The Blade Itself

Cuando he empezado a leer ’La voz de las espadas’, el primer libro de la trilogía La Primera Ley, he pensado que me encontraba con la típica historia de fantasía heroico-medieval, esa que incluye los clichés más manidos del género: bárbaro brutal, diestro luchador, que perdió a su familia y que desde entonces vive inmerso en un mundo de violencia y batallas sin fin, aunque está intentado darle un cambio a su vida; el aprendiz de mago, joven e inexperto, que tiene una misión; el mago plácido, con ese aire de aparente bondad e ineptitud, pero que oculta más secretos de lo que parece, experto en un arte que está desapareciendo del mundo; el soldado, joven y de buena cuna, arrogante y ególatra, cuya única preocupación es show more su porvenir; el grupo heterogéneo de luchadores que deambulan y batallan sin parar; o ese personaje lisiado que vive bajo una tortura constante debido a las heridas de su pasado; etc. Nada nuevo bajo el sol, vamos. Pero donde Joe Abercrombie brilla con luz propia en este género, es cuando empieza a construir su historia con todo este material. Y convierte esta novela en algo extraordinario.

Con una habilidad envidiable, Abercrombie consigue que, sin saber cómo cuando llevas varios capítulos leídos, te resulte imposible dejar de leer su historia. Esta se va filtrando poco a poco, a través de sus protagonistas, de sus ingeniosas conversaciones, de ese humor negro que lo impregna todo, la ciudad donde transcurre la trama, así como por los detalles que adornan la misma, todo ello con una pátina de verosimilitud muy bien conseguida. Y es que la fantasía de Abercrombie respira realismo por los cuatro costados. Parece que transcurre en una época medieval de nuestro mundo, exceptuando los toques mágicos, por supuesto, pero por lo demás las batallas, las peleas, la violencia, los sablazos, los hachazos, las heridas, casi los sientes en tu piel.

La historia transita entre varios personajes, saltando de uno a otro indistintamente. Logen Nuevededos, un bárbaro norteño, superviviente nato, que ha sido dado por muerto por sus compañeros, y que está siendo buscado por Bayaz, el Primero de los Magos. El Inquisidor Glokta, que en su día fue un experto espadachín, y que ahora se ha convertido en un hábil torturador, cínico como pocos. Vive inmerso en un dolor constante debido a las secuelas que le dejó su captura y tortura durante la guerra contra los gurkos. Sin duda un personaje memorable, este Glokta. Jezal dan Luthar, de sangre noble, un joven mimado y arrogante y engreído, que mira por encima del hombro a las clases menos privilegiadas, que se está entrenando para el próximo Certamen de esgrima. El comandante West, amigo de Jezal, que le ayuda con su entrenamiento, y que está totalmente comprometido con la guerra que se avecina. Ferro Maljinn, sureña de nacimiento, que fue esclavizada y que ahora únicamente vive para vengarse. Todos ellos y algunos más, componen el elenco de protagonistas de la novela. Y como ha dejado claro para las nuevas generaciones el gran George R.R. Martin, estos personajes son de carne y hueso, con sus defectos y sus virtudes, lo cual hace que empatices con ellos y te interese lo que les pase.

'La voz de las espadas' es fantasía de primera, oscura y violenta, dinámica como pocas, con batallas, peleas, política, intriga, amor, humor, donde los personajes son el plato principal, todo ello tan bien ambientado, que hace irresistible su lectura. El segundo libro no tardará en caer. show less

This is my first Abercrombie book, and one that has wallowed in my to-read pile for several years now. My reaction: WOW. The plot of the book isn't anything new or fancy, really. It's secondary world grimdark fantasy, with barbarians, snobbish politicians, and nebulous ancient threats working their way south. What makes this book are the characters: they are vivid and complex, and become even more so when viewed through the points of view of the other characters. The best example of this is Glokta, a severely crippled master swordsman who is now an expert in torture. He's an awful, cruel man, and yet... Abercrombie writes him in a way that makes him compelling, not pitiful.

Not going to lie, for the first 50 pages or so I pretty much hated everyone except Logen. As much as I love massively arrogant pricks (although I don't think Luthar changed much) and torturers (actually, Glokta was a little disturbing for the entire first half, now that I think about it)...

I mean, I do understand where both of them were coming from -- after I got past my own discomfort with the torture-ish scenes I grew to become fond of Glokta's black humor, and I was pleasantly surprised by Luthar's transformation to not-entirely-but-still-very-much-an-asshole after Ardee West was introduced. Just saying, they almost made me put this down in the beginning, before I had gotten to those points.

Fortunately that stopped after a bit, and I show more slowly grew to love this book. Joe Abercrombie's writing is the one thing that I would sell this with -- there's just something about it that completely immerses you in what the characters are thinking and doing, to the point that I could almost tell who was narrating just from how it was written. I especially liked his (frequent) italicized descriptions of what a character was thinking as they were speaking; at some points his/their dry sarcasm had me laughing out loud.

This all extends to Ferro Maljinn, by the way. For one of the "core" characters (in terms of our merry band of adventurers on their journey to Who the Hell Knows Where), I don't see her mentioned much, even if it's expected given that she's the focus of fewer chapters. Hopefully that changes (I can't imagine it won't, it was just a strange omission in all of the descriptions I've read).

Bayaz is essentially the perfect understated know-it-all wizard type (e.g. being mocked as a fraud mercilessly, blows up a chair without lifting a finger, awed silence, makes innocent comment and goes back to eating soup, etc.) and I'm really excited to see where the next books go based on how his story (well, the entire series, really) has been set up. I can almost picture exactly how he and the rest of the characters would be in real life, he's just written so well. The chapters in the House of the Maker were my favorites for exactly this reason.

Overall, definitely one that I'm going to get a personal copy of in the future, and the next books have jumped a few spots ahead of the rest on my to-read list. show less

Genre: Fantasy
Overall Rating: Superior
Characterization Rating: Exceedingly Superior
Plot Rating: Superior
If This Book Were A Coffee: Most definitely a dark blend, black, no cream, no sugar
As fun as it is to tear insipid works into the pieces of its faults, I have no scathing words for this masterpiece. Much like Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie wastes not a single detail in crafting the first in what is clearly going to be an epic trilogy. Each sentence flows naturally without ostentation, proof that Abercrombie has picked not just a handful of words to convey his point, but the perfect words to do so. Furthermore, each character has a distinct voice, which is not just apparent through diction, but also through syntax. Simply glancing show more through the pages without truly reading the words, it is apparent which perspective Abercrombie is writing from. I will admit, when I opened to the first page, there was really nothing in particular that hooked my interest, no tried and true hallmark that would herald the magnificence of this piece. It just seemed to flow, like fine spun silk into a complex plot, each page adding another level of intrigue and arousing curiosity. Abercrombie’s subtlety in reeling in his readers is applause-worthy. And while ‘subtle’ is certainly not the word to describe any of his characters, the way he employs it makes it seem as if the characters are the ones writing the story completely devoid of any apparent higher power machinations, such as an author. One of my favorite aspects of this story is the questionable morality. No single person embodies good wholesomeness, which is delightfully refreshing. This is an excellent piece of literature, one worthy of the title.
My Favorite Character: Logen Ninefingers/The Bloody-Nine. He is positively delightful, in a bloody, sometimes sadistic kind of way. He has his adorable moments, especially when he comes to Adua and gawps at all the buildings. I spend a good portion of the story sympathizing with him; then he goes berserk in a fight, revealing a bloodthirsty duel personality, the Blood-Nine. Until that point in the story any reference made to The Bloody-Nine seems to be only a nickname, but no, the compassion found in Logen is most noticeably absent when The Bloody-Nine comes out to play. It strongly reminds me of Drizzt Do’Urden’s alternate personality The Hunter which takes control when he is desperate in the underdark in R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt.
For Example: “Please…” Logan tripped, nearly fell. There was something clinging to his leg. A woman, sitting on the ground beside a wall. Her clothes were dirty, ragged, her face was pale, pinched with hunger. She had something in her arms. A bundle of rags. A child. “Please…” Nothing else. The people laughed and chattered and surged around them, just as if they weren’t there. “Please…”
“I don’t have anything,” he muttered. No more than five strides away a man in a tall hat sat at a table and chuckled with a friend as he tucked into a steaming plate of meat and vegetables. Logen blinked at the plate of food, at the starving woman.
VS
“The man screamed, and screamed behind his mask, and the Bloody-Nine laughed, and twisted the blade. Logen might have pitied them, but Logen was far away and the Bloody-Nine had no more pity in him this winter. Less even. He stabbed and cut, and cut, and smiled, and the screams bubbled and died, and he let the corpse drop to the cold stones. His fingers were slick with blood and he wiped it on his clothes, on his arms, on his face-just as it should be.” show less

I won't lie I'm half tempted just to write one word for this review and leave it. "Stairs."

What an absolute grim whirlwind of a ride. At the beginning and even half way through I could understand those that say Abercrombie can write about nothing but make it interesting. For those that still review the book and say "He writes of nothing." Did you finish the damn thing!?

For the first three quarters of the book we are treated to this meandering stroll through the various lives of the main characters and then out of no where in the middle BOOM more main characters...that are all somehow just as interesting as the ones from page 1.

After getting past the three quarter mark you start to realize the Abercrombie is no empty headed man that show more writes about nothing, those threads that you misjudged as being small minor things along the way are suddenly all connected and you realize you're caught in a giant spider web of his talented writing.

Beyond the talents for the world and plot I would like to focus on his characters, by all the Gods and Goddesses above, this man writes characters you can feel. Forget seeing them vividly (Which you can) these are absolutely tangible people that are lodged in your brain. So much to the point in case you, dear reader, missed my last update before finishing this book, I was literally on my feet as Logan goes full berserker and just friggin' lays waste to his opponents. You could feel the red out, the blood dimmed tide that exploded over him, and by extension, you; as he smote enemy, after enemy, after enemy.

If you are into Dark Fantasy and haven't read this yet... What are you waiting for? Go. Go right now and acquire this book. And after you've acquired it, sit down and read it. Immediately. Or back to the fuckin' mud wit ya. show less

I’m trying to read a bit more fantasy after successfully dipping back into the genre with George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series (and less successfully with Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun). Joe Abercrombie’s novels seem fairly popular as swashbuckling fantasy adventure yarns, and he gets extra points for writing a trilogy rather than an ever-extending ten-book “cycle” or whatever they call them these days.

The Blade Itself, first novel in the First Law trilogy, revolves around Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled torturer; Jezal dan Luthar, a spoilt young noble; and Logen Ninefingers, an infamous barbarian warrior. (I feel compelled to point out that if you want to “single-handedly redefine the fantasy genre,” as show more Abercrombie apparently did, you probably shouldn’t begin with a main character who is a barbarian warrior from “the North.”) Events draw them together in Adua, the capital city of the Union, where preparations for war are underway and magic is returning to the world.

There were two reasons I found this book difficult to get into. The first is the plot, which starts out fairly slow and obtuse, but picks up a bit towards the end (when it irritatingly ends just as it starts to get interesting). The second is Abercrombie’s writing style. I’m not expecting Peter Carey when I read a fantasy paperback, but what particularly drove me up the wall was Abercrombie’s dialogue attribution. Characters in The Blade Itself rarely ever “say” anything. Instead they shout, bellow, scream, thunder, hiss, yelp, mutter, mumble, murmur, snap, chuckle, grumble, blurt, snarl, whimper, bark, stutter, stammer, grunt, croak, wheeze, roar and even intone – fucking intone! I did not make a single one of those up. In one particularly ugly case (page 391) a character actually “froths” his dialogue, which must be very messy. In another (page 98) a peasant manages to mumble “in a broad accent” – quite a trick.

I shouldn’t have to point out why writing Tom Swifties is bad. One of Elmore Leonard’s cardinal rules of writing was: “Never use a verb other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue.” (I’m also partial to Stephen King’s advice, which is simply: “Don’t do this. Please oh please.”) Personally I believe you can sometimes, sparingly, get away with shouted, yelled, whispered and maybe hissed. But Abercrombie’s use of these words isn’t just beyond the pale, it’s on the Dingle Peninsula. (And maybe I should have saved that obscure description for a time other than criticising someone else’s writing, but whatever.)

This might sound snobbish. This is, after all, a fantasy novel, and the genre is not renowned for the restraint of its prose style. The reason it bothered me so much – beyond the fact that I’m hard-pressed to remember a novel with so many Swifties – is that Abercrombie is certainly capable of better writing. The dialogue that his characters are huffing, crying and yelping their way through is not half bad. It’s not as witty or clever as something in a Martin novel, but it’s not far off, either. His editor should have seen this. As it stands, I was tripping over a bark or a roar or a bellow every other sentence and it was taking me right out of the story, along with his constant use of adverbs and excessive physical descriptions of people and locations.

All this junk hampers what is actually pretty decent writing. Abercrombie’s fight scenes play out with impressive clarity, with brutal clashes and smart manoeuvres and people fucking up and hitting the wrong thing. His characters are all realistic, unlikeable yet sympathetic, and well-balanced against each other – particularly the way that, through cycling chapter POVs, we see how they appear to each other. There is a refreshing lack of Mary Sues, which I didn’t expect from a writer who thinks it appropriate to have a character intone his dialogue. And although he has continued Martin’s modern “dark” fantasy tradition in which terrible things happen and the good guys don’t always win, there’s a strong undercurrent of wit and humour which prevents the novel from feeling bleak.

Despite strong flaws, The Blade Itself is a good novel and Abercrombie – while I would hesitate to call him a good writer yet – certainly shows promise. I’ll read the rest of the First Law trilogy at the very least. I just hope that he tightens up his writing style, or that his editor grows some balls and tells him to. show less

The Blade Itself is the first book of Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy. As with many trilogies, the first book of the series is used to introduce us to its variation of the typical fantasy cast. We have the savage barbarian with the dark past, the nobleman with no sense of altruism, the bitter and twisted Inquisitor, the beautiful feisty commoner, the inept apprentice, the cynical intellectual and, as always, the mysterious magus to drive the plot forward.
This is not traditional fantasy - there are no damsels in distress or knights in shining armour. Yet that's what underpins the appeal of this story - the characters are painstakingly real, even if they're not "heroes" by strict definition. The warriors are warriors - foul show more tempered and ruthless, covered in scars, with missing teeth – not handsome and genteel. Even though there is not a single character who remains entirely likeable by the end of the book, every one of them has become a real person whose fate is something you care about - even if what you really want is to see them get some sense knocked into them.
The very fact that one of the main characters is crippled demonstrates something that much fantasy seems to lack: this is a world with consequences - a wave of a magic wand won't heal every body and soul. The characters aren't questing to save the world or defeat evil; they're struggling to live their own lives amidst fascinating plot and conflict.
This is Abercrombie’s first novel, and he’s done an outstanding job. I’ve read a clutch of first novels in this ilk over recent months eg The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch) and The Name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss). The skill of these new authors bodes well for those of us who are addicted to new worlds and flights of fantasy.
I’m off to order the rest of the trilogy. show less