"The Blade Itself" by Joe Abercrombie

The Blade Itself has been lying in my desk draw for several weeks now, and I could honestly say I could slap myself for not reading it straight away. “Why?” I hear you ask! It’s quite simple. It is one of the most entertaining books I have read in the past year! Now that’s quite a claim isn’t it? The Blade Itself is incredibly easy to read—although that’s not to say it’s simplistic, far from it. Joe’s focus is mainly on the story and the characters, rather than wielding the stereotypical “World-building Sledgehammer” that is now associated with the fantasy genre. It is very refreshing to focus on the characters and story, without being overwhelmed by details on a world’s current affairs and history dragging back hundreds of years! This means that I was confused as to what the world really “looked like”, compounded by the lack of map. But as Joe himself has said—the characters don’t have maps, so why should the reader have the luxury? I’m usually as wary about anti-heroes as I am about selfless, perfect heroes (a la Superman and Flash Gordon)… but the characters of Logen Nine-fingers and Inquisitor Glokta were excellently written. Not villainous but definitely not heroic, one with a fractured mind, the other with a fractured body, they are fantastic protagonists and fascinating to read. Despite Joe’s flaunting of superfluous fantasy ritual like heavy world-building and map-making, he’s paid a lot of attention to detail. My two favourite points were actual language barriers between key characters—something not written accurately in most novels, if at all. The other was the shift in viewpoint of what city looks like, from both a nobleman’s perspective and a person who has never entered “civilization” before. I was truly impressed. Pointless and boring things like travel have been condensed or eliminated, skipping ahead to the next character development opportunity or plot-advancing situation. It’s as if Joe actively sat down (I know! It’s an oxymoron!) and thought about all the pointless annoying additions to the fantasy genre then decided to trim them from the story he’s weaving. Score: Highly Recommended Rationale: This is the new, streamlined face of modern fantasy. Deal with it. *As an aside, the cover is also innovative-- it feels ridged and slightly dotty. It almost "wakes up" your fingers as you're reading!