The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie

[Lazloth]

A really excellent piece of bloody, gritty, twisted, and hilarious fiction. This is the first book in a series of three (The First Law), but I felt it was the best by far. A number of times I found myself laughed to tears or cackling like an idiot of the brutality of some of the fighting. While there are a bunch of reviews on the covers of the books that all lean toward the idea of them being incrementally better, I found them incrementally less interesting. That is not to say bad, but......disappointing. The second two volumes sort of felt like he fell off the rails of the original idea, not to mention are no where near as funny. I also don't hesitate to say I found the ending quite boring and anti-climactic, but oh well. At any rate, at the very least the first book is amazing, and the characters are all fantastic. Each of them is beautifully twisted and the way their thoughts are incorporated in between the lines of what they actually say is consistently laugh out loud funny. Read the first book regardless, deal with the others as you see fit.

[Karrde]

Just read this series, thought it overall was great. I thought all 3 books were really good. Not quite sure how i felt about the ending - its appropriate to the series but somewhat depressing/bleak. Going to pick up his stand alone book in the same world Best Served Cold next.