Book Review: The First Law Series by Joe Abercrombie

More than words, here’s an example of how great this series was. In the middle of the second book, the last novel of the Wheel of Time series was released. To the wife’s shock, not only did I not stop halfway through, I went ahead and read the third book as well! All because I wanted to know what happens next. It’s that good.

The book breaks cliches, and that’s something which is priceless. It starts out by promising the cliche and ends by not giving it to us. The endings will surprise you, make no mistake about it. It’s classic fantasy and Joe Abercrombie is an excellent writer. Instead of a huge sprawling cast, he chooses to focus on a few solid characters like Stephen King does in The Dark Tower series. As a result they’re wonderfully fleshed out and the plot moves forward at a fast clip with very little fluff.

I’ve never liked too much of internal dialogue. Guess I got fed up with an excess of it in the Wheel of Time. But I barely even noticed in “The First Law” series because it’s so good. So apt. Parts of the book are really funny – that subtle type of humor which kind of hits you just a bit later instead of all at once.

The hero – Logen becomes more and more engaging as the book progresses. These are real characters – not cardboard cutouts. Good and bad are blurred here and even though you think you know how the book is going to end…well, I already mentioned that it doesn’t fulfill standard expectations didn’t I?

I’ve heard that there are quite a few standalone books set in the same world. You can be sure that I’m going to read them all. It’s not over that much I can tell. There’s no way the author can just leave the story where the third book ended. I’m going to finish up the last book in the Wheel of Time series and then wolf down the standalone books. It’s been a really long time since I read a fantasy work not part of a larger series, but I’ll make an exception here.

Go ahead and pick up “The First Law” series by Joe Abercrombie. You owe it to yourself if you’re an avid fantasy reader like myself.