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Reviews for The Blade Itself

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  • cracking start4

    matt cunningham It's been a good while since I last dipped my toe in the fantasy genre, this book has certainly reignited my liking for it though.

    The characters are interesting and the setting believable, it offers a new twist on the standard fantasy.

    The Blade Itself is the first book in the 'First Law' trilogy and it has certainly wetted my appetite for the following 2 installments - so much so that they were both ordered within minutes of finishing Blade.

    A lot of the criticism seems to point to the lack of an 'end' to this book - had I not read the reviews, it's not something I would have picked up on, at the end of the day it's the first part of a trilogy so why expect it to be all wrapped up by the end of book one? - it ended with me desperate to know how the story develops and what is going to happen to the characters.

    Highly recommended.

    Now hurry up and deliver books 2 and 3! by matt cunningham

  • Top review

    Fantastic Read5

    Phill Lappin I found this book and the entire series the most refreshing modern fantasy I've read in a long time. The characters are believable, gritty, interesting and have a realism and depth not often seen in fantasy. The way he writes is both accessible and clear, you never get lost or confused during battle scenes whether they be on a small or grand scale. Abercrombie is able to keep you reading even though there are four separate stories all going on at once.

    Again just a fantastic series. by Phill Lappin

  • the sum and its parts5

    Trevor A lot of the commentary I've seen about this novel has me itching to rise to the author's defense. Not that he really needs me or anyone else defending him but I do feel that his contribution to the genre has been unfairly slighted. The truth is that Abercrombie's writing brings to life a company of players that you will not soon forget. Swords and Sworcery fantasy, aka epic fantasy, needs hot-blooded and relentless heroes who go places and do things that live on in our memories and our subconscious well beyond their final pages. This book and those that follow in the series do that and for that I think Abercrombie deserves our thanks and readership.

    The thing is you need to look at the series as one book: The Blade Itself just happens to be the first 500 pages of it. If you had your heart set on a beginning, middle and end to each book then you might be a little unsettled, even miffed, at the fact that Abercrombie takes his sweet time to do what he needs to do. If you read it for the long run, all 1500+ pages of it when you stack the three books up, then the individual installments will not leave you wanting. by Trevor

  • A good tale poorly told3

    a Book Depository customer "The Blade Itself is a fantasy book that steps away from the stereotypical fantasy being churned out by many authors in the genre and presents a fast moving storyline and a book that's quite easy to read. The story is compelling throughout although it doesn't present too many suprises and has a disappointing finish - I'd have liked something resembling a conclusion between each book in the trilogy.
    There are flaws throughout, which to me detracted from what could have been a far more interesting read. At times I felt like I was being patronised by the author, things being repeated that were said only 2 pages earlier. An internal monologue seemed present so that the reader doesn't need to read between the lines, and outlining often obvious parts of the story.
    There are interesting concepts behind each character (bar the traveller introduced at the end perhaps, who would have been better left out of the book altogether), but the characters didn't seem to develop beyond that, it seemed every time a character was reintroduced to the story it was necessary to force the interesting concept on you just in case you'd forgotten them.
    Overall, I like the book, and am intriuged as to what happens in the story but I did feel an editor could go through and remove enough content to drop the page count by 50 or so and produce a better book for it. For the genre, it's entertaining, but I felt Joe Abercrombie has a big leap to reach the heights of George R Martin or KJ Parker. " by a Book Depository customer

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