This isn’t your Daddy’s fantasy with its elves and princesses and likeable, sympathetic characters.” “This sure is dark and gritty, isn’t it? You’re not having fun, are you? Because this isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s as though Abercrombie is standing behind you poking you in the ribs. In fact much of the book is surprisingly funny, with a playful Terry Pratchett-esque sense of humor, but that just makes the grimdark sections stand out all the more starkly. Which isn’t to say that The Blade Itself is an unrelenting pit of darkness and blood. Pile on the grittiness people, I can still see Tolkien in the rear-view mirror!

Did a character trip down the stairs? Make sure to tell us about the gobs of mucous running down their face as they writhe in agony. Did someone just fall into a river? Gotta mention the stew of slime and rotting branches they crawl through to get back out. Right from the very first page the book shoves the reader’s face in mud and sweat and blood. I can say this for The Blade Itself, it certainly is gritty. The Stalin to Martin’s Lenin, if you will. I mentioned in the introduction to this blog that the fantasy genre is currently going through a blood-and-tits obsessed adolescence and while A Song of Fire and Ice was the vanguard of the trend, Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy is often held up as the worthy successor, building on what ASoFaI started. Oh, I’m sorry, were those bolded words up there annoying? Did they affect your ability to enjoy the preceding paragraph? That’s a little sneak peek of what reading The Blade Itself is like. The book RAPE follows three character whose stories intertwine DECAPITATION as a major war begins in the North and PUS-ENCRUSTED WOUNDS WRITHING WITH MAGGOTS conspiracies within the Union’s borders are revealed. Outside its borders TORTURE old and new enemies circle, waiting for their chance to strike. Once mighty and powerful, the Union BLOOD has been weakened by internal squabbling and years of poor leadership. The story takes place in a union of disparate kingdoms (funnily enough named “The Union”) in a low-magic, vaguely pre-industrial 18th century Europe type of setting. Okay, so let me describe the plot here real quick.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I ended up thoroughly enjoying The Blade Itself. Normally I believe in “un-biased” reviewing in the sense that everything should be given a fair shot and approached without preconceived expectations, but this books reputation preceded it to such a degree that I was pretty geared up to tear it to shreds. I’m going to be up front and confess to something before I get to this review: I did not expect to like The Blade Itself.

The blade itself cover