Book Review: “The Blade Itself” (Vol. 1)

* * C

Fantasy author Joe Abercrombie’s first foray into graphic novels, “The Blade Itself”, based on his “First Law” series of novels, is a bit of a disappointment. Some of the characters are interesting, particularly Logen Ninefingers, a magic wielding barbarian and inquisitor Glockta, a torturer for the King’s inquisition. While there are plot developments, not a single thread is resolved by the end of the book, and in fact, none are even brought to full boil.

The artwork is good, as is most of the writing. There are some very jarring transitions, including one in which the character Jezel Dan is killed, but then the killing turns out to be part of another character’s dream, for no apparent reason. It’s as if Abercrombie suddenly lost interest in the Dan subplot (I know I did) and decided to just drop it to return to a more interesting character.

This book showed promise, but the lack of anything resembling a climax was a big let down. Much like novels that are part of a series and go nowhere, this is a big turn off for me. If you want to hook me into a series, the first volume had better be satisfying on its own. Hell, I’ve dropped a series on book eight (the Wheel of Time, Path of Daggers) because it was a do nothing volume. I wouldn’t have expected to buy the next volume in this series, but looks like that isn’t an option anyway, as the series has been discontinued with no further issues.

#joeabercrombie #inquistorglockta #thebladeitself #logenninefingers #firstlaw #jezeldan