INTERVIEW: Joe Abercrombie
Joe Abercrombie is a celebrated British fantasy author known for his sharp wit and darkly humorous storytelling. He’s particularly skilled at bringing morally ambiguous characters to life—characters filled with cynicism, depth, and a touch of humor that makes them unforgettable. Often called one of the pioneers of grimdark fantasy, Abercrombie has captivated readers worldwide with his acclaimed First Law trilogy, which includes The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and The Last Argument of Kings, as well as compelling standalone novels like Best Served Cold and Red Country. With his work translated into many languages, Joe has undeniably made his mark as an influential voice in modern fantasy. It’s a genuine pleasure to chat with him today about his writing, storytelling, and his latest novel, The Devils.
[GdM] Your characters often navigate the fine line between hero and villain. Do you see them as reflections of reality, where no one is purely good or evil? Or do you just enjoy making your readers question their moral compass?
[JA] I guess a lot of the fantasy I read as a kid was very much in the shadow of Tolkien, and in Lord of the Rings there is an objective right and wrong. You either give in to Sauron or you fight him, and the text leaves no doubt which is good and which evil. Not that I ever lost interest in Gandalf and Aragorn but as the years went on I started to find Saruman and Boromir more interesting. People who fall from grace, or rise to it. Characters in flux, in turmoil, weighing greater good against personal good, with mixed motives, with uncertain outcomes. People who surprise the reader. In our world, everyone thinks they’re in the right. Battles aren’t of good against evil, but one man’s good against another’s.
[GdM] Your writing has been called cynical, but there always seems to be a single ray of reluctant hope shining on the ugly and dark. Do you think of yourself as a cynic at heart, or is that just a symptom of writing about war, politics, and human nature?
[JA] I don’t know that I’m a massive cynic at heart but certainly I’ve always been interested in the contrast between the kind of warfare, politics and human nature which we often witness in real life, and the heroic version on display in a lot of epic fantasy. I think a black and white view of the world is great for entertainment but it can be dangerous in reality. A little cynicism to sit alongside it is a healthy thing.
[GdM] Violence in your books is visceral, unromantic, and often has lasting consequences. What draws you to portraying it in such an unflinching way?
[JA] For me good writing is about putting the reader in the scene, experiencing it along with the characters. I think actual violence is visceral, unromantic, and has lasting consequences, for the victims and perpetrators both. Violent men, after all, are rarely the nicest people to know. As a reader the last thing I want is to feel entirely safe—that I know already who’ll come out on top and how.
[GdM] Have you ever written a scene that was so dark or brutal that you had to step away and take a break, leaving you unnerved that you came up with? Or do you relish putting your characters (and readers) through the wringer?
[JA] Scenes that come as a shock to a reader, that they might spend ten minutes with, the writer spends a lot of time thinking about. You plan it, you draft it over the course of days, you come back to it and rewrite it, reshape it, edit it, over and over, in an effort to create exactly the effect you want and make the maximum impact. I think the aim of a book is to get a strong response out of the reader, and the characters are really tools with which to do that. So there’s not much point pulling your punches.
[GdM] Can you tell us about your upcoming book, The Devils?
[JA] It’s one of those books about a group of monsters, including an oversexed werewolf, an overconfident magician, a geriatric vampire, an invisible elf, and a knight cursed with immortality, led by a monk who never even wanted to be a monk on a fool’s errand to install a thief on the throne of Troy on behalf of the Pope who’s a ten year old girl.
[GdM] After spending years in The First Law universe, what challenges and freedoms did you encounter while crafting a new world in The Devils?
[JA] It’s great to have all that well-established background, old characters and events to draw on writing a First Law book, but it’s also a lot of load to carry, a lot of things to get right, a lot of text to check. And a lot of expectation from readers who want a continuation of this plotline or that, a payoff of one kind or another. There’s definitely freedom in starting something entirely new, especially something that’s meant to be episodic and not especially coherent. I hardly dare say the word fun, but that was what I was after.
[GdM] You mentioned calling the world of The Devils an “alternate history is being too dignified about it.” It is the “stupid version of our world.” How fun was that to write? Did you seek out specific historical events to subvert, or was it throw whatever ideas came to you and see what stuck to the proverbial wall?
Author Joe Abercrombie[JA] New books are always fun for a while—the glory of new possibilities, the experimenting with new characters, but I find about a quarter of the way through they start to become work again. Then it’s the long grind through a draft, often while cursing god and wishing for ragnarok and pronouncing your career over to anyone who’ll listen, and it’s only towards the end that you start to get the enjoyment back. Then the editing and revising, seeing it all come together is where the fun is. I’ve always been a more character than world-focused writer, and the idea with the Devils was really to make the world as vague and ill considered as possible. This is the opposite of punctilious world-building with lists of dates and carefully drawn maps. I want the world to feel like a vague fever dream against which the characters and events explode with double the impact…
[GdM] You’ve mentioned a conscious effort to include more female perspectives in your work. How did this intention manifest in The Devils, and how does it impact the story?
[JA] The First Law trilogy was very male focused, for sure. I’m proud of the female characters in it but there aren’t many of ’em. There’s nothing wrong with writing about men, and as a man it’s the automatic option, but in general I don’t see much downside to more variety in the cast—different attitudes, different struggles, different types of relationships. It just helps a world feel more vivid, and lived-in, and well, real. The real world’s got lots of women in it, after all. As did the medieval world. Often doing strange, unexpected, interesting things. What happens if you put a woman in the kind of role where you might expect, default, a man? So in the case of The Devils I made the Saviour figure a woman. Female Saviour, therefore female priesthood, female Machiavellian cardinals, ten year old girl for a Pope. The central cast is pretty evenly split and because they’re, you know, actual monsters, you get all types. There are some classically feminine women, like courtier par excellence Lady Severa, but also in some ways some very masculine ones, like explosively violent and aggressively sexual werewolf Vigga. There are some very masculine men, like grizzled warrior Jakob of Thorn, as well as some quite feminine ones, like cloistered monk Brother Diaz. For me it just makes for a richer and more varied tapestry.
[GdM] The Devils is noted for its dark humor, as is most of your work. How did you balance comedic elements and the grim aspects of the narrative?
[JA] I don’t know that it needs much balancing. My approach has always been that there’s never a bad time to be funny, and there’s never a bad time to be horrifying. Often the two work best right up against each other, in the very same scene. Like light and shadow in a painting, they only intensify each other. As you edit and revise you obviously refine things to give a scene the tone you want, but often that’s just about judgement and timing and cutting stuff down to make it as impactful as possible. Very rarely would I think—hmmm, I need to make this scene less funny. Who wants that?
[GdM] The Devils feature characters reminiscent of classic horror figures like vampires, werewolves, and elves. What drew you to integrate these archetypes into your story, and how did you approach making them unique to your world?
[JA] People often celebrate originality as some kind of absolute good but I’ve always felt a little of it goes a very long way. I’ve always loved stories like Unforgiven, which takes a new look at some very classic, beloved genre, and serves as both a great example of the form and a comment on the form at the same time. That was really the approach to fantasy I took with The First Law. So with the Devils, which obviously has some horror elements to it, centred on a group of monsters, I wanted to include the classics. Suave vampire, uncontrollable werewolf, sneering magician. These things become archetypes because they work. It’s all in the application, really.
[GdM] Which of the main characters—Vigga, Sunny, Barron, Rikard, Balthazar, Jacob, or Baptiste—did you have the most fun writing? Which was the most challenging?
[JA] Well they all offer different challenges and serve different purposes. It’s like the ingredients in a cake—the project doesn’t work without all the elements. But I generally find characters with a very strong but quite one-noted personality, who often don’t carry a lot of the plot on their shoulders, are easy to write, while those who are more at the heart of things and therefore steer the plot and perhaps change over time themselves are more of a challenge. So Vigga was a lot of fun to write, for sure. But then she works because of the contrasts with and the interactions with the others. You need some more ‘normal’ people for her to knock against. And kill.
[GdM] If you, our liege and Lord Grimdark, could bestow an honorary title of Duke/Duchess of Grimdark to another writer, whom would it be and why?
[JA] Oh, titles such as that can never be bestowed, only won for oneself, preferably standing atop a mountain of skulls.
[GdM] Who would you choose if you could collaborate with any author, living or dead? What kind of book would you write together?
[JA] I work quite a lot in the film and tv world these days, and those projects are by nature a collaboration with a whole ensemble of different talented people of one kind or another. There’s a lot of reward in that way of working. Lots to learn, lots of ideas to absorb, and it’s sometimes great to be part of something bigger. But I think that work satisfies my need for collaboration, and there are frustrations too. It’s sometimes great to have the final say, and not have to make compromises. So though I love working with editors, fiction writing for me is really quite a personal thing—can’t imagine doing it with someone else. Although obviously a dead writer wouldn’t offer much criticism…
This interview was first published in Grimdark Magazine Issue #42
Read The Devils by Joe Abercrombie
The post INTERVIEW: Joe Abercrombie appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.
