An entry over at Joe Abercrombie’s blog about his encounter with a neighbor boy who hadn’t even heard of D&D got me reflecting on many of the things Abercrombie himself covers in his post. He and I are about the same age, and belong to a pre-internet, pre-500 cable channels, pre-iPhone generation that entertained ourselves around the wood stoves of our drafty log cabins with shadow puppets and recitations of railway time tables. But something happened to transform our sepia-toned youth into an exciting time of monster-slaying, dungeon-crawling, infinite gold-carrying, NPC-bullying, and rules-lawyring adventure — and that something was Dungeons & Dragons.

Of course, let’s get something straight, there was Dungeons & Dragons, and there was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and my activities were limited solely to the later. And, hey, I was a snob about it. I mean, in D&D elves and dwarves were considered a class? All the cool kids where into AD&D — though for the purposes of this entry, and since the distinction no longer has any meaning, anyway, I’ll just lump them both together as D&D.

I say ‘cool kids,’ but that wasn’t the case. Cool kids played flag football in their spare time, rebuilt carburetors, and rode their Schwinns to rendezvous with married women in their thirties whose husbands were out of town. Actually, I have no idea what the cool kids did, preferring as I did the company of dorks, misfits, and other geekly types such as myself, and I suppose if I ever imagined what they were up to it would veer widely between the poles of pathetically banal and enviably adult. Me, I drew dungeons on graph paper.

What other activity could get kids excited about school supplies? I went from viewing the stationary aisle at the grocery store with utter dread — for it was forever the herald of the coming school year — to acquisitive joy. Graph paper, mechanical pencils, note cards, spiral note books, drawing pads, three-ring binders with dividers — a rich array of office supplies to feed the D&D beast. Since I was usually the Dungeon Master (the guy that sets up and runs the game, for those of you who, like Abercrombie’s neighbor, have no idea what I’m going on about) I needed (or ‘needed’) a whole bunch of material to record monsters and rewards, draw maps, and write-out scripted descriptive passages to be read later to the players:

“You enter a natural cavern about sixty feet by thirty feet, and twenty high. An underground river runs through it from East to West, and green slime clings to the stalactites overhead. Near the river is the body of a goblin, torn to shreds as if by a large beast. Flickering light can be seen coming from an opening on the south side of the cavern.

With kids doing this sort of thing willingly and for fun, it’s no wonder so many of today’s new crop of fantasy writers (and an even greater number of wannabes, such as myself) got their imaginations primed through just such an activity. You could even say running one of these games as a kid is the perfect way to develop the skills needed to write fantasy fiction.

But it’s much more than that or, I should say, this isn’t about D&D as a boot camp for writers, but as a fun activity for kids that flexes their creative muscles, gets them hanging out with their friends, provides the thrill of problem-solving and decision-making, and has them reading and memorizing things that often require a high-degree of comprehension. It’s the perfect past time for smart kids, and it’s been replaced by the x-box.

Oh, I have no statistics. And I’m not going to dig for proof. But pen-and-paper RPGs aren’t as popular with kids today as they were in my day, having been replaced largely by computer games for those children sufficiently geek-oriented enough to have a real need to explore dungeons. But video games only satisfy part of the thrill of p-n-p play, and almost none of the creative experience of such a hobby. The way I see it is it comes down to the difference between two forms of media, the old ‘analog’ world of printed books, complete sentences, and sustained thought, and the new digital one of instant gratification, diminished attention spans, and leetspeak. In our brave new world, AD&D has been replaced with ADD.

If I sound like and old curmudgeon it’s because I am — and if I use the word ‘curmudgeon’ in the first place, it’s because I learned it pouring over the Dungeon Master’s Guide in the wee hours of a Friday night while my peers were off starting fires in trashcans and impregnating cheerleaders. So much of my vocabulary, love of history, and interest in fantasy goes straight back to this game, and for that I will be forever grateful to D&D. It got me to read — and, believe me, I read and reread those books until I could recite the material components for a magic mouth spell or the hit dice for a beholder from memory — but, perhaps even more importantly, it got me to think creatively. Actual thinking, as opposed to the twitch of muscle reflex, in a totally free form environment is not something video games are going to offer any time soon. But, more than any of this, I feel lucky for playing D&D, and having some like-minded friends to share it with, and being able to discover the sublime satisfaction of exploring worlds other than my own.

This post originally appeared at Black Gate Online.

Since I refuse to interact with anyone under the age of twenty-five, I seldom have any idea just what’s going on beneath all the ridiculous floppy hair of today’s young’uns. Joe Abercrombie recently blogged about a conversation with a young boy in which the boy denied any and all awareness of Dungeons & Dragons. Reading that sparked this week’s Black Gate post that has me reiterating many of Abercrombie’s points, only in a slightly less amusing and far less famous way, although I come up with a few original points of my own, such as rhapsodizing about office supplies:

What other activity could get kids excited about school supplies? I went from viewing the stationary aisle at the grocery store with utter dread — for it was forever the herald of the coming school year — to acquisitive joy. Graph paper, mechanical pencils, note cards, spiral note books, drawing pads, three-ring binders with dividers — a rich array of office supplies to feed the D&D beast.

Of course, no post of mine would be complete without the realization that the world is turning into a horrible place peopled exclusively by mumbling illiterates:

But video games only satisfy part of the thrill of p-n-p play, and almost none of the creative experience of such a hobby. The way I see it is it comes down to the difference between two forms of media, the old ‘analog’ world of printed books, complete sentences, and sustained thought, and the new digital one of instant gratification, diminished attention spans, and leetspeak. In our brave new world, AD&D has been replaced with ADD.

I go on to talk about what I got out of playing D&D and reading and re-reading the books as a kid; the vocabulary, the introduction to fantasy tropes, the spur to my own creative world-building. Not to mention a love of graph paper. Basically, the whole BG post can be distilled down into one simple sentiment, expressed in the title itself: “Thank You, D&D.”

Courage can come from many places, and be made of many things, and yesterday’s coward can become tomorrow’s hero in an instant if the time is right. The giddy flood of bravery which Jezal experienced at that moment consisted largely of guilt and fear, and shame at his fear, swollen by a peevish frustration at nothing having turned out the way he had hoped, and a sudden vague awareness that being killed might solve a great number of irritating problems to which he saw no solution. Not noble ingredients, to be sure. But no one ever asks what the baker put in his pie as long as it tastes good.

• Title: Last Argument of Kings
• Author: Joe Abercrombie
• Genre: High Fantasy
• Year: 2008

Last Argument of Kings is book three of The First Law trilogy, and this review will contain spoilers of the first two books. For my review of book one, The Blade Itself, click here.

Reviewing the concluding book of a series is a bit different than doing the same for those that proceed it — what readers of the series want to know isn’t the basic premise of the book or what things the author does well, as they know those things already. What they want is to know if the author delivers on his promises, if, in short, the whole endeavor can be counted a success or rated on some variable scale of disappointment. The answer in the case of Joe Abercrombie’s Last Argument of Kings is a resounding ‘yes.’ Yes, he pulls it off, yes, he maintains and resolves what has come before and, yes, go get it if you haven’t already.

The book begins sometime after the conclusion of Before They Are Hanged, with the return to Adua of the group led by Bayaz in an unsuccessful quest for the Seed. War continues in the North, and Logen Nine Fingers goes to join it. Rebellion in the countryside and a succession crisis for the throne sweep up the other characters — Inquisitor Glokta, playing the political game now with two dangerous masters, a matured Jezal dan Luthar whose new and exaggerated celebrity status makes him an unexpectedly important player, and First of the Magi Bayaz who, with his allies, engages in a deep manipulation of events and himself harnesses a tremendous power.

Abercrombie’s characterization continues to be at once both solid and unexpected, as characters grow in interesting ways and events emerge seamlessly from their motivations. In particular the sharp-edged triangle formed by Glokta, Jezal, and Ardee West is an interesting and surprising dynamic, with each of these characters revealing new facets of themselves in the process. Revelations of Bayaz’s true nature, and of the bloody partnership between Bethold and Logen, also have the reader questioning just where exactly the truth lies.

Which is something of the point of Abercrombie’s skewing of genre tropes. Logen, reunited with his northern compatriots at last, is plunged back into his old role as The Bloody-Nine — at once a hero and villain to the North. Other roles, other archetypes, are assumed by the other players — most notably Jezal — and these too are and undermined and steered away from our expectations. Not for Abercrombie are noble wizards, confident kings, and heroic warriors — his characters are conflicted, powerless, misguided, political, ruthless.

As in the North, War engulfs Adua with the coming of the Gurkish, led by Bayaz’s great enemy Khalul the Prophet, and Bayaz, Ferro, and Jezal are caught squarely in the middle of things. Abercrombie gives us not a heroic clash of arms, but a sordid, bloody, confusing affair which crushes all those in it’s path. Here is the underlying logic of High Fantasy — a game of wizards and wars — taken to its logical, cynical conclusion. Even manifestations of virtue, such as Jezal’s dash of courage depicted in the quote at the top of this review, are revealed as having impure and imprecise motivations. And this, frankly, will not be to everyone’s tastes. There are times when the strong dose of cynicism and bleak depiction of human nature borders on the heavy-handed, but, in the end, I think Abercrombie pulls it off, and the whole works naturally with his themes. Just as a surfeit of virtue is par for the course in the traditional High Fantasy, here we have the negative image of such books, one in which characters are either powerless, psychotic, or tyrannical — but neither extreme reflects reality. But I don’t think realism is Abercrombie’s intent, and in at least acknowledging these faults of human nature as the province of hero and villain alike, he is injecting reality into a medium all-to-often dominated by archetypes and mary sues.

As for those traditional fantasies, Abercrombie offers this winking condemnation in a conversation between two of his most damaged, and least sentimental, characters:

“I’ve been trying to get through this damn book again.” Ardee slapped at a heavy volume lying open, face down, on a chair.

“The Fall of the Master Maker,” muttered Glokta. “That rubbish? All magic and valour, no? I couldn’t get through the first one.”

“I sympathise. I’m onto the third and it doesn’t get any easier. Too many damn wizards. I get them mixed up one with another. It’s all battles and endless bloody journeys, here to there and back again. If I so much as glimpse another map I swear I’ll kill myself.”

The First Law Trilogy has no map, not all that many journeys, only a handful of wizards, but a great deal of battles. It is not a radical departure from High Fantasy, but a High Fantasy skewed toward a different polarity — while the above conversation calls to mind some of the bland traditional fantasies we are all familiar with, I think Abercrombie also knows that Glokta and Ardee, with a bit of a stretch, could very well be talking about his own books. Last Argument of Kings is more honest about a great deal of human ugliness than most fantasy but, like most fantasy, it also exaggerates for effect. It is not to every taste, but nothing with a strong flavor ever is, and for those of us that prefer to risk burning our mouths to always being bored with our meals it’s a treat I can recommend with enthusiasm.

And, a final word about the end of the book, a coda entitled ‘The Beginning’ which mirrors the opening of the trilogy. Some readers have inexplicably complained about it for one reason or another. They are wrong. ‘The Beginning’ is probably the perfect finish for this series, and for the character that is the real heart of The First Law.

• Last Argument of Kings at Amazon
• My review of The Blade Itself
• My review of Before They Are Hanged
• Joe Abercrombie’s website

“I have a conscience, but it’s a feeble, withered shred of a thing. It couldn’t protect you or anyone else from a stiff breeze.” Glokta sighed, long and hard. . . “You could not even guess at the things I’ve done. Awful, evil, obscene, the telling of them alone could make you puke.” He shrugged. “They nag at me from time to time, but I tell myself I had good reasons. The years pass, the unimaginable becomes everyday, the hideous becomes tedious, the unbearable becomes routine. I push it all into the dark corners of my mind, and it’s incredible the room back there. Amazing what one can live with.”

• Title: Before They Are Hanged
• Author: Joe Abercrombie
• Genre: High Fantasy
• Year: 2007

Before They Are Hanged is book two of The First Law trilogy, and this review will contain spoilers of the first book. For my review of book one, The Blade Itself, click here.

Before They Are Hanged steps up the action by a considerable extent from The Blade Itself, as well as answering many of the questions that have been raised about the history of the Magi, Juvens and the Master Maker, and the rest of the backstory that sets up the present conflict. The plot alternates between three major threads; the war in the North that has the freshly promoted Colonel West and his new allies — Logen’s old northmen crew commanded by Threetrees — dealing with Bethold’s invasion in the face of bureaucracy, backstabbing, and incompetence on his own side, Inquisitor Glokta’s command of the hopeless defense of the distant city of Dagoska as it is besieged by the Gurkish Emperor’s forces, and the quest for the mysterious ‘seed’ that has Bayaz, Quai, Longfoot, Logen, Jezal, and Ferro journeying across the remnants of the Old Empire. It’s the stuff of High Fantasy: battles and sieges, quests for magic artifacts, inhuman enemies lurking in ancient cities — but, as in The Blade Itself, Abercrombie delights in skewing things a bit, doing the unexpected, and giving his fantasy a cynical, worldly slant that makes it distinctively different from run-of-the-mill fare.

Again, Abercrombie shows his skill in balancing his many threads and drawing them together, achieving a tightly-paced book. Like its predecessor, Before They Are Hanged is dialog-heavy and character-focused, and it’s the continued growth and revelation of Abercrombie’s characters that is the motive force driving the story forward. Things hinted at in The Blade Itself come into fuller fruition here, as characters are thrust into extremity and reveal themselves in conflict. West’s temper is uglier than we may have guessed, Bayaz’s pride may be of greater power than his judgment, Glokta’s conscience stirs to unexpected life — many of the central characters move in satisfying and interesting directions here, and it’s anyone’s guess just where each may end up.

Ultimately, whether a reader likes Before They Are Hanged depends on their opinion of The Blade Itself — and I can safely say that if you liked the first, you will like the second. Questions are answered and new ones raised, characters push and pull against one another, glimpses of plots are dangled with skill before the reader, and the whole conspires to keep the pages greedily turning — in short, everything is done well and will have fans rushing to get their hands on Last Argument of Kings, the concluding volume of The First Law.

• Before They Are Hanged at Amazon
• My review of The Blade Itself
• My review of Last Argument of Kings
  
• Joe Abercrombie’s website

“There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there’s a lot of ‘em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I’ve earned it. I’ve deserved it. I’ve sought it out. Such is my punishment.”

• Title: The Blade Itself
• Author: Joe Abercrombie
• Genre: High Fantasy
• Year: 2006

The words above are spoken by Logen Ninefingers, an aging berserker champion rapidly losing his taste for violence, just one of the many smartly-drawn characters in the cast of The Blade Itself. Joe Abercrombie’s first book, and the start of a fantasy trilogy entitled The First Law, The Blade Itself is sometimes playfully referred to as ‘Low Fantasy’ for its subversion of the tropes of the traditional fat fantasy with its wizards, barbarians, quests, and warring kingdoms. The Blade Itself has all that, but it’s seen through a more hard-edged filter to create a High Fantasy tale that puts pace and character above the evocation of a landscape or the intricacies of a fictional history lesson. A darker, bloodier fantasy then, though not a Dark Fantasy such as Tim Lebbon’s Dusk, but rather a book that delivers a slew of familiar elements in a punchier package.

And it’s that pacing and balance that really impressed me, especially when one considers this is Abercrombie’s first novel. The Blade Itself doesn’t read like a first novel, but rather something conceived and polished by a pro, perhaps someone who’s been writing thrillers for years that decided to try their hand at fantasy. For anyone daunted by the average bloated fantasy novel of today, who maybe doesn’t feel like learning a whole new lexicon and geography every time they pick up a book, The Blade Itself delivers all of the essentials of the epic with none of the usual tedium. Abercrombie handles his alternating points of view over a large cast of distinctive characters superbly, parceling information out carefully and without repetition, keeping his prose lean and his focus tight. An example that struck me in particular of this balance was the description of the city of Adua, a central location in the story. We know quite a bit about it by following the exploits of Jezal dan Luthar, an aristocratic officer in the King’s Army, but it isn’t until Logen arrives in the city that we really see it through his outsider’s eyes. While many authors could probably not resist painting a word picture of their great city much earlier in the book, Abercrombie both preserves the narrative drive of his story and reinforces the effectiveness of Logen’s scenes as he discovers such an unfamiliar urban environment by saving his thunder for when he most needs it. That’s good judgment, and smart storytelling, and an example of why this book fits together so well.

Characters are really the heart of the story of The Blade Itself, and Abercrombie has done a fine job combining the needs of believability, reader empathy, and dramatic potential with his varied cast. The aforementioned Logen and Jezal share the most time with a third key character, the crippled Inquistor Glokta, a man at once sinister and sympathetic. Most of the meat of the story is conveyed in their three viewpoints, as Logen escapes the chaos of the northlands and links up with the powerful wizard Bayaz, Jezal trains for an important fencing contest but also cannot help but be aware of the politically important events in Adua, and Glokta, also in Adua, ferrets out criminals and conspiracies and himself in drawn into a larger conflict. As expected, the many story threads are gradually tightened together and the over-arching plot revealed piece by piece. War is coming, Logen’s old patron has become King of the North and launched an invasion southward, the emissaries of a mysterious prophet pursue our heroes, and machinations at the highest level of government may in fact be more than just power politics at its worst . . . The Blade Itself has enough intrigue, mystery, and violent conflict to keep you turning the page.

And violence is at the heart of The Blade Itself, but it is violence with consequences. The fight scenes are superb and grounded, and the injuries sustained by the characters don’t just disappear after a few pages. Many of the characters are marked by violence, such as Glokta, the victim of permanently disfiguring torture that has destroyed his former life and poisoned his soul, or Logen himself — called Ninefingers because of a missing digit, but also ‘The Bloody-Nine’ for his murderous propensities — a man who has been an instrument of violence all his life who is just now learning to regret what it has made him. The violence can be sensational and stirring, as it should be in an action fantasy story, but it is never sentimental and doesn’t shy from certain brutal truths, and that is perhaps the real difference between this story and many of the more mainstream fantasy epics.

The Blade Itself has a lot in common with Sword & Sorcery, and at heart it’s a High Fantasy with a hardboiled, Sword & Sorcery attitude. The pace, the command of voice and dialog, and the strong characterization all make this a series to watch. Like most first books in a trilogy (of which I have been reviewing a great many, lately) by the end of The Blade Itself our heroes have come together and the stage is set for the movement into the larger, overarching conflict. But long before that, about halfway through The Blade Itself, I put the book down, fired up the computer, and ordered its sequel Before They Are Hanged, because it was clear that this was a story going places, and an author to watch. If the rest of The First Law trilogy lives up to the promise of The Blade Itself, then fantasy fans who give Abercrombie a shot are in for some bloody good fun.

• The Blade Itself at Amazon
• My review of Before They Are Hanged
• My Review of Last Argument of Kings
  
• Joe Abercrombie’s website