The First Law Trilogy is the first series from Joe Abercrombie. It is a dark fantasy that follows an ensemble of characters as they try to navigate their way through a politically volatile world.
This piece shows how I envisioned the characters while I read the book. From Top Left To Right: Collem West, Jezal Dan Luthar, Ardee West, Practical Severard, Sand Dan Glokta, Practical Frost, Bayaz, Ferro Maljinn, and Logen Ninefingers.
3.5/5 Stars
Read the review after the jump.
I picked up The First Law Trilogy after finishing A Dance With Dragons. George R. R Martin left me wanting more brutal fantasy, but with his track record of finishing books I knew I had a long wait before I headed back into Westeros. I kept hearing talk of this book called The Blade Itself, the first book in The First Law trilogy. Usually, if something has people talking I’ll at least check it out. Sometimes, this policy doesn’t work out so well. I mean a lot of people talk about 50 shades of grey, and while I have a kind of morbid curiosity, I can’t bring myself to even get near it. But in the case of The First Law, listening worked. I found that it fit my craving for something in the same vein as A Song of Ice and Fire, so I started on the series.
The first book started out slow, and at first I wasn’t convinced that The First Law was even comparable to A Song of Ice and Fire. But then, as the book progressed things started to pick up. Slowly, I was becoming aware of how strong the characters that Abercrombie had written were. By the beginning of the second book I couldn’t stop. I finished The First Law Trilogy and immediately went through all of Joe Abercrombie’s following works, which take place in the same world but focus on different stories and places. Each book, his work and the world he’s created gets stronger, more complex, and ultimately more enthralling. I came to realize that there were certain aspects of Abercrombie’s work that really did rival or overcome George R. R Martin’s. For instance, Abercrombie’s characters actually get somewhere in the series, and while it is usually not an entirely happy place at least there’s closure and a sense that something has happened. I can’t say the same for the last few books in A Song Of Ice and Fire.
The strongest feature of The First Law Trilogy, and Abercrombie’s work in general are his characters. They’re incredibly unique, and sometimes incredibly strange, but also always manage to be incredibly relatable. I mean, there aren’t a lot of people who could write a torturer who feels close to home.
If you like low magic high brutality fantasy, The First Law is for you. I’m a big fan, but I only gave this series 3 and a half stars because to me it isn’t the strongest of Abercrombie’s work. It serves as the building blocks to his world, and it was definitely worth reading, but his later works, Best Served Cold, The Heroes, and Red Country are the stories that truly made me love this world and the characters that inhabit it.
While an author’s personality outside of their work is somewhat irrelevant to a review, I’d just like to note that Joe Abercrombie is really great to his fans. He’s very active in replying to questions and comments on his blog, forums, and on the AMAs I’ve seen him do on reddit. Anyways, I just think it’s an admirable quality worth mentioning.
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