 Hey guys it's Liana and I'm here today to talk about The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. This is a book that I have read four times. Why have I read it four times? I'm so glad you asked. Well the fourth time I read it because I wanted to film a review which I hadn't done before. You would think I would have for a book that I've read prior to that, three times. But I hadn't. So here we are. And I just want to shout it out because I'm realizing that the camera, it's not in frame but I have a bloody nine t-shirt on. And since I wore it I wanted to get credit for it. And I can, this is not an affiliate link or a sponsor or anything but I can leave in the description the link. So this is from Redbubble so I can leave the link in the description to this if you want one. Anyhoosies. The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I am going to take you through the journey of the multiple times I've read it briefly and then we'll talk about why I read it so many times, what's good and bad about it, what I get out of it, and why I think you possibly should read it depending on what you're like as a writer. So if you don't know anything about this book at all, this is the first book in The World of the First Law. The First Law trilogy begins with the blade itself, is followed by Before They Are Hanged and concludes with The Last Argument of Kings, and then The World of the First Law continues on in a series of stand-along and short stories and now a brand new trilogy called The Age of Madness but it still takes place within the world of The First Law. So I first read The Blade Itself when I was, when I was a wheeler and I had been predominantly reading very like heroic, more traditional types of fantasy, sort of truth type of stuff. The Blade Itself, I didn't know anything about it, I hadn't heard of it, it was just like recommended to me by the algorithm on Amazon or wherever I was shopping for books and it was just you know, obviously a fantasy book. I actually had a different edition of it that I unhauled, even though hauling books wasn't a thing for me at the time, but I got rid of it because I read it and was like eh. And then regretted that and then actually I think I have the same edition again because I bought it again because now I've become you know a collector and obsessive Abercrombie fans I must have every edition. But that being said, the original cover that I had was quite similar to this one's Karchman D got some like runish, shulking things on it like it's clearly a fantasy book. But I was like alright cool, it's a fantasy book, let's do it. And I, if you've read it or if you've heard about it, then you know that if you're going into this expecting something akin to the Wheel of Time or the sort of truth or things like that, that is not what this is. And that is the very reason that I love this book so much now, but at the time I was like everything here is horrible. And in it is horrible. Why would I want to read this? Like I didn't think it was badly written. I mean if never at any point in my life thought that it was badly written. I just didn't understand why anyone would want to spend time in this world or with these characters because they're horrible. And I was like I read fantasy for uplifting escapism where the good guy has the magic sword and he saves the day and the last man is against all odds yay. And certainly that type of fantasy has great appeal and I absolutely know why I used to read more of it and why I still do sometimes read it because there is something to be said for you know the escapism, safety and security of knowing that like the good guy will do the good thing and despite the odds being stacked against him unreasonably he will prevail because he has the power of goodness or whatever like I there's undeniably something magical and escapism about that. But again the blade itself and basically any book by Joe Abercrombie does not do that, not even a little bit. In fact Joe Abercrombie himself has said that this trilogy, the project of it was basically him taking a bit traditional fantasy story arc of a wizard and a hero's quest and that and basically flipping out its head and shitting it all over it. So knowing that when you go into it you can identify okay well here's the like chosen one-ish one, here's your wise wizard, here is like you know you can recognize those pieces in it and like here's your quest, here's your MacGuffin and yet when you see them here it is like the bizarro funhouse mirror it's like having just read Nosferatu by Joe Hill it's like Christmas land like Christmas land is recognizably Christmassy and it is horrifying and it is bad it is not magical or fun or escapist but it is recognizable nonetheless. So one of the main complaints that I've heard and I felt this way of it myself at the point when I read it I mean in addition to feeling like this is miserable why would anyone subject themselves willingly and intentionally to something so miserable I also did find myself going where is any of this even going like okay it's miserable but also like what what is the point of any of that so I mean back then when the first time I read it I did not go on to read the next books and it was only years later that because a lot of people with quite similar reading tastes to mine the way that my reading tastes had where my reading tastes had shifted to over time people with similar tastes to what mine had become kept allotting Joe Abercrombie and his books kept coming up and people kept saying you know these books are so great and I'll be honest one of the one of the reasons that I did end up going you know what I'm going to give another go was the shallowest reason of all and that was that the gallant special edition like anniversary editions that they did at first they only did like four books they did the lives of La Clemora which I love and purchased immediately um the final empire by uh Brandon Sanderson another book by an author that I don't remember the name of and it's not one that I've read it's like Stormcaller or something I don't know but that one was like I don't know what that is and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie and the that edition of The Blade Itself I was like oh man that's a pretty book but I was like but I read The Blade Itself I remember I didn't really like it but I want that pretty book and my friends are like well you didn't like the book so don't get it and I'm like what it's so pretty so I was like okay I will read it again and if I still don't like it then I won't get the pretty one and here we are so you know my shallowness in in cover decision like cover buys sometimes pays off so I reread it and was like oh oh this is my shit I am into this I still want to give it four stars uh and then the third time I read it I gave it five stars and now the fourth time I read it I gave it five stars again and I think that is valid and I want to say that I think that this is the kind of book that if you like it you will like it more if you read it again and you will like it even more if you read it again again this is the type of story that unlike uh thrillers and mysteries or things that have like an intense twist uh at the end or that like something like that where like the thing that keeps you going is they're like but what is happening where is this going to go how will this be resolved if it's the type of story where that is the appeal of it is you wondering those things and asking those questions then that's not to say that that kind of book cannot be enjoyable on a reread and that's not to say that there can't be things you'll pick up on the second time and blah blah blah like that's absolutely true but the blade itself and the first law trilogy and the first law books they are not those types of stories they don't have this like tight mysterious very like structured plot where you're like this is all leading to this main thing that will be revealed and then we will know the answer to the question like it's just not like that and for that reason i think i like it more i also feel like it feels more real like the world and the people in it feel more lived in because life is rarely that structured that planned that neatly building up to a climax the fact of the magic in this world while it is pieces of it are explained and as you read more books in the world of the first law they become more clear and you get more pieces of information but there's never a sense that this book event like these books eventually will give you the answer because much like in the real world you know we still have physicists and geologists and like those people aren't just historians they're not just studying what we've already learned and know we are still learning today about our own world and our own universe and similarly in the world of the first law there are pieces of it that are known there are individuals within this universe that clearly know more about it than your average joe who you are following and it's just some of it is also just unknowable even the people who are experts in it don't have all the answers and that feels so much more realistic to me than something where at the end you're like here's the answer to all the magic here's how it works neatly laid out for you again i do understand the appeal of that type of magic in a book there is something that the fact that the world isn't actually like that there is something that is satisfying about a fantasy world where you get all those answers that the real world never gives you i get that but i like that this world it feels more real because it doesn't give you those answers because it's not like and here's what it all meant that said like because when you reread it and when you reread it and when you reread it you know what type of story you're getting into you know that the story itself is really not the point there is a plot people who say it's plotless it's not plotless there is a plot but that's not the point the thing that's driving it onward the thing that you're here for is not the plot the plot is interesting it's laden with battle in politics and intrigue and backstabbing and twists and turns that's not to say that that doesn't that it's just like a bunch of people navel gazing stuff happens but it's not a plot driven story it is a character driven story and so we are watching these characters like navigate their own horrendous world and that is what we were here for is to spend time with them as they figure out how to survive in this harrowing world now it's very it's it's impossible for me to review this book as though i would had only just read the blade itself and had never read any books that come later it's not possible for me to review it as like hey like this is your first entry into it and you don't know what comes next and here's how you feel about it because one the first time that i read it i was a very different person and if i had reviewed it then i would have been like uh like he i guess he can write like it's apparent that you know the prose is good and it's you know it seems like it's pretty well coupled together but just like why why would you want to read this and then by the time that i reread it i already i hadn't i didn't know where the story was gonna go next but i knew what i was getting into the second time i read it and then the third time i read it it was having read all the books that come after it so it's just i've i'm not able to review it as though it's my first time into it and what it will be like for you the first time you go into it what i can say is that it is a rewarding read if what you are looking for is a character-driven story if what you're looking for is something grim dark and cynical and at times nihilistic darkly humorous and just the best word that i can constantly which i've said multiple times in this video is real it feels real and not because like this historically could have really happened because there's magic but obviously it's not real but these feel like real flawed layered human beings who are navigating an intensely flawed and corrupt and violent world and and yet another grim dark i've read not all can go overboard on that and just be only darkness only horror only depression only misery and that's not to say there isn't a great deal of horror misery and violence in these books but the world no matter how dark it is is never just darkness and so it's reminiscent to me of some of my other favorite books like i really loved angela's ashes for a long time i mean i still do but it was like my official favorite book for a long time you weren't expecting here about angela's ashes in a review about the blade itself for you but if you've read angela's ashes it's the harrowing memoir of an irish man's childhood growing up in like absolutely abject poverty in ireland um and it's but it's told through the eyes of a child and so there is there is undoubtable humor there is absolute comedy in what he is experienced in what he is told as a child the way that a child like the the sense and the logic that a child applies to the world that they're confronted with so in an abracame book i feel similarly like there's plenty of gallows humor but there's also genuine just humor and i don't want to say that it's all just violence and jokes because it's not there are heartfelt moments there are heart breaking moments there are tragic moments there are violent and horrifying moments there are comedic moments that is why it feels real because life is not as pretty as a heroic fantasy would make it out to be but it's not as a bleak as plenty of grim dark makes it out to be the world that we inhabit and that the these characters inhabit is similar in that unfortunately there is a great deal of corruption a great deal of abuse of power a great deal of bullying a great deal of injustice and that is all reflected here but for every injustice there is also a person with hope for every malevolent individual there is a hopeful and kind and loving one and yet humans are also never that simple an evil person is not evil 24-7 they're not evil when they wake up they're not evil when they're eating porridge they're not evil when they go to sleep they probably have people they care about they probably have things to keep them up at night they probably have things they think that they have done well similarly people who regard themselves as noble and try to do the right thing definitely aren't perfect and definitely have dark thoughts and are capable of dark things possibly more so sometimes if life makes them the pendulum swing the other way so to speak the main takeaway from Abercrombie and this is an incredible introduction I mean this is a review of the blade itself but I mean I can't talk about it without the greater world of the first law what you get in the blade itself is this multiple perspective introduction to a world where there is no such thing as the good guy and there is no such thing as the bad guy and you just got to get used to it you just got to get used to the fact that everyone you're following here is a person in this world and that's really all that can be said about them you cannot label them as the good guys or the bad guys you cannot put them in boxes you cannot neatly call them a hero an anti-hero an anti-villain a villain they defy definition because human beings in the real world defy definition and that when you pick up the blade itself the first time is unusual and a little rough to get used to because especially fantasy tends to not be that structuralist but when you read it and reread it and reread it I just become spoiled for every other kind of book because few other authors capture the messy layered often grim truth that is humanity that is institutions of power that is the war that is everything really so should you read the blade itself absolutely will you give it five stars the first time you read it I don't I don't think I don't necessarily feel like it deserves five stars the first time that you read it I don't know that it's possible to appreciate it to the full extent the first time that you read it but because even though I've said that the plot doesn't really isn't really the point of these books there is a plot and by the end of the trilogy there are answers to questions that are posed in the first book and despite it not being that type of book where everything is a puzzle box with a macguffin and an answer and a twist reveal it's not that kind of story and yet and yet much like how actual you know an actual criminal investigation or mystery is not as neat as you know an Agatha Christie like first we suspect of this guy but that's a red herring and then we find the telltale thing and then they confess and then we have our meet-up like it's not that neat and yet you begin to see the hints and the seeds of the truth in the beginning and so the more times that you read it the more you realize how despite feeling directionless there are so many seeds planted for what is to come so that without you realizing it it's not the kind of book where you're sitting there going well that's going to be important later let me write that down well that seems to be foreshadowing something I'm gonna write that down life isn't really that way so you just kind of things are happening and you're like stuff's happening people are doing stuff and by the time the end rolls around the end feels earned the end feels like yeah that yeah that fits that didn't come out of nowhere you clearly didn't decide this at the last minute because you needed an ending because when I go back to reread it I'm like oh my god you just snuck in there all these little hints and all these truths that would have to be there for the end to be the way that it is and when you reread it you're like that is genius for you to have just put all this in without us realizing you were foreshadowing anything but it makes the payoff that much better and I don't want to oversell the payoff of the end of the trilogy because the end of the trilogy is just as much of a haha shit on fantasy expectations as the rest of it is it's not a satisfying neat answer and yet the ending is conclusive and does it is the is what everything has been building towards even if it didn't seem that way and even if it's not in the way that you would typically expect and so I find immense joy reading and rereading and rereading and rereading and rereading the blade itself because the characters even from page one of this debut novel are so fully fleshed out and fully realized and fully fleshed in blood human beings that have distinct personalities that you don't even have to see the dialogue tag of who is speaking to know who is speaking because this patterns of their speech their idiomatic expressions their world view is so clear and that doesn't mean it's simple it just means it's recognizably them that from book one you're like yeah these are characters that I know and when I go back to read the first book it's not like all this is early day it's like I know them and I love hanging out with them even though this world is grim af so yeah basically I'm saying if you're cool with what I just described you should read the blade itself and you should take it for what it's worth the first time you read it but I do encourage you to reread it once you've read the later books because it's a rewarding reread I love it more every time that I read it and I I can't recommend it enough and yet that I don't want people going into the first book expecting to be wowed by the first book because while I was the second time that I read it I was into it with the first book I was still like but also where is any of this going like all right like this is definitely up my alley more than it was the first time I read it but also like kind of low key what was the point of any of that and then the third time I read it I was like I think I need to give this five stars because like there is a point to this stuff and like I see what you did and now the fourth time reading it it's just me curling up with that comfort bowl of mac and cheese or I'm like yep I know these characters I know this story let's do this thing it is perfect and I wouldn't change anything about it even though the first time it doesn't hit the same I wouldn't change a thing about it as a piriri it's perfect so let me know in the comments down below if you have in fact read the blade itself if you agree with me having read it on my assessment of it if I have now inspired you to pick it up if you read it and you hated it feel free to let me know that as well because I was there too once upon a time I low key hated it whatever you want to let me know I post videos on saturdays other random times as well but definitely saturdays so like and subscribe particularly if you like Joe Abercrombie because I take every excuse I can find to talk about Joe Abercrombie anyway yeah I'll uh see you when I see you bye