The First Law di Joe abercrombie is a trilogy of novels: Call of the Swords, Not Before They Are Hanged and the Last Reason of Kings. The books, published in the motherland in 2006, arrived in Italy in 2019 with Mondadori and the translator Benedetta Tavani. Despite the certainly terrifying appearance of the Titan Edition - a kilo and two hundred grams of book is not to be frightened; Joe Abercrombie manages to make the story smooth, interesting and enjoyable.
The following review is completely spoiler free!
The plot
The world is shaken by insignificant events and in the same way a sign of a deeper change. Logen the Bloody, a mercenary from the north, he encounters terrible adversaries in the mountains of his homeland and ends up abandoning the group of his allies. Jezal Dan Luthar, an Adua officer, is preparing day and night for the Contesa, a duel of national importance. His mentor, Collem West, a peasant raised to the status of a noble, he comes to terms with politics which sees him only as a yob. While some heroes are born, dying ones like Sand dan Glotka they deal with a life different from expectations and not so far from the unspeakable tortures that have turned him into a monster. In the distant desert, the slave Malijinn iron contemplates the revenge on the empire that has torn everything from her.
All these characters, apparently unrelated, will be brought together by the common knowledge of First Magician, Bayaz. A mystical and mysterious character driven by the need to put an end to the prevailing madness. In a world now in pieces, between palace intrigues, wars and mysterious spells, the fate of all of them is uncertain.
World Analysis and Events de The First Law
The First Law it is a functional and pleasant collection, despite the enormous amount of events, happenings and characters. Joe Abercrombie turns out to be an excellent gardener and architect, wanting to bring in this review terms often used to indicate creators of worlds.
Starting from the world in which the events take place, as varied as it is not very original but not for this little alive or static; a wild north based mainly on tribes or leaders, a semi-democratic monarchical center and a theocratic / magocratic south. What is interesting is that the world is torn from its timeline which is independent of the plot or not: we are at a point in history where some things have happened, we talk about it as if nothing had happened and we are not given great explanation of this. . The characters move in this world without excessive haste, with temporal leaps that are never too large but in some cases a bit hasty.
The Characters de The First Law
A separate mention must be made for the characters, perhaps the only sore point if compared with the world in which they move. Right from the start, in fact, it is difficult for us to distinguish between the qualities and defects of each character, with many gray areas and unexplored spaces in which to sink our interest. As the story rattles off, however, the gray areas are dispersed, immediately making us fall into the good / bad combination that makes the vision too black and white.
A shame, since the variety of backgrounds of each character - and their pasts - could have given a more varied all-round view of world events; this obviously flattens out terribly when the characters come together, making each of these specks in the vision of the reference character.
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