Joe Abercrombie (in Off-topic)

Oh my. Where to start.

I thought James Barclay had filled the void David Gemmell left, but Joe has ursurpted the crown. ;)

After being reccomended to me numerous times by a collegue, usually hasily as we inevtibaly discussed books after a few beers at the end of a hard weeks work, I stumbled across 'Best Served Cold' in a discount book store and picked it up.

Luckily for me, 'Best' was a stand alone book, and I hadn't needed to have read Joe's original trilogy first.

But I let the book linger for ages. Only sitting down to read it when called to wait for 6 hours to be a witness in a meeting, that I wasn't even called to attend. :(

'Best Served Cold' was amazing. A jaw dropper. I've not read anything as captivating since the earlier Gemmell novels. The Raven or even the Name of the Wind paled in comparison. I devoured it in days.

So here am I, tucked up nice and warm in bed anticipating the most exciting Christmas for years, eagerly devouring 'The Blade Itself', the first book in Joe's original triliogy (The First Law trilogy).

And I have crowned myself a new king of Fantasy. ;)

The icing on the cake is he's also British! :P

I can't reccomend these books more.

Have a lovely day all! ;)

Finished the First Law Trilogy a few weeks ago. Pretty good.

Just finished my latest book last night and was looking for something new so I guess I'll just pop off to Amazon for a "Best served cold" download.

Read the First Law Trilogy in the summer. Great stuff, very British, very distinct style, lots of humour, lots of action and lots of dark all at once. Love the way it turns the usual fantasy/swords and stuff things on their head.

I've just finished Awakened by Jason Tesar yesterday, you guys should give it a spin.
It's his first novel and I hesitate to recommend it because in my opinion he's still developing his writing style. It's a little obvious this is his first book and I also feel that he's been limited to x number of pages by a publisher because there's many missed opportunities to expand on certain areas of the plot that I can only imagine he's edited out and are lying in his writing desk drawer at the moment.

Heh, not selling this well. :)
That said, he's got a really good story to tell and there was just something about the book that really kept me going. It was a pleasurable easy read and if you're a kindle user the book comes in 3-short parts with the 1st part being free. Can't get any cheaper than free - what've you got to lose.

I'm too lazy to give you any more of a review so check it out on Amazon for more detail.

There's a lot from Best that ties in with the first law series. It's set in the same world, and after the first three.

So there will be stuff in there that you'll recognise straight away.

The Bloody Nine is mentioned a bit, for instance, even though he's not in it. ;)