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michaelmarshall 's review for:
The Blade Itself
by Joe Abercrombie
This was very readable and absorbing, and I’m likely to read the sequels, but I did have two complaints.
First, the world-building is so predictable it verges on racial stereotyping: the Northmen are all unbelievably tough warriors, the southerners are decadent and corrupt, etc.
And second, it’s not a complete novel. I know it’s part of a trilogy, but it doesn’t really resolve any of its plotlines or even reach a climax: it just stops. In that sense it’s like Fellowship of the Ring, but FotR was never written as a standalone book, it just came out like that for behind-the-scenes publishing reasons. If you’re going to write an actual trilogy, each part should be distinct.
First, the world-building is so predictable it verges on racial stereotyping: the Northmen are all unbelievably tough warriors, the southerners are decadent and corrupt, etc.
And second, it’s not a complete novel. I know it’s part of a trilogy, but it doesn’t really resolve any of its plotlines or even reach a climax: it just stops. In that sense it’s like Fellowship of the Ring, but FotR was never written as a standalone book, it just came out like that for behind-the-scenes publishing reasons. If you’re going to write an actual trilogy, each part should be distinct.