We are still waiting for George R.R. Martin’s Winds of Winter. Until then, if you need your fix of political intrigue and stories of revenge set in a fantasy world, Joe Abercrombie’s First Law series is a good alternative and the first book in the series, The Blade Itself, is a fine appetizer.
The general idea of the world is fairly typical of epic fantasy: a kingdom is threatened by a mysterious threat and a ragtag band of heroes must work together to rid the world of the danger. Only in this case, none of them are heroes. Each character is more horrible than the last: the first we meet is an inquisitor, a sort of torturer who knows perfectly well that he does terrible things to potentially innocent people.
The next is a barbarian who has spent a career raiding, assaulting and pillaging for nothing more than personal glory and a fancy name that he knows won’t follow him into death. Others include a layabout son of a noble and an ancient wizard who claims to be a figure from ancient legends.
Yet, they are all honest about who they are. I know as the reader that they are all terrible people. They know they are terrible people. But, even so, the way they talk, the way they present themselves, I can’t help but like them. It’s as though all of the characters are charming villains who, despite their evil intentions, you still end up rooting for. I couldn’t help but be drawn to these men. And they are mostly men, though the women involved aren’t any better: in Best Served Cold, a standalone book later in the series, the main character is a bounty-hunting woman seeking revenge for her murdered brother. It starts bloody and only gets bloodier.
To tell the truth, it’s hard to explain the plot of The Blade Itself: this is just the beginning of a larger series and like George R.R. Martin’s books, there are a lot of apparently unconnected threads that run through the books. Whatever the case, this book and series is probably the best thing I’ve read in a decade.
Steven McCreedy is a library technician at the Cambie branch. Next in his reading stack isEruption, about Mount St. Helens.
