main characters and their points of view. The characters are all written differently and the writing in the chapters reflect their personality traits clearly. There's a wizard, berserker, vengeful warrior woman, hoity-toity knight, burdened knight, tortured torturer, and so on. It has the basic fantasy tropes, but it stands out from other novels. There is a light-heartedness and simultaneous dark humor to the books that made me chuckle numerous times while reading. None of these characters are perfect and their personal conflicts develop through their individual chapters, and are embellished as the main characters all begin to interact with eachother. Also, holy crap, Joe Abercrombie writes extremely visceral battles. The violence is brutal and the fights rarely end without casualties. My only gripe was that the story moved very slowly for a while, but it seems that the majority of the first novel was truly establishing the characters and the main conflict. The first book in this trilogy was a great read!
Now I just need to make time for the next book: Before They Are Hanged.
Well! I found you because I was looking for new photoblogs on Reddit, and now that I see you are a Joe Abercrombie fan I HAVE to stick around! (Well, and for the photos, which really are quite nice. :))
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