Stumbling down out of the wilderness, he hears that a great wizard is seeking him: none other than Bayaz, First of the Magi, who is even more of a legend than Logen himself. Now he’s just an ageing warrior, separated from his band during a battle against the bloodthirsty Shanka. But his days as the fearsome ‘Bloody Nine’ are over. Logen Ninefingers is a legend: the kind of legend told to naughty children to scare them into compliance, or to chill your companions’ bones around the campfire. For those who’ve read the series, I wonder: can you guess who my favourite character is? This first instalment drops us into a world peopled by fantasy tropes, who gradually develop into rounded, complex individuals before our eyes, treated both with wit and compassion. It blends elements of sword-and-sorcery with court politics and, though it does little but lay the foundations of the plot for the rest of the series, it introduces us to a series of deliciously complex characters. I’ve read and enjoyed other works by Joe Abercrombie, and his First Law trilogy seems to be widely regarded as a modern classic of fantasy. In fact, it’s remarkable that it’s taken me this long. Now, however, the stars have aligned, and I raced through from the first page to the last, happily captivated. I bought this book in 2013 and have started it several times over the years but, for some reason, kept getting distracted after a few chapters.
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