Saturday, 17 January 2009

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

The trilogy of books by Joe Abercrombie of which The Blade Itself is the first was introduced to me last year by my brother-in-law and my daughter, both of whom raved about the fantastic storytelling. I read book one during the autumn and personally thought it a little slow, however over the Christmas break I started and finished Book two Before they are hanged and the story really takes hold, moving at quite a pace with some very well written battle scenes.

I have now started book three Last Argument of Kings and find myself not wanting to put it down.

A Fantasy trilogy in the same style as The Lord of the Rings, with a gritty, adult text that adds to the quest and story, with believable characters and back stories. I thoroughly recommend all three.

Tony
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5 comments:

  1. BaronVonJ21 January 2009 at 08:50

    My wife is reading it now, then me. We both really like another book even better, "Lies of Locke Lamora".

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  2. Tony21 January 2009 at 12:12

    To BaronVonJ (and wife)

    My daughter has also read The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and is pressurising me to pick this book as my next read (after I finish The last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie - we will see).

    Another book that she recommends is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, but says to read The Lies of Locke Lamora first as The Name of the Wind is better and therefore should be read second!

    I'm always open to a good book recommendation.

    Tony

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  3. BaronVonJ21 January 2009 at 16:24

    My wife loves the "Name of the Wind" but it's different, not better. "Name of the Wind" is more subtle and lyrical, "Locke Lamora" is more 3 Musketeers.

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  4. Tony22 January 2009 at 12:13

    My daughter liked both but thought TNOTW was more of an epic. She's eagerly awaiting the second book to find out what happens next. Apparently there's another Locke Lamora book called 'Red Seas Under Red Skies' but it hasn't had such good reviews - have you read it?

    Tony (and daughter Holly)

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  5. BaronVonJ23 January 2009 at 07:05

    The wife is reading it right now. Her response was "bad reviews, are you (expletive) kidding me?"
    It's the second of a proposed seven books, so bad stuff has to happen to our hero. I've also heard it's optioned as a movie.

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