Paperback, 544 pages
English language
Published March 7, 2007 by Gollancz.
Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian – leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.
Nobleman Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.
Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long …
Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian – leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.
Nobleman Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.
Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.
Enter the wizard, Bayaz. 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 Logen, Jezal, and Glotka a whole lot more difficult.
Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood.
ahaha, yes! What an absolute treat! We're getting the party together & settling into the world. Can't wait to see how the adventure unfolds
Unlike its genre cousin science fiction, fantasy has closer bonds to backward looking types of storytelling. It is linked to the older forms like myth and fairy tale, and that can make innovation a bit more tricky. We can't just keep on recycling "chosen one" tropes; at some stage we need to say something new, or our original stories risk being redundant compared to the superior rivals already in the canon.
At the same time, we can't depart from the form too much, or in the wrong way, or else it seems inauthentic or a sellout.
For some, Abercrombie might have strayed from the marvelous and primal form that gives fantasy its great strength. But for me, he has breathed life into the genre. "The First Law" trilogy and its sequel "The Age of Madness" are well worth the investment of your time.
Having read all six of Abercrombie's books …
Unlike its genre cousin science fiction, fantasy has closer bonds to backward looking types of storytelling. It is linked to the older forms like myth and fairy tale, and that can make innovation a bit more tricky. We can't just keep on recycling "chosen one" tropes; at some stage we need to say something new, or our original stories risk being redundant compared to the superior rivals already in the canon.
At the same time, we can't depart from the form too much, or in the wrong way, or else it seems inauthentic or a sellout.
For some, Abercrombie might have strayed from the marvelous and primal form that gives fantasy its great strength. But for me, he has breathed life into the genre. "The First Law" trilogy and its sequel "The Age of Madness" are well worth the investment of your time.
Having read all six of Abercrombie's books in this series, as well as all five "Song of Ice and Fire' novels, I felt like George RR Martin's most famous work is not worth the considerable investment of time you need to get through his excessive verbiage. Just watch the tv series, it's bloody good.
Abercrombie, on the other hand, IS worth your time. Actually it's not Abercrombie. It's Glokta, Jezal, Bayaz, and Logen that you will be visiting, rather than their creator. Vivid, primal characters in a brilliantly-conceived fantasy world which I enjoyed immensely.
The First Law series has been recommended to me for a long time, and I finally decided to dive in. Abercrombie's reputation as a great character writer is well deserved, but the first book in the series is a bit light on plot. I will continue with the rest of the series, as I've heard that the plot gets better after the first entry.
