List Price: $15.00You Pay Only: $12.15 You Save: $2.85 (19%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN: 9781591025948
ISBN: 159102594X
Label: Pyr
Manufacturer: Pyr
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 531
Publication Date: September 06, 2007
Publisher: Pyr
Sales Rank: 2321
Studio: Pyr
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he's on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian - leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.
Nobleman, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, Captain Jezal dan Luthar has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.
Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.
Enter the wizard, Bayaz. 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 Logen, Jezal, and Glotka a whole lot more difficult.
Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood. Unpredictable, compelling, wickedly funny, and packed with unforgettable characters, The Blade Itself is noir fantasy with a real cutting edge.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Abercrombie provides further proof that the fantasy genre is heading in the right direction
This has been a great year for discovering awesome fantasy authors. Scott Lynch, who may be my new favorite author after Martin, recommended Abercrombie so I had to check him out. I didn't regret it. He writes with a style unlike anything I've read, filled with quick wit, great dialogue and clever, subtle humor.
His world is instantly engrossing and packed with intriguing and incredibly flawed characters. Some readers may be turned off that some of the POV characters have only a few redeeming qualities, and one or two might be downright unlikeable. For me, who relishes in reading anything out of the ordinary, unlikable is likeable. Noble and just characters become predictable and boring. Here, you won't find either of those annoying traits. Each character is incredibly different from one another and has their own purpose and role in the story.
The back of the book many only mention four main characters but there are really six, with one that doesn't really get his own POV until later on and another who simply doesn't show up until later.
We have Jezal: the pretty boy Union soldier who cares about nothing but his big upcoming fencing match, and even that he goes about half-heartedly. His character starts out obnoxious but he starts to become interesting when he finds a love interest and other challenges.
Glokta: My personal favorite character. He is a former Union hero who was captured in a war with a southern Empire and tortured for two years ... Read More
Rating:  - Excellent trilogy beginning
Joe Abercrombie does a nice job with the first book of his First Law Series. Setting the story in a well-built world and filling it with interesting, gritty characters creates a good balance of stage-setting and story-telling.
The Blade Itself is told from the perspective of five-sic major characters who are gradually drawn together and who's collected experiences create a very interesting combination. There is the mage, the apprentice, the barbarian, the gifted young noble, the crippled anti-hero....and so forth. Very interesting characters for me.
I think the only drawback that I saw in the series was that it take a while before things reach a boiling point and the story gets going. That's not a serious drawback, but enough that it kept me from wanting to give it more than 4 stars. Once the story gets going, then it's truly a lot of fun to read.
Abercrombie's use of classic Fantasy themes is very good and his world building is exceptional. I can't wait for the second book in the series.
Rating: - Savage
While I admit that the characters are entertaining, the pace lively, and the style impressive; this books greatest achievement is its sheer savagery. For the scenes of Glotka torturing, the northmen rampaging, and best of all Logen's battle sequence, this book is worth your $15. This is the sort of book that makes you want to beat your chest with fury when you turn the final pages. The only fight sequence that compares in my opinion is The Mountain vs The Viper from Storm of Swords. Good Job Joe!
Rating: - Intriguing and attention holding
I picked up this book and found it hard to put down. It seems that Joe Abercrombie is good at making fight scenes in a book real in the mind. Some of the characters are ruthless and some are kind-hearted, but all are fascinating. Even the baddies don't seem so bad when we hear their thoughts and see what they've gone through, but we still want them to go down (but at least maybe take one or two people with them). The book is fun and I would recommend it to anyone. I didn't buy it, but rather have checked it out from my local library due to the fact that I'm too poor right now to buy books :).
Rating: - Great...best hard driving new fantasy out there
In short you can not go wrong with the First Law Series. Fianly a series that stays on a good track with out many pages of world building.
Browse for similar items by category:
|
