Si può immaginare la Compagnia dell'Anello guidata da Saruman al posto di Gandalf? Con un Azzurro come Re degli uomini, al posto del virtuoso e inflessibile Aragorn?

Abercrombie ci ha un po' provato, e in gran parte anche riuscito. I suoi protagonisti sono insopportabili quando va male, positivi ma avviati per una brutta brutta china quando va bene. Non mi hanno fatta sentire al codazzo di una compagnia di eroi, o di "simpatici fuorilegge dal cuore tenero", rilassata e convinta che avrebbero vinto alla fine. Nel senso che non ero proprio sicura di volere che vincessero...

Insomma, se volete un fantasy vecchio stile dovreste guardare altrove, perché questo per alcuni versi non lascia soddisfatti. Però ho cercato immediatamente se ci fossero dei seguiti ambientati nello stesso mondo, perché voglio sapere, perdinci, soprattutto per alcuni di loro, voglio sapere!

Il più grosso difetto che ascrivo al libro è la scrittura a volte ripetitiva, che, in un'edizione comprensiva dell'intera trilogia, con ben 1100 pagine da macinare, si è fatta sentire in diversi punti. Alcuni personaggi hanno dei siparietti fissi (Glotka e le sue "scale maledetteh!") che vengono riproposti pressoché uguali ogni volta, a volte ho distintamente percepito frasi che avrebbero potuto essere tagliate con grande tranquillità senza alterare minimamente l'andamento della storia, combattimenti troppo dettagliati senza essere davvero emozionanti (quante volte una spada può "mancarti di un soffio", o un alleato salvarti all'ultimo minuto dal nemico con la mannaia che già si abbassa su di te?).

Possibile che leggendo i libri separatamente i difetti si percepiscano di meno, ma in un'epoca un cui un fantasy non può non essere una trilogia-mattone, mi piacerebbe non avere l'impressione che l'autore venga pagato a parola come ai tempi di Dickens.

Il linguaggio scurrile è in alcuni punti un po' gratuito, con nobili che potrebbero far sfigurare gli scaricatori di porto, anche lì ho avuto l'impressione che fosse fatto apposta per "distinguersi da solito fantasy" e dimostrare che "siamo nel mondo di Mainaggioia, mica la Terra di Mezzo".

Ecco, lo consiglio, ma non mettetelo in mano ai più giovani, fatevelo dire da una che di traumi da letture precoci ne ha avuti tanti.

( )

4 and a half stars. the trilogy consists of The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings. Abercrombie places this work in the usual semi-medieval setting of this subgenre, complete with magic; but it is unusually a broadside against war, delineated in all its gritty, unsettling, and indecorous detail, and with all the destruction it causes front and center. as such it's a profoundly cynical Point of View, expressed and/or disavowed by a collection of riveting and memorable figures in the thick of it, including an unsung hero of... the Inquisition. but though it's pointed, it's also passionate. it loves its setting, and its characters - and inventing ever-new obstacles to strew in their path, too. it sets them up, it knocks them down, then they (mostly) get up to do it all over again. you've got to admire their perseverance. and i kind of love all the writing, the wicked joy of it, the world, built up over time over a thousand years only to be torn down again. is it the human condition? all that striving, all that building, all that care expended, to make something thought of as permanent, like say civilization, only to half-willfully, half-unwittingly, fail to preserve it (the status quo, or the dearly desired, or the dastardly plans) once again. is it inevitable, or not? read on. because it also reads really well, rollicking from page to page and from book to book with a zest and breakneck pace that make the whole work difficult to put down. along the way all the usual stock figures are made fresh, and all the conventions are subverted, and the result is one of those breath-of-fresh-air new standards that may change the genre as a whole for the better. ( )

’If a thing smells like shit, and is the colour of shit, the chances are it is shit.’”

In “The First Law Trilogy (#1-3)” by Joe Abercrombie

“’No one likes to shake hands with the man who empties the latrine pits either, but pits have to be emptied all the same. Otherwise the world fills up with shit.’”

In “The First Law Trilogy (#1-3)” by Joe Abercrombie

“A soldier was dragged past with an arrow in his eye. ‘Is it bad?’ he was wailing, ‘is it bad?’”

In “The First Law Trilogy (#1-3)” by Joe Abercrombie

“Every man had his own special language of agony. Some screamed and howled without end. Some cried out for help, for mercy, for water, for their mothers. Some coughed and gurgled and spat blood. Some wheezed and rattled out their last breaths.”

In “The First Law Trilogy (#1-3)” by Joe Abercrombie

World building has always been the last refuge of the untalented when it comes to fantasy writing. If more time was spent on plot and characters, and less of GDP and child mortality rates of these 'fantasy worlds,' we'd all be a lot better off. If you compare how many pages are in the Illiad, or in Fritz Lieber's works, or in Joe Abercrombie's, say, and compare it to the doorstops of Martin and Jordan, then it's crystal clear that 'world building' can often be an unnecessary device. Abercrombie, as an example, created better characters in 4 pages of writing, than most authors did with 4 novels. More is not necessary better. World building is always problematic for me, because IMO, it robs the reader of imagination, of the ability and experience of filing in the gaps yourself, and becoming immersed in the world, which is a joy to me as a reader. Let's take the Shire from LotR as an example. Everybody's Shire is different, because every reader, every person, is unique, and has their own unique take on the Shire. Sure, the rolling green hills are there for everybody, but everybody's rolling green hills will be different. Bilbo's front do, or at Bag End will be its own unique and subtle shade of green for everybody. But if the author gives us every nut and bolt, fills in every blank, and gives us reams of economic data on a world or a person, then the imagination, the wonder, is lost. As a kid, I used to wonder at how strange and wonderful Numenor was in this particular world, but then Tolkien and his son gave us notebooks worth of backstory, filing in every gap, and Numenor lost its sparkle and wonder...

That's just the difference between good world building and bad world building. The suggestive unexplained detail hinting at wonders yet unrevealed (Abercrombie’s and Tolkien’s without the Notes) versus exhaustive and exhausting detail (like Jordan and Martin). Most of time it’s clearly just a question of balance. But if you read fantasy (of the imagined world’s variety) you need to believe this is a real place rather than just a hastily knocked together wonderland, even if you don't need reams of econometric data. Actually this why I generally don't read much fantasy anymore, except for a few authors here and there like Abercrombie. Nothing gets me frothing at the mouth more quickly than "You are the Chosen One, who must use the Staff of Wonders to defeat the Dark Duke!!" None of that in Abercrombie's SF. You get Sand dan Glokta instead, which is much, much better...

Nb: The Blade Itself (5), Before They Are Hanged (4) and Last Argument of Kings (5) ( )

a wonderful array of real charterers , neither good nor evil , just human with human frailties and passions . say one things for Logan Ninefingers , say he is realistic :) ( )

Quite dark fantasy. The first two books kind of stumble along a bit, but the third is considerably better. It actually reads how I was first expecting Shadow of the Torturer to go, which as it turns out is a completely different book altogether, but would be a better name for this series.

We follow a small selection of characters starting with a barbarian Northman Logan Ninefingers, who turns out to be a full berserker as feared by his friends as his allies. He's separated from a group whom he conquered in duals, and ends up summoned by a Southern mage. Other interests gathered by the mage include Ferro an equally barbarous woman fleeing from slavers of the deep south, Jezal a pampered captain of the city, and Sand de Glokta, a vicious torturer, formally heroic knight, but captured by the deep southerners he's spent two years in their prisons, and returned a broken man, but not as bitter as you might expect. Few other women grace the pages, only one (a sister of the captain's friend) in anything other than passing mention.

Fate (and/ or the Mage) throws these unlikely persons together for a while, as they journey at the mage's behalf to retrieve some ancient artifact from an island at The Edge of The (known) World. Meanwhile the King commands war in the North as one of Logan's ex-enemies raises armies of his own. The South take advantage of this and decide to invade in overwhelming force of their own.

All of which leads to the only moral of the book - don't fight wars on two fronts at once. And don't get involved with affairs of wizards because they are subtle and quick to anger, though the latter is less relevant to modern life. It only becomes apparent in the third book when the motivations of everybody are finally laid bare.

It's dark fantasy, so much in the american mould there's a lot of violence. Really graphic violence and gore, but only against men. There's no nudity and only a little sex in the middle book. For the extremes of the violence (Sand is a major character and torturer by profession) the few women get away remarkably untouched throughout. Sand remains a kind of anti-hero throughout. He seldom interacts with any of the other characters, and pursues his own life, asking questions and reporting answers. But his involvement in the main plot gets ever deeper. Logan takes the a lot of the remaining action, with the annoying tag line "you can say one thing about logan he's" variable.It was funny the first couple of times, but quickly became annoying.

Overall whilst the conflict and resolution of the third book was well handled the drudgery of the first two never quite became exciting enough for me to want to read more in this series. ( )