What THEY Said Over the Last Month

High time for my periodic self-indulgent sado-massochistic trawl through the dark corners of the interweb. I can’t help it. It’s an addiction. So without further ado … Writer Bill Ward had a look at The Blade Itself:

“at heart it’s a High Fantasy with a hardboiled, Sword & Sorcery attitude. The pace, the command of voice and dialog, and the strong characterization all make this a series to watch.”

He followed it up with a main course of Before They are Hanged:

“Questions are answered and new ones raised, characters push and pull against one another, glimpses of plots are dangled with skill before the reader, and the whole conspires to keep the pages greedily turning – in short, everything is done well and will have fans rushing to get their hands on Last Argument of Kings, the concluding volume of The First Law.”

Dread Pirate Terje was one among that very rush. I’m not sure if he’s really a pirate, or what dark acts have earned him the prefix ‘dread’ or not, but you have to appreciate his Marxist analysis of The First Law:

“In Marxist terms, the superstructure is transformed, while the base remains the same. Or, perhaps more precisely, the base remains the same, as does the superstructure, but the relation between these become apparent to the main characters, and thus to the readers – the illusion of ideology (the Marxist term refering to the ideas and philosophies that legitimize and shroud that the system is, ultimately, based on power – according to Marxist theory, democracy and liberalism are part of the ideology of capitalism) is shed and shredded. In the end Last Argument of Kings, while magnificently brutal, morbidly fun, recklessly fascinating, and at times awesomely inspiring, was too fucken dark for my taste, so I dock it about half a point or so for that. 9.0/10.”

9/10 even after the half point deduction? I reckon I can live with that. Just. An insightful look at the whole trilogy from occasional visitor here, Elena at 500 pages and a bottle of wine:

“For every genre staple/cliche that is included, another is pissed upon. There is a near-constant undermining of expectation, both by the standards of fantasy epics and those of literature in general. Another way to summarize the trilogy – mine, in fact – would be: Reservoir Dogs + “Dr Heidegger’s Experiment” + The Empire Strikes Back, dropped into post-apocalyptic Middle Earth. As I mentioned initially, this book speaks in the cant of a 21st-century 20-something, hence the inclusion of a Tarantino movie. Well-written, witty, and full of violently poetic descriptions and snarky one-liners, if also littered with more comma splices than bodies (and that’s an awful lot, girl).”

I believe it was the Emperor Sigismund who said, “I am the King of Rome, and above grammar.” Don’t try to limit my genius with your dusty rules, commar fascist! Though it’s worth noting she had something of the same ‘intellectual admiration yet emotional disappointment’ reaction to the ending that I did with No Country for Old Men a couple of weeks back. Thomas L. Martin, meanwhile, reveiewed the book for SFCrowsnest, and the only real problem he had with the 240,000 word monster was that it was just too damn short. Well, alright, rushed and with uneven pacing, but, you know:

“A fourth book to extend the battles and keep the pacing more dramatic may have truly completed the ‘First Law’ sequence but even as it is they stand as fantastic examples of the best heroic fantasy. In his first three novels, Joe Abercrombie has shown that the road travelled by so many tired and cliched quest novels has not been exhausted. There are other ways to do it without re-treading the old formulae and by populating his complex world with dynamic, immensely imperfect characters Abercrombie has produced a reinvigoration of the genre.”

Reinvigorate THAT, motherf*ckers. And finally, kind words on the trilogy as a whole from no lesser light than the star of Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog, would you believe, Felicia Day:

“And boy did this series finish! After reading the third book in the trilogy, I definitely have to say that this is one of my top 10 favorite series of all time. It’s that good. The finale pays off all the genre-bending plot twists and crazy left turns that occurred in books one and two, and in a way that will leave you gasping. I could not have looked up from the last 100 pages if you had paid me!”

Who would pay you to do that? Not me, that’s for SURE.

Posted in reviews by Joe Abercrombie on August 15th, 2008. Tags: reviews