Abercrombie's first novel reads like one of the Coen Brothers more violent movies, with blood spattered everywhere and wry dialogue. But where the Coens are calculated and sparse, Abercrombie is halfway to a potentially cheesy version of cheesy 80's fantasy classics on tv. The scope may be a tad ambitious, but on a whole, the book is easy to take in even with all the blood and gore.
I appreciate the author's handling of magic. While all fighting is described viscerally, furiously, and becomes almost baroque, the magic doesn't include a lot of flowing robes, muttering of abracadabra, exposition on mechanics, or zipping lances of light which explode into fireballs. Instead, the magic happens internally, producing dramatic results without mysticism shrouding the proceedings. In fact, it feels more dangerous this way. Ultimately, I appreciate Bayaz, the magi and not-so-simple butcher. I like him a lot in fact and am glad that Abercrombie leaves the mystery intact.
Abercrombie's greatest strength is the unusual humor that his characters are prone to wittingly or unwittingly inspire. However, sometimes the transition for their actions seems rushed and implausible, the reconciliation between the inquisitor and West for example. Overall, the author developes a unique tone of brutal animism and satirical farce that spar from chapter to chapter and at the end, from scene to scene within the chapter. This structural climax is where the slow construction of the book shines. The clash/knitting together feels highly intuitive and natural, mirroring the plot and reinforcing the connections between the characters. And while the stereotypes themselves come from a shallow barrel, their perspectives are broached slightly off center enough for the reader to get something out of it. Logan, the barbarian, is a cipher through most of the book, withdrawn and full of internal conflict, but by the end of the tale, when Abercrombie shoves us into the mindset of his berserker rage and hacks down corrupt minions, we understand where all that comes from. This structurally devised suspense was subtle enough when it needed to be yet satisfyingly dramatic. The weight of the images is all words here and works quite well.
While the slow pace and unusual structure of climaxes in the book didn't bother me, much of the fighting scenes are simply descriptive scenic detours, ones that didn't really move the plot as much as get the characters from one place to another. They felt almost extraneous, a novelized version of a flashy film scene - or what I'm calling action writing. Like an action movie you can fast forward through them and sometimes not miss a thing. I'm not sure that this kind of detailed play by play serves a book that flirts with being an epic. The intensity actually makes the book seem slower than it really is.
This is not only just literary snobbery talking - to show and not tell - because don't get me wrong, Abercrombie is good at telling about picturesque medieval gore, but some aspects of the written word don't translate well or easily to cinema in terms that we are used to, and so the reverse. I wouldn't put that down as a universal rule but perhaps any discussion of action writing should be spoken about in tandem with the bias against cinematic spectacular, particularly, the argument that they are essentially empty of meaning but visually rich. And while this becomes a hairy topic when comparing visual and visual meaning, it is even more strange to find such a comparison between written images and mental ones. I can't quite circle my finger around the entire objection right now, but the distance between reading and imagining is part of it. Perhaps this novel has a workmanship that I can't appreciate, like a really good splatter scene in a slasher movie, or a particularly fine special effect in a sci-fi flick. Maybe The Blade Itself is more like porn and romance novels in function. In that case, this book is genre bending and pretty awesome right?
Definitely uneven, The Blade Itself accomplishes some sound literary feats that I appreciate. The author's prose is serviceable enough, if not completely polished, but falls apart as a story when indulging in description or weak plotting that perhaps work better on screen. Definitely flawed, but I'm invested in the characters and their backstory enough to be curious about the next novel in the series. If there's just going to be a lot more "telling" however, I'm going to take it as an invitation to bash the fast forward button.
Edit: The second two novels made no impression except more of the same unfortunately. Perhaps this a flaw in my ability to pick up the pleasures of such a text.
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