Sharp Ends: Stories from the World of the First Law

It is a book. I read it. I prefer the books vs short stories but Abercrombie is a great writer within the genre.

At it's best, this book is a fun interweaving of short stories into the fabric of Abercrombie's First Law (and "World of...") novels, which I'd recommend reading through The Heroes before tackling this. Some seem to have been written to give Joe some pre-history on some of his characters, while others let us see events we've already seen through new eyes. Some of these stories involve the same repeating set of characters in various short adventures, some the characters from the other books in little vignettes, and some are just set in the same world but don't intersect the books very much.I'd rate two-thirds of the stories (especially the ones with the thief and the warrior-priestess) as good to excellent. The remaining third are just okay. There's a fair amount of humor in most of these stories, but some are just grimdark and one, in particular (the courtesan in the Best Served Cold intersection) is just sad, sad, sad.I think that this is a must-read for Abercrombie fans, but don't expect too much. Some of these stories were never intended to be seriously published (appearing in fanzines and the like) and it shows. The best of them, though, are as good as Abercrombie gets.

…say he’s a sharp end.Joe Abercrombie, the self-styled “Lord Grimdark” took the fantasy world by storm in the mid-2000s with his First Law trilogy. Part epic fantasy, part satirical deconstruction of Lord of the Rings, and part black comedy, the trilogy introduced us to Abercrombie’s snarky, endearing, and at times utterly horrific menagerie of characters. It will make you laugh, it will make you blanch, and in the end it will leave you with complete emotional exhaustion.The term “grimdark” is a tricky phrase. It means different things to different people. Abercrombie writes a dark world, true, but the moments of genuine beauty and the goodness that human beings are capable of shine through that much brighter for all the muck and grit that covers things. The Circle of the World is a place where being a good man or woman is very hard. But people still try. Sometimes they fair, sometimes they succeed, but the struggle is what makes you root for them. Words like “good” and “evil” often have no place as value judgments in Abercrombie’s world. To paraphrase Logen Ninefingers, sometimes it’s just a matter of where you’re standing.In addition to the First Law trilogy, Abercrombie wrote three stand-alone novels set in the same world, bringing his unique Tolkien-meets-Tarantino flavor to the revenge story, war story, and frontier western genres. Sharp Ends is a collection of short stories that’s pans across his entire First Law timeline, the first coming before the beginning of The Blade Itself, and the last taking place after the end of Red Country. We see some old familiar faces, and are introduced to some new ones as well. These stories have the same combination of comedy, tragedy, violence, and brutality that makes Abercrombie’s other work so brilliant. The cast of characters is diverse, and real in such a profound way that I honestly don’t know how he manages to keep pumping them out.Sharp Ends is the best fantasy collection that I’ve read since George R.R. Martin’s cross-genre anthology, Rogues (which also featured Abercrombie’s Nebula Award winning story, Tough Times All Over). In addition to Tough Times All Over I also have to praise A Beautiful Bastard, Made a Monster, and Some Desperado, though all of these stories are worth the price, and all of them have their own sharp ends…

As a collection of stories this has its highs and lows. Some I really wondered exactly what was being brought to the table; others I loved every word of them! And let's just say it: This book is for already established fans, plain and simple. As a big Abercrombie fan I'm OK with that! How someone would take these stories on with no prior experience with the First Law world or characters, I'm not sure. The stories are at times uneven in there quality. Some seem like sketches for potential novels; others like leftover scenes from other novels (several of which I'd have loved to have inserted back in, if that were the case).There are some stories that are bit like novelistic experiments, and others are essentially backstories (the last one most of all with a "true" glimpse as to exactly how dark the Bloody Nine of the "old days" was. This story worked and it didn't. Bethod is a character that definitely could use a good backstory, but this one seemed a little flat. I kept thinking I was hearing exposition rather than a real person's thoughts. All the scenes with Logan of course are great- the author "knows" this character inside and out, so that's no surprise..There is a running series of stories concerning two woman, one an expert thief with supremely bad luck, the other a sort of super amazon warrior, that seems to beg for a novel of its own. It's jarring that the author jumps sometimes about 5 years or more between these women's story-line, although at times I believe the idea was the humorous aspect of these big leaps. In any case, both characters are intriguing and funny, and travel all around, so there's plenty to like.

A very good book with good stories that complement the view around the main characters in the First Law series. Some of the short stories are a bit boring, but most are enjoyable.However, is a book only for hard fans of First Law fans.

Great read and awesome to learn about other characters and the story's that connect them. Can't wait to read the rest of the first law books

one of best writes of this genre left

I enjoyed every single of Abercrombie's book. I think he's better than most of the much lauded, contemporary fantasy (american) authors who tend to be very formulaic as they try to appease their 20-year-olds fanbase. I had left this book in the queue because I had no Abercrombie book in a while so I indulged in other (generally disappointing) books from other author.It is with much regret that I can say this book is a blatant cash-grab. A bunch of disjointed stories over the course of many years of specific moments of characters we know, or of new characters that are hard to care about. Clearly the Abercrombie "soul" is there, but it's a bunch of short stories that I believe were edited out of previous books and someone told Mr. Abercrombie he could turn them to profit.Avoid, even if you're a fan.

This is a collection of short stories set in Abercrombie's First Law world. It features quite a few characters we've already met in the series plus new ones.If you like the previous books, buy this. It's the familiar mix of realism, three dimensional characters and flashes of humour. An author at the top of his game.