Joe Abercrombie's Blog

Been quite a while since I did any interviews, for some reason, but that's all about to change, because there's one up at BookSpotCentral conducted by Elena Nola! We discuss stylistic voices, my winding path to the dizzy heights of full-time authoring, the book I'm currently working on, and the word f*ck, among other things.

I am too good to you...

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »

In what I trust shall be the first of many such appearances, Best Served Cold has been rated among the ten best sci-fi and fantasy releases of 2009.

In other news, an interesting discussion about fantasy cover art over at A Dribble of Ink kicked off by responses to the latest Mass Market Cover for Mark Charan Newton's Nights of Villjamur. The comments include some insightful stuff from industry insider-types like Lou Anders (of Pyr, who publish the First Law in the US, and also happens to hav...

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »

See what I did there? Lauren Panepinto over at Orbit US have unveiled a new look for the Mass Market Paperback outing of Best Served Cold in the States which will be coming along in June next year, and it looks a little something like this:


Oooooooh. Interesting departure. I have to say I much prefer this to the US Hardcover look which drew such ire from you all when it was unveiled back in February. This approach makes sense to me - I think it stands a good chance of bringing in readers w...

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »

It doesn't feel like long ago at all I was talking of Uncharted, speaking of its high qualities and hoping it would be the start of a long and beautiful series. I really liked that game - not spectacularly original, but well implemented across the board, nicely plotted and bursting with charm. It seems like about a week later, and here's the sequel, and man, it's really, really good. Everyone's saying that - finally a reason to own a PS3 and yada, yada.

But it really is good. Really good...

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »

Ouch.

I need to say that again. Ouch.

I loved the first couple of series of the Shield. It was tough, hard, morally ambiguous in a way I hadn't really seen in cop shows before. Had a killer twist in the very first episode. And featured a superb, eye-poppingly angry and dangerous central performance from Michael Chiklis as Vic Mackie. "Are you the good cop or the bad cop?" a suspect asks him. "I'm a different kind of cop," he replies, before beating a confession out of him with a telephone...

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »

So I've dropped a couple of hints that I'd have a short story in an anthology coming out next year. Its co-editor, the very wonderful Lou Anders, has now posted the table of contents so I feel free to reproduce it, because it is a doozy, and you are going to want a piece of this, oh yes you are:

"Introduction: Check Your Dark Lord at the Door" - Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan
"Goats of Glory" - Steven Erikson
"Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company" - Glen Cook
"Bloodsport" - Gene Wolfe
"The ...

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »

Rugged frontiersman Anton Vuorilheto sent me this photo of him getting closer to nature with his Best Served Cold. Watch out for that waterfall, Anton!

How do you eat yours?

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »

So I'm off to be a guest of honour (I know, stop laughing, they are clearly using 'honour' in its broadest possible sense) at Fantastyval, a fantasy festival (No!) in Holland from 16th-19th October. The schedule shall be:

Saturday 17th
11.30-11.50 Reading
13.00-14.00 Lecture (Probably about expectations in epic fantasy)
15.30-15.50 Reading
16.30-17.30 Informal chat, Q&A, and signing

Sunday 18th
11.30-11.50 Reading
13.00-14.00 Panel "Writing across borders"
15.00-15.20 Reading
16.00-17.00 Informal chat...

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »

And beware of spoilers ahead.

Hmmm. Watched the final season (or half season) of the new BSG not long ago, a show that I loved the first couple of seasons of, but had mixed feelings about the third. So did they pull it all together in the final episodes? Well ... not really.

There was still much too much of the religious and cylon-related blather, joined now by much incomprehensible waffle regarding the cycle of human/cylon violence and the role of the key final five cylons in everything. A...

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »

An interesting negative review of Best Served Cold from Elizabeth Vail at Green Man Review got me thinking a little bit t'other day, not only because it's quite amusingly snarky, but also because it seems to coalesce some criticisms of the book I've seen a few times, and also hints at some interesting attitudes to what a fantasy story (and maybe just any story) should or should not contain to be successful.

SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS. There may well be spoilers ahead, so those who haven't r...

View full post on Joe Abercrombie's website »