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Joe Abercrombie

Author of The Blade Itself

60+ Works 30,411 Members 1,038 Reviews 137 Favorited

About the Author

Joe Abercrombie is a freelance film editor, working mostly on documentaries and live music events. He lives and works in London. The First Law is his debut series. He won a Locus Award 2015 for science-fiction in the Young Adult Book Category with his title Half a King. (Bowker Author Biography)
Image credit: Joe Abercrombie (Photograph by Lou Abercrombie)

Series

Works by Joe Abercrombie

The Blade Itself (2006) 7,435 copies
Before They Are Hanged (2007) 4,598 copies
Last Argument of Kings (2008) 4,224 copies
Best Served Cold (2009) 2,839 copies
Half a King (2014) 2,189 copies
The Heroes (2011) 1,968 copies
Red Country (2012) 1,449 copies
Half the World (2015) 1,213 copies
A Little Hatred (2019) 1,164 copies
Half a War (2015) 1,006 copies
Sharp Ends (2016) 664 copies
The Trouble With Peace (2020) 647 copies
The Wisdom of Crowds (2021) 490 copies
The First Law Trilogy (2012) 253 copies
Two's Company (2016) 15 copies
Some Desperado 12 copies
The Blade Itself, book 1 (2009) 12 copies
The Blade Itself, book 2 (2009) 6 copies
The Fool Jobs (2010) 5 copies
Ostré konce 1 copy
Astiktan Sonra (2020) 1 copy
Krallarin Son Çaresi (2021) 1 copy

Associated Works

A Game of Thrones (1996) — Introduction, some editions — 42,280 copies
The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006) — Introduction, some editions — 10,086 copies
Rogues (2014) — Contributor — 1,275 copies
Dangerous Women (2013) — Contributor — 1,115 copies
Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery (2010) — Contributor — 289 copies
Unbound (2015) — Contributor — 102 copies
Dangerous Women 3 (2014) — Contributor — 73 copies
Legends: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell (2013) — Contributor — 22 copies
Grimdark Magazine #1 (2014) — Contributor — 14 copies
Clarkesworld: Issue 116 (May 2016) (2016) — Contributor — 9 copies
Grimdark Magazine Issue #19 (2019) — Contributor — 2 copies

Tagged

A Song of Ice and Fire (1,047) adventure (408) anthology (347) audiobook (366) currently-reading (262) dark fantasy (327) dragons (410) ebook (806) epic (540) epic fantasy (730) fantasy (13,062) fantasy fiction (186) favorites (367) fiction (4,503) Game of Thrones (187) George R. R. Martin (186) goodreads (337) grimdark (288) high fantasy (433) Kindle (656) magic (358) medieval (243) novel (542) own (315) owned (251) paperback (203) politics (191) read (829) science fiction (562) Science Fiction/Fantasy (294) series (825) sf (228) sff (364) short stories (284) signed (305) The First Law (419) thieves (187) to-read (5,969) unread (299) war (338)

Common Knowledge

Legal name
Abercrombie, Joseph Edward
Birthdate
1974-12-31
Gender
male
Nationality
UK
Birthplace
Lancaster, Lancashire, England, UK
Places of residence
London, England, UK
Bath, Somerset, England, UK
Education
University of Manchester (Psychology)
Occupations
editor
novelist
short-story writer
Short biography
Joe Abercrombie is a British fantasy writer and film editor. He is the author of The First Law trilogy, as well as other fantasy books in the same setting and a trilogy of young adult novels. His novel Half a King won the 2015 Locus Award for best Young Adult book.

Joe Abercrombie was born in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. He was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, where he studied psychology.

Abercrombie had a job making tea at a television production company before taking up a career as a freelance film editor. As a freelance film editor, Abercrombie found himself with more free time than he previously had. With this time, he decided to reconsider a story plot he conceived while attending University.

Abercrombie began writing The Blade Itself in 2002, completing it in 2004. It took a year of rejection by publishing agencies before Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz accepted the book for a five-figure deal in 2005 ("a seven-figure deal if you count the pence columns"). It was published by Gollancz in 2006 and was followed in the succeeding two years by two other books in the trilogy, by the titles of Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings, respectively. In 2008, Joe Abercrombie was a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer. That same year Abercrombie was one of the contributors to the BBC Worlds of Fantasy series, alongside other contributors such as Michael Moorcock, Terry Pratchett and China Miéville. In 2009, Abercrombie released the novel Best Served Cold. It is set in the same world as The First Law Trilogy but is a stand-alone novel. He followed with The Heroes (2011) and Red Country (2012), both again set in the world of the First Law Trilogy. The three standalone novels were later collected into an omnibus edition under the name The Great Leveller.

In 2011, Abercrombie signed a deal with Gollancz for four more books set in the First Law world. In 2013, HarperCollins' fantasy and children's imprints acquired the rights to three books by Abercrombie, aimed at younger readers. The three standalone but interconnected novels were released as the Shattered Sea trilogy.

Members

Reviews

Say one for Before They are Hanged; say it's a good book.
 
Flagged
Thulan | 126 other reviews | Mar 4, 2024 |
My 1st Abercrombie book. Nice YA fantasy. On to Book 2
 
Flagged
jazzbird61 | 152 other reviews | Feb 29, 2024 |
Wish the audio was synced, but loved it. I can't think why it took me so long to get to this one, but it's good enough to immediately go purchase #2. I thought it would be darker that it was (glad it wasn't).

Glokta is a new favorite character. He's not a good guy in the traditional sense (understate much?) and a physically revolting character. As a shallow American, I struggle with both and as a reader, I am fascinated with both.

I'm looking forward to this series making me feel even more uncomfortable.… (more)
 
Flagged
jazzbird61 | 236 other reviews | Feb 29, 2024 |
The plot was slower than I expected, and yet I was surprised at how quickly I breezed through this! Its a very...info-dump-free fantasy story. The backstories of characters or the lore where not explained, i did not know what was happening or who I should be rooting for half the time, i had a very poor idea of where things are...you kinda have to figure these things out little by (very) little and just trust that it all makes sense...by the end of it, I felt like this whole first book is just a massive prologue for the trilogy. and in spite all that, i loved this book and its characters! ^_^ I cant wait to find out what happens to them!… (more)
 
Flagged
riida | 236 other reviews | Feb 28, 2024 |

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Statistics

Works
60
Also by
16
Members
30,411
Popularity
#653
Rating
4.2
Reviews
1,038
ISBNs
541
Languages
23
Favorited
137

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