fungrim
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Not a bad book at all. Most reviews below have covered the details so I’ll just add and/or stress a few points.
First, the start of the book is kind of awful. You’re promised a "cliffhanger" and get exactly that but it’s not very effective. Also it stresses a very bad stereotype and fails to grab your attention. I really didn’t think I would make it through the book after the first 20 pages or so. But it does get better.
Also the beginning was damaged by the writing style, which is very scaled down. This is not a bad thing but it does mean you need something extra to grab the readers attention. This is later achieved by the rather fun, and actually not so stereotyped, characters and the sporadic humour. And of course, a scaled down prose makes a vary fast reading, and some of the scenes are very rapidly paced and makes for excellent action.
The entire book works more or less as an introduction, slowly pacing away to what is in the end a trilogy. But it works well, and I’m for one will read the sequels, mostly because I’m curious what will happen to the characters and not so much the story itself. Which should tell you something about the book as well.
In the end, a terrific light summer read. Fast, fun and not very complicated.
