Joe Abercrombie
Autor(a) de The Blade Itself
About the Author
Joe Abercrombie is a freelance film editor, working mostly on documentaries and live music events. He lives and works in London. The First Law is his debut series. He won a Locus Award 2015 for science-fiction in the Young Adult Book Category with his title Half a King. (Bowker Author Biography)
Image credit: Joe Abercrombie
(Photograph by Lou Abercrombie)
Séries
Obras de Joe Abercrombie
The Great Change (and Other Lies) 22 cópias
Some Desperado 12 cópias
Joe Abercrombie First Law Series 3 Books Collection Set (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, Last Argument Of… (2020) 10 cópias
Tough Times All Over 6 cópias
The Beautiful Machine 4 cópias
Half a King: free sampler 2 cópias
La Première loi, T3 : Dernier combat (French Edition) 1 exemplar(es)
L'Âge de la folie, T1 : Un soupçon de haine 1 exemplar(es)
The Devils (The Devils, #1) 1 exemplar(es)
Půl světa (Moře střepů, #2) 1 exemplar(es)
PRIMERA LEY II - Antes de que los cuelguen. Vol 2 1 exemplar(es)
Ostré konce 1 exemplar(es)
PRIMERA LEY II - Antes de que los cuelguen. Vol 1 1 exemplar(es)
The first law 1 exemplar(es)
Last Argument of Kings 1 exemplar(es)
Terres de sang - L'Intégrale 1 exemplar(es)
Joe Abercrombie The Age Of Madness 2 Books Collection Set (A Little Hatred, The Trouble With Peace) (2020) 1 exemplar(es)
Skipping Town 1 exemplar(es)
Associated Works
Speculative Fiction 2012: The best online reviews, essays and commentary (Volume 1) (2013) — Contribuinte — 41 cópias
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Nome de batismo
- Abercrombie, Joseph Edward
- Data de nascimento
- 1974-12-31
- Sexo
- male
- Nacionalidade
- UK
- Local de nascimento
- Lancaster, Lancashire, England, UK
- Locais de residência
- London, England, UK
Bath, Somerset, England, UK - Educação
- University of Manchester (Psychology)
- Ocupação
- editor
novelist
short-story writer - Pequena biografia
- Joe Abercrombie is a British fantasy writer and film editor. He is the author of The First Law trilogy, as well as other fantasy books in the same setting and a trilogy of young adult novels. His novel Half a King won the 2015 Locus Award for best Young Adult book.
Joe Abercrombie was born in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. He was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, where he studied psychology.
Abercrombie had a job making tea at a television production company before taking up a career as a freelance film editor. As a freelance film editor, Abercrombie found himself with more free time than he previously had. With this time, he decided to reconsider a story plot he conceived while attending University.
Abercrombie began writing The Blade Itself in 2002, completing it in 2004. It took a year of rejection by publishing agencies before Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz accepted the book for a five-figure deal in 2005 ("a seven-figure deal if you count the pence columns"). It was published by Gollancz in 2006 and was followed in the succeeding two years by two other books in the trilogy, by the titles of Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings, respectively. In 2008, Joe Abercrombie was a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer. That same year Abercrombie was one of the contributors to the BBC Worlds of Fantasy series, alongside other contributors such as Michael Moorcock, Terry Pratchett and China Miéville. In 2009, Abercrombie released the novel Best Served Cold. It is set in the same world as The First Law Trilogy but is a stand-alone novel. He followed with The Heroes (2011) and Red Country (2012), both again set in the world of the First Law Trilogy. The three standalone novels were later collected into an omnibus edition under the name The Great Leveller.
In 2011, Abercrombie signed a deal with Gollancz for four more books set in the First Law world. In 2013, HarperCollins' fantasy and children's imprints acquired the rights to three books by Abercrombie, aimed at younger readers. The three standalone but interconnected novels were released as the Shattered Sea trilogy.
Membros
Resenhas
Passable, but nothing to write home about.
Again, like the previous book, this book was passable but nothing special.
No matter what anyone says about this stuff, none of it holds a candle to Mistborn.
No matter what anyone says about this stuff, none of it holds a candle to Mistborn.
Reasonable, but not mind-blowing. It seems like very little actually happened in this book.
Listas
Prêmios
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 62
- Also by
- 16
- Membros
- 30,753
- Popularidade
- #646
- Avaliação
- 4.2
- Resenhas
- 1,046
- ISBNs
- 542
- Idiomas
- 23
- Favorito
- 137
Set in a medieval world of swords, battles, grinding poverty, and ostentatious wealth – it helps to think 11th century England – there is an active, ongoing war among the heads of various territories to become the ruler over all. Referred to by the inhabitants as the Years of Blood, it is clear that the acquisitive obsessions of the various dukes have created a 19-year-long, grinding, bloody, tedious, wasteful siege-state among the peoples.
The varied characters are introduced well, and their facets are revealed to us in measured and organic ways as they pursue their own objectives, both clear and hidden. Shivers, Morveer, Cosca, Vitari: each are recruited systematically by Monza as she moves relentlessly towards her objective. These compatriots are interesting and engaging; we want to know more about them and their goings on, and the novel is sufficiently well written that it had me rapidly turning the pages.
However. About half way through the book, it begins to be a bit of a slog. Things become repetitive: descriptions of battles, a person’s characteristics, catchphrases (“Mercy and cowardice are the same thing.”) These same phrases and sentences are repeated, and repeated, and…repeated.
For example, we have been with Monza through 70% of the book, learning more and more about her mercenary character (“the Butcher of Caprile”) and the many, many battles she has orchestrated and won, when we get the following phrase: “in her experience, and she had plenty, …”. Yes. We get it. She’s had a lot of experience. We’ve been reading about that experience, in detail, for the last 300 pages.
And speaking of detail, while the depiction of violence is necessary to evoke the times and to make the author’s point, it does eventually cross over into violence porn: paragraph after paragraph full of detailed depictions of gruesome acts: gory and excessive violence, gouging, maiming, dismemberment, disembowling, torture. Repetitive and unnecessary.
There is also a lot of somewhat gratuitous swearing that gets in the way of the storytelling. Though around since the late 15th century, “fuck” is generally perceived as a modern word. Used as noun, verb, adjective, including all compounds of the word, does not lend a medieval revenge tale any more authenticity. In fact, in most cases, its use was jarring and only served to break me out of the narrative flow.
Periodically there are attention-grabbing turns of phrase: sarcastic praise for a colleague, “a diamond in the shit”; an amusing collective noun, “a haggle of merchants”. Occasionally, there is sharp, energetic dialogue between the main characters that can easily be read as either forced jocularity or pathos. Highly enjoyable, it wasn’t enough to compensate for the long, tiresome stretches.
The book rallies in the last 120 pages. As the body count of Monza’s compatriots begins to climb, we are less and less certain of how things will end.
Given the heavy-handed messaging by the author against the stupidity of war, the pettiness of tyrants, and the betrayal of politics, we begin to realize that Monza will likely not achieve her goal, and may not live past the next chapter. It is here that the author makes several sharp observations about the malleable nature of people and the expediencies of politics.
Strong at the beginning, and strong at the end – the middle is soggy with repetition and tedious illustration of the book’s message. Judicious editing would have made the book one-third shorter, and made for a tighter, tenser novel. Possible candidate for airplane reading.
… (mais)