I read The Blade Itself and the rest of the first trilogy in 2017. I liked it. I would say that the books were good, certainly solid, with moments of being great.

Like most people, I think, I enjoyed the standalone books more, and I found each of them really compelling. Same goes for the collection of short stories and A Little Hatred.

But the thing that stopped me from enjoying the books even more is that, in a certain sense, they were all a one-trick pony: take a character who seemed to want to be good -- perhaps sincerely or perhaps that is merely what they tell themselves -- and get them to interact with someone who honestly couldn't care less about being good; then, have the wanna-be good person either lose everything miserably or otherwise give up on their goal, most frequently due to their interactions with the other person.

But man, The Trouble with Peace really converted me into a die-hard fan of this author.

I finished the book earlier today, and I found it basically flawless. Every single page was gripping. The cover has a quotation from Forbes, calling Abercrombie "A master of his craft" -- and I couldn't agree more.

The dynamic between Orso, Leo, and Savine is the richest that I can think of right now. I can't believe how good that book was.