It’s no secret that I used to read a ton of fantasy I’ve read pretty much all of the standard fantasy fare and I got tired of it. Nature loving elves who are always archers, dwarves who all seem to be drunk angry furballs who love to fight, noble barbarians from the north it’s all so bleh to me now I thought I was done with fantasy.  But then I discovered several authors who write gritty elf free fantasy and here I am reading fantasy again.

The Blade Itself does have a barbarian from the north: Logen Ninefingers, The Bloody NIne, a savage man steeped in legend one of the most brutal and cruel men from the north so the stories say. But this story is anything but cliche fantasy and the characters are not simple black and white fantasy trope. You will meet a man who tortures people because he was tortured himself, a seemingly immortal wizard with a bit of a temper, and many other people none of them completely good or evil. I read it in two days and immediately ordered the second book in the series.