I read the First Law Trilogy by Abercrombie and it blew me away

Spoilers for the general vibe of the endings of the main characters but not any events specifically. Spoilers have a text warning above them.Wow. I picked up this trilogy on a whim. I had just finished the Three Body Problem and needed something more fast-paced and character driven. The First Law Trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and The Last Argument of Kings) was absolutely peak fiction in my eyes. Granted, I am the perfect audience for a grimdark, stylistically written, alternating PoV fantasy series. But damn, this series has proved to me that so many authors are falling short of what they could be doing.Abercrombie somehow makes a trilogy that just gets better with every book and ties off every plot thread neatly in a satisfying way. So many fantasy series just drown in plot holes and incomplete storyline. It really felt like Abercrombie started from the ending and wrote backwards, which is incredibly refreshing. On top of that, he constantly subverts expectations, has some wild twists that are completely believable, and deconstruct fantasy to the bone. I don’t think this series is for everyone, but readers that enjoy dark literature and deconstruction in their fantasy will be blown away. There are a few flaws that stood out to me. There aren’t many female characters and the female characters don’t have that much agency. I’m personally fine with that so it didn’t bother me. I could see that bothering other readers, so please do note that. I’ve also heard people say The Blade Itself is too slow. I disagree, but it is the weakest in the series. It’s still phenomenal. It has a lot of high points, but compared to other modern fantasy it could be taken as slow.The only complaint I had with this series is also somehow one of my favorite aspects of the work:(Spoilers of how the ending is!!! Don’t read this part if you want to read the series, and I reccomend it!!)The ending is defeatist and essentially nihilistic. While “the good guys win,” it is subverted and shows that victory isn’t what it seems. It feels like not much progress was really made, and the world and our protagonists are completely broken. This is honestly great, and it’s done tastefully. It doesn’t feel like it’s being depressing to have a tragic ending for the sake of being tragic. It feels more realistic than anything, but it still didn’t feel great.On one hand, I was euphoric reading such high quality story telling. On another, I just wanted to see some kind of a happy ending. It was a bit merciless to have literally 5 out of 6 of the main characters have an overtly negative ending. Still, I like that Abercrombie did this.I hear that he becomes a bit less savage towards his protagonists as the series continues, and I’ve purchased all of the rest of the series and will be manically devouring them. Thank you for this experience, Joe. You’ve blown my mind. via /r/books https://ift.tt/fsxezAd