Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled and increasingly bitter relic of the last war, former fencing champion turned torturer extraordinaire, is trapped in a twisted and broken body—not that he allows it to distract him from his daily routine of torturing smugglers.
Nobleman, dashing officer and would-be fencing champion Captain Jezal dan Luthar is living a life of ease by cheating his friends at cards. Vain, shallow, selfish and self-obsessed, the biggest blot on his horizon is having to get out of bed in the morning to train with obsessive and boring old men.
And Logen Ninefingers, an infamous warrior with a bloody past, is about to wake up in a hole in the snow with plans to settle a blood feud with Bethod, the new King of the Northmen, once and for all—ideally by running away from it. But as he's discovering, old habits die really, really hard indeed...
...especially when Bayaz gets involved. 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 Glotka, Jezal and Logen a whole lot more difficult...
Limited to 500 copies only, the standard edition is 480 pages, printed letterpress two colours (black and navy) on Omnia Natural 120gsm by Pat Randle from Nomad Letterpress on his Heidelberg Windmill Press.
This is the only version that comes with Tommy Arnold’s incredible dustjacket of Logen Ninefingers and Ferro Maljinn. This edition is signed by the artist and artist only.
It is bound in black buckram cloth with two hit foil stamping to the cover and spine, with rounded spine, tailband and coloured ribbon.
The endpaper will be a landscape illustration by Tommy Arnold, and the book will have a further 6 tipped in colour plates, a frontispiece and a fold out map approved by Joe Abercrombie.
The book is protected by a black buckram slipcase with unique design foil stamped onto the cover side, and lined with custom printed papers.
Stopped reading at 13%.
I might give this another shot at some point, but for now, it actually felt kind of… childish? In one chapter, a character described everyone's personalities like this:
“He sat back in his chair and hunched his brawny shoulders with a frown that said, ‘I am big and manly, and have a quick temper, so I should be treated with respect by everyone.’”
[Brint] licked his lips with an expression at once careful and slightly desperate, an expression which seemed to say, ‘I am not young or poor. I can afford to lose this money. I am every bit as important as the rest of you.’"
There were like four or five character descriptions like that. It seemed so… juvenile. It was just a whole bunch of telling me who every character was, what motivated them, etc.
I know I didn't give it much of a chance, so I might give it another shot. Or I might just jump straight to A Little Hatred. I know The Blade Itself was Abercrombie's first book, so it might not necessarily be his strongest. And if I'm honest, A Little Hatred is the one that really interested me; I just picked up this one for the back story.
