The Blade Itself (World of the First Law, #1) (First Law Trilogy, #1)

by Joe Abercrombie

[sa090]

I started this with Every Heart A Doorway to get a little bit change of pace but it took way longer to read compared to the before mentioned, not because it was too long per say, I read Eon by Allison Goodman and read Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire in less time but because this was insanely difficult to get into.

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I don't know who actually green lit the publication of this book but tbh I think they need to wait a little bit and think before making hasty decisions. Not because it was a bad idea, don't get me wrong but because this book could've been a third of its length or less and still would've served the same purpose. I mean I have nothing against world building, sometimes the lack of it ruins everything but not like this. Joe Abercrombie doesn't even get to the point of the book until 90% of it is over, by that point I do admit that I know a lot about the characters involved so far and about the state of things in the series from politics, terms and the like if you will but does that make it worth it to sit through 500 pages of a setup book? I don't think so.

The only reason I stuck with it till the end is because I actually wanted to know where he's going with this because honestly by the first few pages it seemed like he's going nowhere and that was confirmed as I made my way through the chapters. Adding insult to injury would be that the characters aren't that interesting to read about, Logen is a barbarian with a tragic past and Jezal is a brat as expected of someone with his background, the only one worth reading about from the trio was Glokta and that's only because his monologues were amusing. Add in Ferro in the second part of the book and we have one more person who's interesting as well and that's just because she has a different perspective to things given her gender and what that brought upon her. Other than this I'm stuck reading about characters I don't give a damn about and things that make 80-90% of the book seem pointless.

Again I'm not against world building and familiarizing the reader with a totally made up new world but I want a PURPOSE to this. Having to read hundreds of pages before that's revealed isn't a good idea, not in the slightest. I'll bring in a comparison to The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson because I felt like he (Sanderson) stretched it out a bit longer than it should be with all the planning in the book; the first of the differences between my experiences lies in the fact that Mistborn was a ton more fun to read about than The Blade Itself could ever hope to be. Brandon Sanderson describes things a lot, he adds backstories, history and bits of world building when appropriate but ALL of that happened AFTER he told me why all of these people are gathering and what the hell he aims to do with them which never happened in Joe Abercrombie's book until the very end. Which again makes the majority of the pages in the book seem largely pointless to me, is building this world that important that it couldn't have waited till I actually cared about the plot? It better be.

I'm not asking for much, just have Beyaz mumble to himself in the beginning and hint at what needs to be done in two pages. I don't need 1000+ pages that details every rock they'll kick off the road, tree they'll encounter, people they'll be meeting, food they'll eat or which road they'll take for this quest. Just something that makes the hundreds of pages I'll read in the book about characters I don't care about have some form of meaning to make the journey with them worthwhile but that of course doesn't happen and while at first I didn't think it'll be difficult, by 30 pages I felt like I'm wasting my time. 300 pages later and nothing changed, still no idea why everything is happening, I'm getting world building bits and history concerning the Magi/other characters/terms/politics I'll give it that but nothing that even begins to resembles a collective plot or better yet an aim to all this.

It's not a bad book. Joe Abercrombie has an interesting style of writing each character as you'd expect from their upbringing/experiences, even their way of speech but the planning of these things just don't work out for me (40 chapter out of 45 before a plot starts forming isn't something I appreciate) and the reason for my immense disappointment with this book. After forcing myself to finish it, yes "forcing", it doesn't feel like my time was well spent albeit the book having some pluses to it which basically were his couple of interesting characters, Logen's secret and of course the immense amount of world building, might not have been that necessary for a first book, but it does earn some praise from me.

Will I ever read the sequels? Maybe not but who knows. The standalone books? Maybe, if the other two in the trilogy aren't needed for them.

Final rating: 2/5