:INFO
The Fantasy Trilogy That Taught Me to Love Complicated People
Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy opens with three characters who would be villains in a more conventional fantasy novel. Logen Ninefingers is a barbarian with a history of atrocities. Glokta is a crippled torturer who was once a hero. Jezal is a vain and cowardly nobleman. By the end of the first book I cared about all three of them. Abercrombie does something most fantasy writers do not attempt: he asks what heroism looks like when the people doing it are genuinely flawed.


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531 Pages
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3 Books in Series

:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Joe Abercrombie]
You have to be realistic about these things.


:JOURNEY
Reading The Blade Itself
4 Slow to converge
5 Most complex
4 Frightening and sympathetic
5 Unexpected setup

:CHECKLIST
What Makes the First Law Trilogy Different From Other Fantasy
[ ] The moral ambiguity is consistent and never softened for reader comfort
[ ] The magic is deliberately limited and not the center of the story
[ ] The political intrigue is grounded in real human motivation rather than plot need
[ ] The trilogy ending subverts genre expectations in ways that still divide readers

:POLL
Which First Law character do you find most compelling?
Logen Ninefingers, the bloody-nine
Glokta, the torturer who was once a hero
Jezal, the nobleman who has to become something better
Someone from the later novels in the world