The Blade Itself

I had heard great things about Joe Abercrombie. His books are on all the lists of fantasy books to read and many people rate this book as awesome.

I do not. I try to finish most books,  but is just couldn't bring myself to do so. I got to my 50 page rule and have no interest in it.

A crippled torturer, a "barbarian," to cool for you jock/captain of something along with some kind of wizard get together eventually and do something. I don't even know what,  but bad guys from the north have something to do with it. I don't even know.

The characters are supposed to be cool, but they are really just either creepy or cocky. The torture has an obviously gross and gory line of work and although he says he's trying to find meaning in the brutality, he keeps doing it and finds pleasure in it. The captain reminds me of a stereotypical football jock who is on the team to get the cheerleaders to look at him and to get drunk at the next kegger held. His friends were pretty cool and could have had a more interesting story than jock boy. The barbarian man,  though I don't know his age (supposedly has a family that was murdered,  but he very much acts and talks younger than an adult so I don't know for sure), brutal decapitates a kid. He boy was part of a bandit group,  I get it,  but ick. Abercrombie didn't have to make him a boy or be as gross with it as he was. At this point I just stopped. Too gross for me.

It is just the beginning of the book so the characters haven't had their trials to smooth out their character yet. I get that. It's the character arc. Obviously they grow somehow but I just don't care. They aren't engaging enough for me to want to see them grow.

The jock had a run through the city and that was pretty cool for about the two seconds of setting we got,  but aside from "mountains," "cliff," "water," maybe "bog," and "torture room" there wasn't much setting even though the descriptions were long. There was white gloves and plaster which made me put it in a more modern sterile setting, but then everywhere else felt fantasy-ish. My mind couldn't decide where to put people or the intended setting around them.

Between the constant profanity (F-bombs included) and the gore/creepy factor,  I'm relieved to put this book down.

Lady Knight

Lady Knight, the last book (#4) in the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce.

Squire Kel has overcome her Ordeal and has become the second Lady Knight Tortall has seen in centuries. Just as she's become a knight, war breaks out in the north against the normally clannish Scandarans. They have joined together under one dangerous man and has assaulted Tortall with killing machines that no one has seen before.

Kel is given the unwanted task of commanding and housing refugees from the war stricken borderlands. She is to keep them safe from raiders and occasional assaults from people Scandarans who make it past the border patrols. This happens far more often than it should. Kel trains the nearly 500 refugees to fight so then the 50 or so soldiers aren't the only line of defence against the enemy and their killing machines. Nothing ever goes smoothly for Kel, and this is no exception.

I didn't feel I could give this full points because the beginning dragged a lot for me. It was very slow going at the start up until Kel leaves for Fort Mastiff the second time. Once Tobe finds her again things picked up for me a lot, but that seemed to be about half way through the book. I wish it would have gone faster or been more engaging for me throughout the first part.

The characters were different enough in this book that it was easier to tell them apart. I remember the first time I read this that the "Cast of Characters" at the end helped me keep them where they were supposed to be in my head. Very helpful. But their names were different enough and personalities real enough that they seemed just that, more real. I think I enjoyed the variety new and consistency of old characters that were given here.

Setting was better than in previous books, which made me happier and we were even given more maps to follow along with.

My only other complain is that *spoilers* at the end when Kel goes after the bad guys and gets the refugees back, that the death of the magician was so quick. Hardly a fight with him. The "dog" has a pretty good fight, but the mastermind behind it all... it fell flat for me. I get that it could be a writerly thing to do because the mage was such a pansy in the first place that Kel could have dispatched him in literally a paragraph besides the dialog. But there was a really big build up for it, since Squire, that I just wanted a bit more.

Other readers might complain that the travel time into Scandar was long and could feel like it dragged, but I thought it was pretty good. Her trying to get others to go away is what took forever for me. Travel time is hard to write and keep engaging, but for this particular journey I think Tamora did pretty good.

A good book and a good way to end the series. I'd probably go through and reread it again in a while.