I met this author completely spontaneously. For my birthday, a friend gave me the story “Red Country”, and after that another friend praised Abercrombie’s style and strongly advised me to read it. Why not, I thought, and three wonderful books appeared in the collection – “Blood and Iron”, “Before They Are Hanged” and “The Last Argument of Kings”. By the way, the title of the first book in the original sounds like “Blade itself”, which can rather be translated as “Blade itself”. My point is that the title “Blood and Iron” is a little misleading regarding the events themselves taking place in the book, which cannot be said about the second and third novels of the series, everything is in order with the names. By the way, all three book titles are quotes from famous people and characters, namely: the first book is a quote from Homer from the Odyssey “The blade itself provokes violence”, the second book is a quote from Heinrich Goethe “We must forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged”, the third book is the words of Louis XIV, which were embossed on his cannons “Ultima Ratio Regum”, which translates as you guessed it, “The Last Argument of Kings”.
What is so remarkable about this cycle?? The author literally blew up the public, as critics said, and I quote, “The novel that revolutionized the fantasy genre.”. Is that so?? In my opinion no! Of course, this work definitely feels like a breath of fresh air, but I wouldn’t dare call it a revolution in the genre. But, let’s get acquainted with the “First Law”, or rather with its heroes.
There are six main characters in this cycle and this can be determined by the cool literary device that the author uses without a twinge of conscience. I will consider the main characters in “The First Law” to be those characters to whom the author gave the opportunity to speak out and narrate in the first person. This is an important point, because there are heroes who can be mistaken for the main characters, but if you read the series, you will understand that the author never looks into their heads and does not allow readers to do the same. This is worth keeping in mind. This feature is perfectly revealed when Abercrombie begins to describe the same event, but from the perspective of different characters, and from this it begins to be perceived much more voluminously, due to the inner voice of each of the characters. What kind of characters are these?? Let’s get to know them.
From the very first pages of the novel, the author introduces us to the brutal warrior of the north, the barbarian Logen Nine-fingered, nicknamed “Nine Deaths”. There have long been legends about him in the world, most of them bloody and gloomy. Death is his constant companion, wherever he goes. The next colorful character is Zand dan Glokta, a lame cripple, a soldier who went through the war and became a torturer of the Inquisition. Constantly balancing on the edge of an abyss of conspiracies and intrigues, where every mistake is fatal. Another hero is Jezal dan Lufar, a young nobleman and major, for whom drink and women are much more important than concepts of honor and conscience. I would single out these three main characters as the main ones, since they are the centers of gravity of the storylines that unfold in the cycle, but there are three more main characters whose role is also important. This is Collem West – an officer of the Union army, who, by the will of fate, found himself back at war. Bloodhound is a northern scout who has to rally people around him. And finally, Ferro Malgin is a runaway Southern slave obsessed with revenge.
Each of the main characters is Coldcascasino.co.uk interesting in its own way, and here a comparison arises with another series, the review of which was already on the channel – I mean “The Chronicles of Siala” by Alexey Pekhov. The main character of the Chronicles, a thief named Garrett, had a very sarcastic and, to put it mildly, disgusting character on the pages of the books. The author realized this using the constant internal monologue of the main character. Now imagine six Garretts, each of whom has their own internal monologue and, as a result, their own prism of perception of the environment. At the same time, I want to note that none of the main characters is positive, after all, the genre of the work is dark fantasy. Everyone seems to be constantly possessed by their inner demons, which leads to very interesting developments in the stories described in the books. How about, for example, a situation where three characters, by the will of fate, find themselves in the same room, but hate each other so much that the reader gets the opportunity to see not only the external manifestations of hypocrisy in the dialogues, but also the internal storm occurring in the minds of the characters. What can I say, internal monologues in books play a very important role, which allows you to feel the atmosphere of what is happening. And the discrepancy between external behavior and internal experiences is certainly the highlight of Abercrombie’s author’s style.
Okay, let’s move on from the characters to the setting of the work. The main events take place on the territory of the Union, which resembles Western Europe of the late Middle Ages. There is a feudal system, a monarch at the head of state, a bloated bureaucracy and a bunch of guilds, whose influence on the world is growing, as is the influence of the Inquisition. In addition, in terms of technology, the world is already on the verge of the appearance of firearms, which paints very interesting prospects for the development of the history of this universe. In addition, the author has already announced a new book called “A Little Hate,” which will take place during the Industrial Revolution, expanding the setting of this world. In addition to the clearly European flavor in the cycle there is the North, representing the Scandinavian countries and the Gurkhul Empire, representing an allusion to eastern states such as the Persian Empire. The world of books is huge and there are other places important to the plot, but I will not mention them, besides, the author deliberately did not draw maps of this universe, so we can only speculate what the geographical part of the series actually looks like. The setting for the events unfolding in the book will be two wars that broke out on the territory of the Union, one with the North, the second with Gurkhul. It’s a common practice in fantasy works to use war as one of the engines of the plot, but I’m being picky.
The characters have been touched upon, the surroundings and setting have been sorted out, let me now introduce you to the plot of the trilogy. I will try without critical spoilers, you can always catch them in the place specially designated for this at the end. Huge plot time is devoted to political intrigue, which is skillfully mixed with the adventures of the main characters. At the beginning of the first book, the author introduces us to the three main characters and determines for each his initial exposition.
Logen Nine-Toes is the only survivor of his squad, who is attacked by terrible Shanka creatures and is forced to fight for his life against an unfriendly environment and its equally unfriendly inhabitants.
At this time, Zand dan Glokta fights with… stairs, and I can tell you that the inner experiences of this complex character are the cherry on the cake of this work. The fact is that after torture in the Gurkhul dungeons, Glokta miraculously remained alive, but turned into an ugly, toothless and lame disabled person who can barely move and cannot do without a cane. Therefore, stairs are his worst enemies, because every step on the stairs sends pain through the whole body. He receives the task of extracting a certain confession from a member of a trade guild, naturally with the help of the Inquisition’s favorite weapon – torture.
Jezal dan Lufar begins his book time with attempts to prepare for a fencing tournament, which are actively mixed with the desire to spend more time in the company of friends and drinking buddies, instead of back-breaking training. By the way, get ready, there is a chance that this young man will infuriate and irritate you for most of the trilogy, that’s the kind of character the author gave him. On the one hand, terribly childish and narcissistic, on the other hand, cruel and hysterical. Not the best combination. Although as you read, a feeling of pity may also arise for him. But it depends on the reader’s luck.
As I said earlier, the Union is on the verge of two wars at once, and this feeling is reflected on the pages of the books – from a bright and carefree narrative at the beginning of the trilogy, to an increasingly hopeless state towards the end.
Glokta plunges into a very confusing tangle of political intrigues, in which everything is mixed up – from the king’s high council, to the heads of guilds, members of the Inquisition and completely unexpected participants.
Jezal, against his own will, goes on an incomprehensible, but very long and dangerous journey, in which he has to understand that the world is not as beautiful and rosy as he thought.
Logen managed to contact the first of the magicians, named Bayaz, who wanted to return to his rightful place in the king’s council.
The bloodhound is trying to stop Bethod, the named king of the North, who decided to seize the Union.
Ferro Malgin escapes from captivity and is simply obsessed with revenge on the Gurkhul spawn, so without hesitation she rushes into the thick of things.
And Collem West finds himself between a rock and a hard place in the theater of war, facing superior enemy forces and with a completely incapacitated army.
During their adventures, the heroes will be battered in completely different geographical places and situations, I personally was wildly interested in the development of two characters – Zand dan Glokta and Logen Nine-fingered, and in general I was not disappointed in my expectations, at least Glokta was revealed simply wonderfully! Logen is revealed a little more simply, but as for the other heroes, there remains a feeling of understatement. Another separate portion of a good aftertaste is left by episodes in which there are more than one hero – these episodes become much more prominent due to the skillful change of narrative, in this matter the author did an excellent job.
Let’s recap, and then I’ll briefly touch on spoilers. Do I recommend you read this series – definitely yes! This is a high-quality dark fantasy, light in writing style and with a very strong plot. The lines of good and evil are blurred as much as possible, but this is the trend of the genre. At the same time, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this work can be classified as an 18+ age category, since it contains quite a lot of explicit scenes of violence and love scenes. I warned you.
Welcome! Most likely you have already read the series, or you are not at all afraid of spoilers. Let’s not delay, so… Bayaz is the first of the magicians! Let’s talk about him. The fact is that he is also one of the main characters of the cycle, but implicitly. The author never narrates on his behalf, nevertheless, his presence is felt in many scenes not only materially, but also psychologically. Something similar was represented by Gabriel Sins from “Chronicles of the Remnant”. Only unlike Golovachev’s character, Bayaz turned out to be terribly frightening when the reader realizes his real power and intentions. He mixes conventional good and conventional evil into a common gray mess and follows the path known only to him. Fortunately, the ending, despite all the horror of the situation in which the Union found itself at the bloody price of stopping the war, turned out to be very cooling. But in my opinion, such an ending, where each of the heroes received what they actually deserved, is brave and harmonious to the situation. Jezal became a hostage to his obligations, Logen a fugitive king, Glokta the overseer of the Union. The fate of the rest remains open. The only unsolved story arc in my opinion is the character of Ferro Malgin, which ended completely indistinctly.
That’s all! If you liked it, don’t forget to write about it in the comments and write books that you would like to see reviewed. Reviews are available in video format on the “Areas of Chaos” channel – subscribe so you don’t miss new videos! The next review will be of the Ender novel series by Card Orson Scott. Read good books! Bye everyone!