The solution? Get the rest of the series and reread from The Blade Itself forwards. I think I missed some of the jokes and references because it’s been so long since I read the First Law books and the stand-alones.

The writing combines grit and glory, humour and horror, beautiful and bitter observations on life and all other manner of alliterating adjectives.Īs with The Once and Future Witches, I appreciate that this is not a ‘balanced, critical’ review but I don’t see the point of adding criticism for the sake of it. (Seen best here when the revolution bites and one character’s actions knock on to the next’s in the subsequent paragraphs.)Īll in all, this is a great book. And there is the rolling point of view Abercrombie does so well – when the protagonist of one section merges seamlessly into the protagonist of the next. The text is clean and easy to read and, impressively, the use of each character’s ‘voice’ is not just limited to their speech but to the entirety of the text when it is their turn on the page. There are flawed characters aplenty and a biting takedown both of capitalism and the consequences of revolution. Whereas those hungry to return to the world of the The First Law after a seven-year wait will be upset and rewarded in equal measure.

There is a new generation of characters, some of their parents, and references back to what had happened in the past. Those using A Little Hatred as an ‘entry point’ to Joe Abercrombie, will, I suspect, enjoy it for sheer entertainment value, but miss the vast and tragic thematic underpinnings. The book takes the world as it was at the end of the last series, adds a few decades and some coal, and builds on it. I’m certain you can’t miss a book you haven’t read but that was precisely the feeling I had within a few pages of A Little Hatred.

A little hatred book review