Joe Abercrombie's Blog

So, ahem, a couple of days late on this one. You could, in fact, say a couple of months late, since I missed the last one. Honestly, there just wasn’t a huge amount to report so it hardly seemed worth troubling anyone. But the last couple of months have seen a bit more movement.

The Devils continues to wend its crooked way towards publication – proof reading now all done, and internal art and design continues to develop, along with plans for several special editions via various retailers along with perhaps even some fine press editions in the fullness of time – more on that as I have it. ARCs are now creeping out there to the lucky few. There are actually three different types in the UK – a standard one (below left, with the skull artwork handsomely picked out in gloss), a special one for booksellers, and a special special one (below right with the fancy debossed patterning) for so-called influencers (I don’t know I was born in 1974) that’s limited to only 36 copies. Well, 36 and the one I’ve got, I guess. If you reckon you’re influential enough to qualify you can actually apply to get one over here.

A first draft of the sequel to the Devils crawls forward like a limbless corpse impelled by necromancy. I’m actually, incredibly, more than half way through now, though it’s sketchy as hell. I don’t think I’ve ever had a weaker grip on a book at this point in the process though a) I likely always feel that way then later forget how awful it was, like giving birth, and b) I’m deliberately trying to take a more freeform, scattergun, discovery approach with these books, interrupted as they are by lots of other bits and pieces, then lick em into shape with extensive rewriting and editing once the skeleton is in place. That may work long term (I bloody hope so) but it’s not great for my anxiety as I go. Still if it was easy everyone would be doing it. Right? RIGHT? I remain hopeful I can get a reasonable draft together by may, when the Devils comes out.

I was at Worldcon in Glasgow a couple of weeks back, which is the first English-language con I’ve been to in quite a while. Kind of an exhausting density of stuff crammed into two days but it was great to see some old pros, meet some new ones, crack some terrible jokes on panels, and of course sign some books and chat to some readers. Always strange how you end up seeing certain people over and over and totally miss others who turn out to have been there. By some miracle I did not actually catch Covid, though it seems that everyone else did…

And other non-book projects grind forward also. Various irons in the fire in the film and TV space, but nothing worth talking about at this point. When I can say something, I’ll say something. And hopefully you will hear from me again in the proper couple of months this time…

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It’s now less than a year until the release of The Devils, and I am delighted to reveal its cover(s). In the US:

And in the UK:

Art is by book-cover graphics sorcerer Will Staehle. Both will no doubt be adorned by various foils, glitters, touches and finishes, and in the UK at least it looks very likely there will be more than one special edition with a variant cover of some sort. More on that as and when I have further details.

Should you wish to preorder your copy of this genre-redefining masterwork ahead of its publication in May 2025 (in hardcover, e-book and audio), you can follow this territory sensitive link to your book merchant of choice. To whet your salivating appetites, here’s the latest version of the UK copy:

“Europe stares into the abyss.

Plague and famine stalk the land, monsters lurk in every shadow and greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions. Only one thing is certain: the elves will come again, and they will eat everyone.

Sometimes, the darkest paths lead towards the light. Paths on which the righteous will not dare to tread…

And so, buried beneath the sacred splendour of the Celestial Palace, is the secret Chapel of the Holy Expediency. For its congregation of convicted monsters there are no sins that have not been committed, no lines that will not be crossed, and no mission that cannot be turned into a disastrous bloodbath.

Now the hapless Brother Diaz must somehow bind the worst of the worst to a higher cause: to put a thief on the throne of Troy, and unite the sundered church against the coming apocalypse.

When you’re headed through hell, you need the devils on your side.“

And here’s the latest version of the US copy, along with the lovely thoughts of the supremely talented Taz Muir who clearly has amazing taste in books…

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Last time I announced that The Devils was basically finished, this time I’ll announce that it’s even more basically finished, the copy edit having been done and sent back. US and UK cover art is now pretty much finalised, more about that when it’s appropriate, and we’re currently working on some exciting internal art. In fact the book’s so near to being finished that when I was in New York recently I stopped into the offices of Tor, the US publisher, to sign a few very advance reader copies:

And no, you can’t have one. These are strictly for the best people, the VIPs, the taste-makers and industry leaders. Or so they tell me. I didn’t even get one (mind you I’ve already read it, it was brilliant incidentally). There’ll be a much bigger round of ARCs and electronic galleys going out later in the year, but it won’t actually be coming out till May 2025, I’m afraid, by which time the sequel will hopefully be close to finished.

Talking of which, I’ve revised the first part of that one and sent it off to my editors just to prove that I’ve been doing something (and to garner their valued opinions). Quite the shambles right at the moment, being honest. The characters that appear in it from the previous book are all working well, giving rise to some HILARIOUS SEQUENCES but the new characters really haven’t come together yet giving rise to some BORING SHITE. Still, I trust over time the pressure will crush that shite into diamonds, as I plan out and write the rest of the book and work out just what the hell I’m doing with it. Some thinking and planning time definitely needed to fill in the blanks before I think about setting out to write the next chunk. Probably a good old bit of reading around the subject and repeatedly revising what I’ve already got too.

Right now I’m taking a break from the books to do a few film and tv things I am frustratingly unable to discuss. Still nothing I can say about the Best Served Cold film, sadly. Lots of backroom wrangling going on but nothing to trouble the industry papers with. I hope you took my advice, and didn’t hold your breath…

The post Progress Report April ’24 appeared first on Joe Abercrombie.

A day late and a dollar short on this one, for which I blame February and its inadequate number of days. A disappointing month, even in a leap year.

But the work continues . . . The Devils is basically finished, line edit done, and its copy edit should be coming back shortly – generally that’s a more mechanical exercise carried out by a specialist copy editor, focusing on the details like getting the right punctuation, consistency of names and times and geography, though a good copy editor will pick up on all kinds of stuff you likely never thought about with timeline and clarity of writing. Still, we’re talking sentence level changes, in general, rather than significant rewriting. Once that’s done I expect Advance Reader Copies will start wending their way to various authors, critics and tastemakers of the genre, and we’ll see if I’m still capable of outraging the public. Fingers crossed on that one.

So the last couple of months have mostly been spent thinking about, planning, and doing some exploratory writing on the sequel. I’ve written a horribly sloppy and unsatisfactory version of the first part of 3, maybe 50-60,000 (bad) words or so. There are some characters carried over from the first book but also some new voices to work out, and a new plot and setting to tackle. My approach with these books has been to get a rough idea of where I’m going, dash off a first part to see what works and what doesn’t, then rethink and rewrite as I come up with a more accurate plan for the whole book. This is usually the time at which I most hate the book, myself and the world, and this book is proving to be no exception. But now comes a period of going over, sharpening up, slimming down what I’ve written and adding new stuff, getting a better idea of who the characters are, where they’ve come from, where they’re going. Generally you find some things work nicely off the bat and give a good framework for what’s to come. Other things are a bit crap and need rethinking. Hopefully you come out of that process with a much tighter first part that sets up a more formed idea of the rest of the book, not to mention a better feeling about the whole project and a sense of confidence going forward (let’s hope).

A lot of people, understandably, asking after the Best Served Cold film. All I can say on that is there’s nothing I can say until there’s something I can say. As soon as there is something I can say I’ll say it, believe me. Having been involved in quite a few film and tv projects over the last decade or so I can tell you it’s always a baffling, surprising and frustrating business. Things lurch forward, then halt, then take steps back, then forward again, like an indecisive drunk on a bender. Projects get announced in a blaze of excitement, then dropped in awkward silence, then suddenly resurrected in a new form. So . . . we’ll see. Don’t hold your breath, would be my advice . . .

The post Progress Report February ’24 appeared first on Joe Abercrombie.

My God, can it truly be that another year has flashed past? Happy Birthday to me! 49 today, 17 years since I was first published and god damn it if I’m not still a fresh new voice in this genre. This time last year I was hoping for better times ahead following twelve months of war and political turbulence, and it feels like we we’ve had nothing but even worse warfare and political turbulence since, with next year looking no better in prospect. Starting to wonder if this might be a bad time to be writing intensely dark and cynical fiction. Maybe I should try my hand at something light and hopeful… Ha! As if…

A YEAR IN BOOKSELLING – It’s now been a full two years since I had a new novel in the marketplace but there have been a few Joe Abercrombie related releases. The Great Change and Other Lies – a very handsome novella length collection of short stories to go alongside the Age of Madness, and with art by John Anthony di Giovanni – came out from Sub Press. The physical copies are all gone but I believe you can still get it on ebook. And some truly beautiful letterpress editions of The Blade Itself with art by Tommy Arnold were released by Curious King, who are doing some awesome things in the ultra-high end limited edition space. Kind of incredible how that part of the market has developed over recent years, that a few hundred books costing between 200 and 2,300 (!) pounds could all sell out within an hour or two of going on sale. Vance Kovacs is currently at work on the art for Before They are Hanged, and we’re hoping that one will work its way out at some point next year…

A YEAR IN BOOK WRITING – Not my most productive year on record, I will admit, but I have made steady progress: finished The Devils, edited and revised it, and I’m just now getting towards the end of the line edit (that’s where your editors go through and mark up the manuscript with specific concerns and recommendations). I still want to give it a last read over and polish in the first half of january, then it’ll go for copy edit (that’s where a specialised copy editor goes through with an eye on the technical details), but it’s very close to finished – we’re even pretty close to a finished cover concept, which looks like it’s gonna be quite a departure for me…

How do I feel about it? Always tough to say at this stage. Fewer than a dozen people have actually read it so my own feelings change whenever I get a new opinion. I generally hate every book while I’m writing it then get gradually more pleased with it as I revise, and that’s happened here. It’s certainly a bit longer than intended (which happens pretty much every time). Currently running at 215,000 words which puts it on the longer side of my books – longer than the Blade Itself or any of the Age of Madness (or any of the Lord of the Rings volumes, I believe, though those seem petite by today’s standards) – but shorter than Best Served Cold or Last Argument of Kings. Certainly it’s a bit of a different tone from the First Law – very much adult still, I guess you’d say, with much sex, violence and horror, but more episodic, more knockabout, maybe, less deliberately dark and cynical, more deliberately humorous though I doubt anyone would call it a comedy. Way higher on the fantasy elements than the First Law though also much less of an epic fantasy, set as it is in a kinda sorta messed up version of our world. I will not dignify it with the term alternate history. It’s a tough book to categorise, though I’m sure that will not stop people trying.

Disappointing for some of you, I am sure, but it’s currently looking like The Devils won’t publish until early/mid 2025, which’ll make this the longest gap in my publishing thus far. Partly that was a date we plucked from the air which gained a kind of inevitability the longer it stayed in the diary. Partly it’s a function of the bigger, slower and more distributed US market, where I’m less well established, and my publisher want plenty of time to get the word out and set this up as something new and exciting and different to give it the best chance of the MASSIVE SUCCESS it, and I, obviously deserve. Still, there’s always an upside, and with any luck the time will mean translators can get busy and have some of the key foreign editions come out around the same time as the UK/US ones. Hopefully a later release for the first book also means a shorter gap before the second, which I’ve started writing, and I’m already a couple of chapters into. This one’s gonna be shorter (of course), and I hate it already (of course).

TV AND FILM – I’ve actually been writing on various film and tv projects for years now – starting on adaptations of my own books (as yet unmade), but more recently adapting other people’s work (also largely as yet unmade) – which is one reason why the book output over the last decade has been a little lumpy, let’s say. In general I really enjoy it – with books you get pretty much sole creative control, but it’s also often lonely work where you spend a lot of time in your own head – so it’s nice to spend some time working as part of a bigger team, and sometimes on things where the emotional investment isn’t quite so huge. But it can also be a seriously frustrating business, which comes in fits and starts, all consuming for a few months then suddenly gone. There are lots of stakeholders, lots of opinions to be considered, lots of notes to act on, you rarely get to do things just your way. Projects get picked up with huge excitement, race forward, then stall and collapse only to be unpredictably born again in a new form. You can spend years quite profitably developing things that never get made, or even announced.

But this year one of these projects actually did get announced – a film adaptation of Best Served Cold, written by me, with Tim Miller (who I’ve been working with to bring the First Law to the screen for years) attached as the director and Rebecca Ferguson attached to play Monza. Another frustrating thing about this world is you can’t really talk about anything until someone else talks about it, so all I can really say about it right now is that it’s in the works, development continues, but there are no certainties, we’ll see what we see. I might be on set in a few months . . . or I might very easily never be.

Working in the business myself starts to make it feel a bit weird criticising other people’s work, so let me dial back my usual roundup of what I’ve watched this year and just recommend a couple of things I’ve really enjoyed. In the film space, I’d say Leave the World Behind was the thing I liked most – perhaps didn’t pay off as well as it might have, but a really fascinating premise with some gobsmacking moments. Animation-wise I continued to enjoy Vinland Saga and I really liked Blue-Eye Samurai – who knew I’d go for a female-led gritty revenge story with vividly realised characters in a dark and ruthless world? Then on TV I still find Brassic a lot of fun – love me some Joseph Gilgun ever since his This is England days, I liked Boiling Point – love me some Stephen Graham ever since his This is England days, I find Slow Horses very reliable, finely crafted and acted entertainment, and the second season of The Bear was maybe a little patchier than the first, but when it was good, truly excellent.

GAMES – Everyone says it’s been a great year for games, but I’ve actually found it a little bit underwhelming. Maybe more me than the games. Started out by replaying Cyberpunk on the PS5, which I actually really enjoyed, though honestly I’d quite enjoyed it on the PS4. Final Fantasy XVI, very unusually for me, I just got bored of half way through, and stopped playing. It was… okay, I guess? Diablo IV I had some fun crunching through with a friend, but though it has its charms I found it got pretty dull after a while. Alan Wake 2 looks very interesting – I’m a big fan of Remedy Games and loved Control – they really do stuff like no one else. But I’ve only just started that. Which really does leave quite the open goal for Baldur’s Gate III as my game of the year. That really should be a home run for me, I loved the first two back in the day, and I certainly did enjoy it, a lot at times, but, I dunno. Maybe it was the huge hype and orgasmic reactions all around but I actually found large stretches of it a little bit – disappointing would be the wrong word – just not as great as I’d hoped? I’m sure it’s rose tinted specs but though on paper it’s an enormous game with unmatched quantities of content, great voice acting and characters etc. etc. it somehow felt, I dunno, confined? Never got the sense of exploring a huge world. I enjoyed it a lot, and there’s much to admire, but it never gave me the feeling of awe I got from Elden Ring last year.

THE YEAR AHEAD – With The Devils not due to come out till 2025, 2024 looks like it’ll be a bit of a strange one. Working on the sequel, of course, and hoping to get a good chunk of that under my belt. Couple of events coming up, including Gollanczfest in March. Then there are a range of Film and TV things teetering on the brink of going which will undoubtedly take up a fair bit of time and energy, but when, and how much, and whether they’ll ever actually make it to the screen, remains to be seen. If I hear, you’ll be the first to know…

Happy New Year, you beautiful bastards, and (for yet another time) let’s just hope this one is better than the last…

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For the first time in a while we’re selling off a range of as-new author editions from the Abercrombie archive this Christmas, from some standard UK mass market-paperbacks, via some hardcovers and boxed sets, to some rare limited editions from Subterranean Press and Curious King. They’re being auctioned on e-bay with all proceeds (after P&P) going to Shelter in the UK. We can post internationally but it can be somewhat of an expensive pain in the arse so we’ll have to give you a quote for that after the fact. Limited editions are labelled artist’s proofs on the numbering page – they’re identical to the numbered editions in terms of illustrations/paper/binding etc. but have an AP designation on the signature page, rather than a number. You can find the selection OVER HERE, and happy bidding…

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Happy Halloween! Hard to believe we’re almost at the end of 2023. Ooooh, they go faster every year, though, don’t they, things aren’t what they used to be when I were a lad etc.

The WGA strike is at an end, which is great, and even greater, it seems from most reports that the writers… kinda won this round. A qualified win, of course, as such things always are, but some significant progress on many of the areas of concern. The gears of Hollywood grind back into action therefore and writing and other preparatory work on the Best Served Cold film (as well as a few other projects) is underway again, but the actors remain on strike so it’s far from all systems go and there’s no casting that can be done. Can’t say much more about that right now, but my good buddy Tim Miller who’s gonna be directing has been talking a little bit about the project and our epic quest to bring the First Law to the screen, among other things (Best Served Cold stuff later in the interview, around the 29 min mark)…

But it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, as they say, and the strike did give me an opportunity to give The Devils my undivided attention for a couple of months. The good news there is that I’ve tackled the editorial notes and my own structural concerns, chopped the end around a bit and looked at all the points of view and arcs in turn, and I’ve now got a second draft I’m pretty happy with. It’s gone off to my editors – Gillian Redfearn in the UK and Lindsey Hall in the US (who I believe just won a Hugo award the other day, so congratulations to her) – for its line edit. That’s when the editors mark the manuscript up in detail, draw attention to specific concerns and make more focussed suggestions. The first discussions about the cover art will be happening in the next month or two as well. After that there’ll probably just be a couple of run throughs from me to consider setting and the detail of the language before it goes to be copy edited at the start of next year and is basically done. In the meantime I’ve started work on planning the next book, and, if you can believe it, I’ve actually written a thousand words of the bastard  too. A thousand BAD words, but still.

In other news a couple of special editions have released and should be working their way to those who’ve preordered. Subterranean Press’s lettered edition of The Great Change and Other Lies (which is a novella length collection of four short stories accompanying the Age of Madness) sold out long ago but at the time of writing you can still get the numbered edition with awesome artwork by John Anthony di Giovanni, and there’s an e-book edition too. Meanwhile boutique ultra high end publisher Curious King have started shipping their three sumptuous letterpress editions of The Blade Itself with lashings of beautiful art by Tommy Arnold. Afraid these all sold out within an hour or two of going on sale but if you want to live vicariously you can see Fantasy Book Critic Petrik unboxing his copy on YouTube, and here’s a few photos from my own copies, including the ludicrous leather-bound lettered edition with a binding like a renaissance bible for which 26 lucky punters paid, much to my own personal amazement, over 2 grand a pop. What a time to be alive…

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Time ticks away… The current WGA strike is now well over a hundred days long – longer than the last one – which has of course brought all writing work on any US-based film and tv to a screeching halt. The writers have now been joined on strike by the actors, which really has killed most development progress even on existing scripts, and naturally this includes the film adaptation of Best Served Cold as well as a few other bits and pieces I’ve got going on. Hopefully enthusiasm is undiminished and things will pick straight back up as and when the strikes are over, but people have other commitments that start to back up and push schedules down and inevitably there’ll be casualties. Fingers crossed the AMPTP dip into the bottomless well of their executive bonus pot soon for the thirsty writers and actors who create the wealth in the first place (and I’m not talking about me – the books pay my bills – so much as young guys trying to get a career going).

ANYWAY, I am fortunate to have a day job on the book side. It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good, and zero progress on other projects means solid progress on The Devils. I’ve now got what I feel is a pretty decent second draft – the right scenes in the right places, the major tweaks, adjustments and improvements done, some steady cutting and fettling. I no longer feel this book will be a career sinking disaster (hey, others may very well disagree when it comes out, but at least I’m getting to like it), which is something I think about pretty much every book as I’m writing it. It’s gone back to editors for a quick read and response, just to see whether they’ve got any concerns with the direction it’s taking for me to bear in mind as work continues.

Then we’re into the more subtle rounds of revision, first of all taking each point of view character in turn, trying to set up and payoff arcs, and also to get as much individual voice into each of them as possible. For that I’ll take things out of order, and look at the chapters from each point of view together, trying to get consistency and distinctiveness into each one. As usual, some of the less frequently used and more intense points of view work pretty well already, but the more ordinary ones that change the most and therefore carry a lot of the weight of the story still need some work. After that round’s done, it’ll be time to look at setting, and maybe to get the detailed line edit out of the way. Still hoping to have a close-to-finished draft by year’s end.

With any luck, the next couple of months shall see a resolution to the strikes. Time will tell…

The post Progress Report August ’23 appeared first on Joe Abercrombie.

The big news over the last couple of months is that there’s a film adaptation of Best Served Cold in the works. Not much more I can say at this stage. It’s in the casting and scouting phase and the script has been revised and rewritten about a million times. Doubtless it will need to be revised and rewritten many more times in response to actor’s notes and scouting and design work and so on, but the writing part of it at any rate is frozen (along with all other film and tv writing work) while the WGA strike is going on.

Still, that has meant I’ve had a couple of months to focus pretty much exclusively on The Devils, which is timely as I just finished a loose first draft at the end of April and had the first round of general editorial notes back from my UK and US editors. The book’s had a bit of a scattered gestation over the last couple of years what with work on the film and other things, so it’s actually quite welcome to focus on it exclusively for a while and try and properly get my head around it, take in my editor’s notes and the feelings of beta readers and put a plan into action that’s gonna get me to a solid second draft (by which I mean one which is consistent start to finish and has the right major plot movements in the right places).

I’ve now made one thorough pass through the whole thing, added three or four new scenes and did some heavy rewriting, cut down some of the sprawling and self-indulgent action scenes a bit and generally tidied up, plus rewrote a few scenes towards the end to get a bit more punch out of them. I usually hate books while I’m writing a first draft, and start to like them while I’m doing the second, and this book’s no exception. It’s the part of the process I most enjoy, in general. With some books one pass has been enough to get things to a decent second draft (specially true of later books in trilogies where you’ve already set things up somewhat and worked out who the characters are), but with this one I’m gonna need to do at least one more. Often as I write a first draft I get closer and closer to what I want, so the last part doesn’t need an awful lot of work, and the second draft is mostly a matter of bringing earlier parts into line with the final one. This time around, though, a lot of the big changes I made were at the end, and rewrites there are gonna need some seeding and setting up throughout.

My current plan, therefore, is to spend July doing another pass through the whole book with an eye on some specific plot stuff I need to tweak and develop, then August looking at each point of view character in turn, working on the voices, trying to give them each an effective arc within the whole, and set stuff up that can pay off later. Some of the characters are mostly there already, but a couple need to be worked on a bit more to feel distinct.

Then it’s into the more detailed and specific rounds of revision – more editorial notes, a pass looking at dialogue and behaviour, a pass looking at setting, line edit (where editors make detailed comments on the text), and a pass on the detail of the language. That’s sept-dec, with the hope of getting the whole thing finished (or at least nearly finished) by year end. Of course the hope is that the WGA strike will be resolved long before that, and I’ll therefore be putting unknown amounts of time into rewriting Best Served Cold, but that all remains to be seen…

The post Progress Report June ’23 appeared first on Joe Abercrombie.

Pleased to say news just dropped over at Deadline Hollywood of a potential forthcoming film of Best Served Cold.

I’d love to say a lot more about it, but for the time being I can’t say much that’s not in that article. The headlines:

It’s set up at Skydance. I wrote the script. (director of Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate, as well as the main force behind Love, Death and Robots) is directing. is down to play Monza.

Tim and I have been working together on bringing the First Law to the screen in one form or another (among other things) for over a decade, and believe me when I say there is no bigger fan of, or bigger champion for, these books.

Now, before anyone gets too excited, take it from a man who has been hurt often in the past, there’s plenty of shit that can go wrong, and it’s never a sure thing till you’re sat there watching the opening credits and, hey, maybe not even then.

But for now let us revel in this promising step…

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