It was the cover of The Blade Itself that first drew me to it. The synopsis sounded promising and The Guardian's praise, calling the book "Delightfully twisted and evil", even more so. 
 I found the story slow-moving and many of the characters charmless and uninteresting with no shades of grey. It took far too long for the different characters' "individual stories" to start to make sense as a big picture. At times it was even annoying when the POV changed from one character in one part of Abercrombie's universe to another character far, far away. 
 There are also some similarities, maybe more of a feeling than of any actual character or event, but still present, between The Blade Itself and ASoIaF, and that comparison does not favor Abercrombie.