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What it argues
The Blade Itself is the first book of the First Law trilogy, a grimdark fantasy that opened with a deliberate challenge to the genre's conventions: the barbarian is not particularly heroic, the noble knight is not particularly noble, and the crippled torturer employed by the Inquisition is probably the most interesting person in the room. Abercrombie introduces three main viewpoint characters — Logen Ninefingers, Jezal dan Luthar, and Sand dan Glokta — along with the mysterious First of the Magi, Bayaz, who has plans for all of them that remain opaque through the first volume.
The book is genuinely about what violence does to people rather than what violence accomplishes for them. Logen is a feared barbarian warrior trying to escape his reputation and largely failing; Glokta is a former champion torturer who was himself tortured for years and now finds the work grimly apt; Jezal is a narcissistic young nobleman who is slowly being forced to confront that he is not the hero of his own story. Abercrombie cycles through these perspectives with considerable wit — the book is funnier than its reputation suggests — and the contrast between Jezal's self-regard and everyone else's assessment of him produces most of the dark comedy.
What it gets right
- 1.
Grimdark fantasy at its best isn't nihilism — it's moral seriousness. Abercrombie uses genre conventions as targets precisely because they let him examine what those conventions normalize.
- 2.
Glokta is one of the most compelling POV characters in modern fantasy: intelligent, broken, self-aware about the horror of what he does, and oddly sympathetic.
- 3.
The book's humor is dark but genuine. The contrast between Jezal's self-image and his actual character is played for comedy as much as critique.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Joe Abercrombie is a British author and former TV editor who published The Blade Itself in 2006. The First Law trilogy was completed with Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings. He has returned to the First Law world in several standalone novels and a second trilogy. He is credited with establishing the grimdark subgenre as a serious literary form within fantasy, and his work is notable for psychological complexity, dark humor, and refusal of narrative wish fulfillment. He lives in Bath, England.
