lightreads

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Epic fantasy of the gritty new millennium anti-hero type. Pretty underwhelming after all the rave reviews. Look, I liked the prisoner-of-war turned state torturer as much as the next girl (that's quite a lot, actually), but if I hadn't already read Abercrombie's Best Served Cold, I'd be making some uncertainly dubious faces about his portrayal and treatment of female characters right about now. And all that interesting, complicated work he did with the torturer's disability and rage and trauma and general twisted awesomeness? Yeah, I give that a lot less weight in a book that also includes some seventh-grade humor on the 'it's funny when people with speech problems talk' level. No seriously. Apparently, when people who have had their tongues severely damaged or removed say things, particularly menacing things, it's hilarious! One wonders what comedy gold Abercrombie would attempt with a dwarf trying to reach something on a top shelf, or a paraplegiac crawling up a flight of stairs. I snapped 'oh, fuck you' at that point, and the whole thing felt pretty sour after, knowing that sort of thing could be in the offing again at any moment. And confusing, because he is so obviously better than something like that.

I'm invested enough in the torturer to keep going. (Wow. Never said that before). But this was not at all the awesome groundbreaking fantasy I was led to expect.




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