Review: A new writer to me, a new trilogy to explore, and a darn good YA book.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2014
I’ll make a confession; this is the first book by Joe Abercrombie that I’ve read. It won't be the last.  In fact, I just purchased THE BLADE ITSELF.Joe doesn’t give a lot of description to his scenery except as it impacts his characters; no loving descriptions of dark, haunted forests or endless seas, but his characters are magnificent, wonderful and alive.  The scenery merely resides in the background as it should be.Prince Yarvi would have made a very good king… in a far different kingdom but not the one he is born in where he is scorned for his crippled hand. He is a young man (mid-teens, perhaps; shorter than his mother at the beginning of the book, taller at the end) who comes to recognize his own strengths, who relies upon his intelligence, and who can change his plans in the stopping of a heartbeat.Yarvi quickly rises to king and, just as rapidly, falls to slavery. Yarvi is so very human; subject to the trickery of others, to lies and, most of all, regrets. The other characters are no less wonderful; half-mad Nothing who has been a slave for twenty years and believes steel is the answer to all questions, kind Jaud who encourages Yarvi at the oar, Sumael the navigator and tightly chained when the ship makes shore, Laithlin Yarvi's mother who is the Golden Queen no longer, Mother Gundring the minister and Yarvi's teacher before his kingly elevation.Yarvi's father and older brother die in an ambush and Yarvi swears an oath to avenge them. Ultimately, he does but he wonders at the price he's paid. In the end, he moves on with his regrets and a dawning wisdom.In the middle, there's adventure; betrayal by his closest allies, escaping the oars then the ship, a not-quite-frozen-enough river, trade - what does an escaped slave have for trade? There's ending up captured by your hereditary enemies and bargaining for their army to invade your land so you can retake the throne from the traitor who is so very bad at assassinating relatives. It is Yarvi's training as a minister which brings him close and closer to his objective.Not only does Joe Abercrombie have an excellent plot from which he doesn't stray, his word craft is wonderful. Sparse and spare with no extraneous verbiage the dialogue flows smoothly and naturally.This reads like a YA book; slightly sanitized of blood and sex, with a teenage hero.I received the book as an ARC for free through Goodreads First Reads.