The Blade Itself

This is a grimdark novel so you get the things associated with that like violence and morally ambiguous characters. It's not overly dark though and part of this is because Abercrombie's writing style is layered with wit and sarcasm which adds an element of amusement that lightens things up.

As far as a story though there really isn't one...at all. The first novel is basically a 501 page introduction to the characters. You get their motivations, their personalities, and so on. Basically everything that makes them tick. This is obviously an intentional choice by the author and while I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it, even as a person who enjoys character driven narratives, I still found myself wishing for a bit more story wise. Ultimately though that's going to come down to a matter of preference.

Going back to the characters, I would say this is the strength of the book. I mean it better be if you're using your entire book as a intro to the series. You have a good variety of characters and I enjoyed most of them. I'm a sucker for wit, sarcasm, and cynical characters and this book has those in spade. Sand Dan Glokta in particular with his sardonic attitude greatly amused me at times, while at others I found him absolutely repulsive.

It's a similar story with the other characters where at times their personality resonates with you, but at others you realize they're heavily flawed and a times to put it bluntly, assholes. The nuance there makes for very compelling character writing which was enough to immerse me in this book. So much so that even without a story I thoroughly enjoyed myself.