Ninjay reviewed The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too …
More than potent setup
4 stars
It's always fun learning to love absolute assholes. And what assholes this book provides, every single important character ranges from unpleasant to completely reprehensible. The characters don't really better themselves (for now at least) but what we see is smart worldbuilding that explains the ways in which the characters were guided and pressured into their roles, if only to survive.
Sure, sometimes the book feels a bit like an unorganised prologue, the stories not really intertwining until the end. It is striking however, how these loose threads of history, characters and politics are already potent enough to stand on their own. And we haven't even started tugging at these threads yet.