‘The First Law’ Trilogy Is Fantasy At Its Finest

I’ve finished Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings.

And may I just say that this is some truly wonderful fantasy?

Because it is truly wonderful fantasy, easily some of the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.

Abercrombie’s characters are marvelous and full of depth, and you’re never quite sure what they’ll do precisely because he makes them all so human. There are no clear villains, no clear heroes, no clear friends or enemies. Not only do we as readers puzzle over them, Abercrombie does a surprisingly good job at having each character see the rest through entirely different lenses. So while one character may be despised by all his old comrades, he’s viewed as “the best man I know” by someone he met later in his life, in another place and time.

I’ll be taking a page from our own Elias Isquith and posting a number of my Forbes pieces here in this excerpted format. So if you’d like to keep reading this review, please do so over at my Forbes blog. Feel free to discuss here or there, whichever you prefer. Thanks!