As far as I know, The First Law referred to the original trilogy by Joe Abercrombie but has since expanded to read the whole world depicted in the books. It was just a few years ago that I found the trilogy. I read it through, but I have only read a couple of the other books in the milieu.
That’s not to say these books are bad, because they’re very good. Rather, they are hard to read because they are emotionally draining. The author uses the name Lord Grimdark in his social media, and there’s a reason for it. The books are grim, they are dark, and like I said, excellent but hard to read.
What are the books about?
That’s a good question. If I said it was a world at war, and the main characters are attempting to navigate their way through, that would be true. If I said it was a world of politics, also true. If it’s all about power, true. There’s a lot packed into it.
I guess I might say the stories are all of these. We follow half a dozen main characters as their stories intersect, and thus we see different things from different angles. This character may be all about the war, this one all politics, etc. In a way, there are multiple different stories entwined together.
That doesn’t tell you much, does it? Maybe I have to fall back to the old cliche: read it and find out if you like it.
Oh, and if you’re wondering what the First Law actually is? It’s about magic. Yeah, there’s magic in the books too. It’s not the primary focus of the series, but it’s in there and involved in what’s going on.
The themes of the First Law
Moral Ambiguity
I’ve talked before about characters who do both good and bad things, and justify them within their own worldview. That’s perhaps the biggest interest in the First Law series. You’ll find people doing lots of bad with their own justification, then something good which makes you realize you don’t know the character at all. This is very well done in these books.
Consequences of Violence
I’ll just say that there’s a character called Logen Ninefingers in the books. Is that enough? No, probably not. Imagine going through life with a missing finger because of your own actions, being named for that deformity, and having to think about it every day. Consequences indeed. His entire story is about consequences.
Redemption and Forgiveness
Back to Logen Ninefingers. We can also talk about his story being the redemption arc, because of the path he travels. You can imagine someone with that name has been to the dark side (mixing story metaphors), and he is looking for a way back to the light. Will he make it or will the book foil him?
A character of great interest
I don’t want to keep coming back to Logen, but he is my clear favorite character in the books. He is tough and mean and full of turmoil. He wants to leave his past behind but he keeps losing the chance to do so.
His inner rage boils over to make him violent when he can’t control it. He enters a trance-like state where he just wants to kill (honestly, this was probably my least favorite part of the story). Having done it several times over his life, he’s killed a lot of people. Now he wants to make up for it.
But in the books he sort of ends up as the linchpin between the different storylines. For whatever reason he’s the one who becomes the go-to person for the main characters, bringing them together in different ways. It’s actually interesting to see how they all rotate around him, if you look at the stories through his eyes.
I keep trying to find Logen in my character Petr, but I’m not really succeeding. Petr is also a soldier, but he’s entering the end of his time as one and trying to get ahead. I suppose in some ways that’s what Logen is doing too.
Petr has spent his whole life trying to be good. He’s done things he shouldn’t (there are a lot of stories in his past, maybe I’ll share them someday), but most of the time he’s trying to do the right thing for everyone. And he’s never gone berserk and killed a bunch of people, either.
So maybe there’s really not too much comparison between the two, other than them both being warriors.
Other series to read
What do you read when you’ve read this series? Do you want something similar, or something completely different? It kind of feels like when you’re at a tasting room and you rinse your mouth with water before the next course. When you read something heavy like this, you want something light to follow.
The Broken Empire trilogy by Mark Lawrence: So naturally my first recommendation isn’t what I just said. Getting this one out of the way: if you love the First Law series, you’ll love Broken Empire. Very similar style of story. Honestly, read something else in between though, to lighten the mood.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch: I recommend this as your cleanser. It’s lighter, more fun, a heist story. Kind of really fits if you want to take a break.
The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss: And of course I’m going to recommend this series, but mainly because I use it myself as my go-to books when I need to read fantasy but want a break from other series. That’s how I’ve read it several times over the years.
In Conclusion:
Gritty and complex, The First Law is a compelling series in a complex world. Someday I’ll draw a chart of where I think fantasy books sit, and I promise you this will be nowhere near the Lord of the Rings. If anything, it might be the entry point into the darker side of fantasy, and if you follow it down you could end up in some interesting places.
I do want to be clear, I very much liked these books. They’re a slog to get through because they’re deep and challenging, not because they’re bad. Like I just said, if I had to recommend something on the darker side of things, I think these would be my favorite choice. If I were ranking my top ten favorite fantasy series, these would be in there, but probably in the lower half of the ten.