Sunday, 30 March 2008

Locus Pocus

Man, if only I spent a fraction of the time writing my books as I do dreaming up hilarious pun headings for my blog we might really have some quality fantasy fiction out there in the marketplace. I mentioned in the last post that I attended a panel at Eastercon about online reviews, and the opinion seemed to be pretty much unanimous that an author should never respond to their reviews. Best just to rise above it. You only dignify it by responding, and cheapen the authorial coin. Nothing to gain, everything to lose. The dignity of silence.

Yeah, right. Dignity? Me?

Probably I'm a bit late to this, but there's quite a substantial review of Last Argument of Kings in the latest edtion of Locus:

"Abercrombie holds nothing back in his depiction of torutre, hand-to-hand combat, the clash of armies, and climactic assaults that recall some of the worst of World War II ... But behind the mayhem there's no Dark Lord or Darth Vader dreaming of the ultimate triumph of evil; (nearly) everyone here is fully human, driven by the force of circumstance and the vagaries of self. Last Argument of Kings ends the First Law trilogy with a mordant brilliance ... Despite the apparent medievalism of its courts and tribes, this is industrial-strength, politically savvy fantasy for our own times."

Mmmmmmm. Melts in the mouth. Equally warm and tasty was Hobbit's response at SFFWorld:

"For those jaded by the genre's predictability, yet hopeful about revisiting the elements that encouraged them to read Fantasy in the first place, this might be the series. A trilogy that justifies being a trilogy, produced in three years ... For those who have stuck the course, this trilogy shows an amazing development and progression, not only in scope but also in writing style. And the man's only three books into what, I hope, will be a lengthy publishing career. How do you top this? Recommended very highly."

Not quite so easily digestible (at least for me), was the opinion of a guy I was lucky enough to meet at Forbidden Planet, and subsequently at Eastercon, the Little Kid with a Beard, who basically enjoyed the series greatly, but is one of an emerging group of, for want of a better description, cynical malcontents who had some issues with the ending:

"Abercrombie's talent for developing believable characters and changing the tone and voice of each chapter according to the point of view is a joy to read. Although Abercrombie takes familiar fantasy staples, he manages to escape coming off as a cheap hack reinventing Tolkien ... Strangely, Last Argument of Kings seems to rob both its reader and the protagonists of a peaceful ending. In fact by the end of the book you can't help but wonder if certain characters are any better off than when the first book started."

Endings, shmendings. In all seriousness, he's not alone in having his doubts about the conclusion. It's a difficult area to get right, and I always knew the road I took wouldn't work for everyone. But then that's true of every aspect of writing. Such is the torture of reviews for the author. Some consensus, please, guys? Just give me the objective truth, if you will?

Only a thousand, thousand voices, raised in a clamour of infinite discord...

Anyway, the differing response to the endings is something that I may have to look at in more detail once more folks have read the books, along with some spoilerific content about what I was trying to achieve with the whole business. Other than to live in an enormous mansion with a swimming pool shaped like a magic sword, of course. Still waiting on that one...

BY THE WAY: If you haven't read the books, best not read the comments. They've got some spoilers in them, which I should probably have seen coming, and I'd hate to damage anyone's enjoyment of my own books.

Labels: reviews

Monday, 24 March 2008

Conventional Wisdom

Ha ha. See what I did there?

Just spent the Easter weekend at Eastercon, the sci-fi and fantasy convention, which this year was within relatively easy reach of me at a hotel near Heathrow. It's the second time I've been to a convention, but the first time was two years ago in Glasgow which, if one can believe it, was just before The Blade Itself was published. So this was my first attendance as an actual, proper, fully-paid-up, honest-to-goodness author.

Spent most of my time hanging around one bar or another (doesn't everyone at these things), with my editor Gillian and publicist Jon, with Sara and Mark from Orion (thanks for the support), with Stephane and Alain from French publisher Bragelonne (lovely guys even if they are from across the channel), Darren Nash and Bella Pagan from Orbit, Marcus Gipps from Blackwells, John Berlyne of SFRevu (always a pleasure), Paul Cornell, writer for Dr. Who (Hugo nominated this year, no less). Apologies to anyone I've left out. I'd been drinking, you see...

Went out for dinner on the Saturday night with a cornucopia of Gollancz persons, including the aforementioned Gillian, Jon, Sara and Mark plus editorial director Jo Fletcher, plus sundry authors - Adam Roberts (Robertsy), Chris Wooding (Woody), Tom Lloyd (Lloydy), John Meaney (no chance, the man's a master of multiple forms of unarmed combat), David Devereux (the name is impossible to create a nick-name out of simply by adding a 'y' or 's'), and Ian McDonald (whose victory at the SFWAs and nominations for pretty much every other major award this year make him simply 'Mr. McDonald'). Apologies again to anyone I've left out. I'd been drinking, had got up at 5.00 in the morning, which seems to be the time my baby wakes up now, and had come down with a cold. I was in bed by 10.30. Rock and roll, man, rock and roll.

I signed some books for some dealers, and some books for some readers, who all seemed like very nice folks, I must say. What they're doing reading my books, I've no idea. I spoke to some readers, some at some length and some at less length. Apologies to anyone I spoke rubbish at. I'd been drinking, you see...

What else? I visited some panels, sat in darkened rooms while wisdom was diseminated in my direction. I saw Charles Stross talk about technology. I saw China Mieville talk about Lovecraft. I saw Jo Fletcher and Darren Nash talk about 'what an editor does' and I'm still not sure. I missed Neil Gaiman because I was in the pub having an elaborate desert. I sat in on a panel about on-line criticism. When several of the bloggers there started talking about how it was unwise for authors to respond to their critics, for some reason I can't explain, Niall Harrison, who runs the reviews at Strange Horizons, looked right at me and grinned. Or perhaps he wasn't looking at me at all. I had been drinking, as it happens.

I also sat on a couple of panels. I must admit I was slightly nervous about this before hand, but they both turned out to be good fun, in fact, for me if not for the audience. 'Adapting Tolkien from Book to Film' probably had about thirty people in it, which wasn't bad considering China Mieville was on at the same time. Atmosphere was greatly enhanced by the winds of Mordor rattling the windows. 'Roughening up fantasyland' was probably more up my street, so I was able to talk, if not more sense, then just more stuff on that one. Pretty full, maybe eighty people or so? My thanks to anyone and everyone who turned out, came up, or contributed, and I'll hope to see you all again, out there...

Labels: news

Friday, 21 March 2008

Gongs

No longer will I be able to refer to myself as a "multi-award nearly-nominated author", as today I have actually been nominated for the John W. Campbell award for best new writer. My grovelling thanks to anyone who put my name forward for this utterly undeserved honour.

But Joe, I hear you cry, have you not written three books and are you not half way through a fourth? It's an odd selection criteria which allows for anyone who released their first professional work in the genre within the last 2 years (2006-7), so I was eligible last year but, like, Joe who? Patrick Rothfuss, I'm sure, would have been an absolute shoe-in for this, but due to a short story published way-back-when he's not eligible. David Anthony Durham, on the other hand, is eligible despite having some successful historical fiction under his belt, because Acacia is his first sf/f work. Them's the vagaries of the selection process, I guess. The absence of Rothfuss probably means that I can get urinated on from a great height by Scott Lynch instead. Well, bit of urine never hurt anyone, did it? Perhaps the benevolent God of Release Dates will come to my aid in this time of crisis, but I doubt it, and it's great to be on the ballot, in any case.

Sweeping my eye over the rest of the nominations I cannot but notice my US Editor Lou Anders, of Pyr, up for best Long Form Editor. He's a man who believes in, and puts great effort into, every title he publishes. It's testament to the great work he does that, even though Pyr is a small outfit compared to some and puts out less than twenty titles a year, he's got a nomination for the Best Novel Hugo via Ian McDonald's Brasyl, me AND David Louis Edelman in the Campbell section, and himself in the Best Editor. Round of applause for Lou, please.

You spend five years waiting for a bus to come along, then two come at once, because I've also been nominated for the Compton Crook Award which is given for the best first novel of the year written by a new author by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. But Joe, I hear you cry, was your first novel not written and released years ago? Ah, well, not in the US, you see. Better yet, this award actually comes with a cash prize. Worse yet, that fiend Rothfuss no doubt will be eligible for this one. Enjoy your Compton Crook, Rothfuss! Ha ha! I'll enjoy being ... pissed on ... by ... Scott Lynch. Hmmmm.

In other news, there were some fifty folks at the signing at Forbidden Planet last night, my thanks to anyone who turned out in inclement weather to be there. I've done one of these for each book, and the attendance has more or less tripled for each one, which is great. There was actually something you could reasonably describe as a queue this time. Astonishing. Also signed a big heap of 100 hardbacks for Goldsboro books as well, so if anyone has ordered books from them they should be on their way. Lined and dated half of 'em too. My hand hurts now. Off to Eastercon. Maybe see you there...

Labels: announcements, news

Wednesday, 19 March 2008

Worldbuilding and Tropes

Official release date for Before They are Hanged in the US is tomorrow, but the book's actually been available there for a month or more, and opinions currently abound. King of the Nerds had some interesting things to say about the worldbuilding, or lack thereof:

"I would be counted among the detractors regarding Abercrombie's scant attention to setting but, as I thought about it, I've decided that his lack of attention to setting (except where necessary) is completely intentional. In many ways, to go with an extreme analogy, Abercrombie's functions in many ways as the set from Our Town. Abercrombie sketches out bare details and populates a scene with what, at first appearance, are obvious archetypes but on closer examination stray much further from the fantasy norm. It is, as I said, an extreme analogy. There is one key thing to note, setting is mostly non-extant except for the major action set-pieces. Its an abrupt slide from black and white to full color but one that serves to enhance the action and leave a lingering image with the reader. As a result Abercrombie's richly textured and vividly imagined characters stand out all the stronger. It becomes about the people and their, often strange, relationships to one another."

Which encapsulates my approach to worldbuilding a good deal more succinctly than I generally manage to do, I'd say. I've got nothing against fantasies that emphasise worldbuilding, I'm as enthusiastic a fan of Tolkien as the next man, but there's an awful lot of that type of work out there. In having a go myself, I wanted to push the world into the background and bring the characters firmly to the fore. I'm more interested in those things that epic fantasy has in common with every other kind of story-telling (character, plot, and action), if you like, than those things that separate it (worldbuilding, magic, and monumental length, though let's face it, my books ended up pretty damn long). If it becomes, as the man says, about the people and their, often strange, relationships to one another, I'm well satisfied. Fantasy Magazine have also taken a look:

"There's no way to give a capsule description of this novel without making it sound generic. Indeed, many of the plot elements are familiar from any number of other epic fantasies, and the battle scenes and fast-paced action sequences and abundance of political intrigue, while well-crafted, are pretty much fantasy standard. Anything but standard, however, is the pitch-black cynicism with which it's all presented. Abercrombie creates a world in which every official is corrupt, every motive suspect, and virtue's only reward is death and degradation. Even characters who grow and change get no credit-the obnoxious Jezal learns the folly of his arrogance, but that doesn't make him any less of a fool. All this darkness is saved from monotony by frequent flashes of black humor, often popping up when least expected."

Which encapsulates my approach to the tropes of epic fantasy pretty neatly. The situations, the settings, the events we're used to seeing in the genre, but hopefully with deeper characters, a more realistic, less romaniticised feel, and (as the series goes on) very different outcomes. I feel you'll surprise people most effectively if you give them, at least to some extent, what they expect at first, then when they're snugly sure of what they're going to get, give them the opposite. For me that's the strongest appeal of writing within an established form with well established patterns. Finally, Rob Bedford's been reading the book for a review at SFFWorld:

"Joe Abercrombie has done it again. He's written another page-turner which plays with genre convention with a narrative style and pace that easily pulls the reader along for the ride. The only difference from his first book is that somewhere between finishing The Blade Itself and starting Before They Are Hanged, he became an even better writer. His plotting is tighter this time around and more focused."

If he feels that way about the first two, I think he'll really like the third...

In other news, the piece about George RR Martin's Game of Thrones I referred to in an earlier post is up on the interweb now at SFX's book club as a PDF, if anyone's interested in reading it. Probably nothing that's going to blow the minds of any serious fantasy buffs amongst you, but, hey. And I'm sure you'll all have this lovingly circled in your calendars, but I'm signing books, or anything else you care to bring, at Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury avenue tomorrow evening from six. Maybe I'll see some of you there...

Labels: news, reviews

Saturday, 15 March 2008

Last Argument of Kings

Gather round, my friends, for I have great news! Fans of edgy yet humorous yet action-packed yet deeply inventive and moving fantasy fiction rejoice! I note that Last Argument of Kings is now shipping from amazon.co.uk. At the time of writing it resides in fact, at an amazon.co.uk sales rank of 12. 1200? No. 120? No. 12. In fantasy? No. In fiction? No. 12, in all books. It is, for this glorious hour at least, amazon uk's 12th highest selling book. It may also be found in the foremost bookshops of the land, though at this stage probably on trolleys in their stock rooms, rather than actually on the shelves.

What's that? You need more of me basking in self-aggrandisement? I am to be found discussing the book at the Genre Files, along with such issues as my response to negative criticism (I float effortlessly above it, don't you know).

Fortunately, no such floating will be necessary with regard to my review in March's edition of Death Ray, who have rewarded me the bare acceptable minimum of 4.5 stars. Admittedly, they called it "The Last Argument of Kings." There is no "The", but I'm pretty sure it is my book they're talking about:

"Abercrombie is a fantasy writer who can really write. No, really. As with the previous two books, Last Argument of Kings is tightly plotted, has wit and style to spare, and in the barbarian Logen and the Inquisitor Glokta it has two of the best fantasy creations of recent years ... Forget the sterile battles of modern fantasy: here we have brutal medieval realism in which bloody teeth fly and guts are clutched at in one of the most heroic sieges since Helm's Deep."

Mmmmmm, bloody teeth. There's an interview in March's SFX, also, with a full page picture of me, debonairely let challengingly leaning against a whitewashed wall, as I often am to be found doing. They've also managed to paint out all my boils and photoshop my missing eye back in. Amazing, what they can do these days. Aidan at A Dribble of Ink has had the honour and privilege of reading the book in advance, and you know what? He kinda liked it:

"Last Argument of Kings is without a doubt the strongest novel in the cycle and, indeed, one of the strongest finishes to a trilogy I've come across in a long time. It’s refreshing to find an author who can not only finish a story in three books (a rarity in the fantasy genre these days, it seems) but to also do so in a satisfying manner ... The First Law ends much as it begins: raw, gritty and full of humanity."

Care to put a number on it, Aidan?

"I decided I wouldn't attach numerical values to my reviews, but if I were to thrust such an arbitrary label upon Last Argument of Kings, it would probably look much like a 9.9/10"

Someone, somewhere, is taking the piss. In all seriousness, the response to the book so far has been extremely gratifying. Numerical ratings are essentially tosh, of course, but (since you ask) the ratings for Last Argument of Kings from blogs and magazines so far have been: 4.5 stars, 4.5 stars, 5 stars, 9.5/10, 9.75/10, 9.75/10, and 9.9/10. Oh, and 8 from Pat, though he shall pay for that slur upon mine honour, oh yes, he shall pay. You can find some details from those reviews here, should you not quite be convinced.

Probably you want to find out what all the fuss is about, hmmmmm?

Now you can, my friends, now you can...

Labels: announcements, interviews, reviews

Thursday, 13 March 2008

The Steel Remains

Now, I read very little fantasy these days, and my knowledge of the genre is pretty pathetic. I can remember a couple of years ago when The Blade Itself came out I had a review that described the book as having a "Vancian reminiscence." "Vancian?" I asked my editors, with one eyebrow raised. "That's right, like Jack Vance." "Jack Vance?" I asked with both eyebrows raised. They looked at me as if I'd asked who Elvis was. I've read Tolkien, course. Dragonlance, Eddings, bit of Jordan, guilty as charged. Martin, Moorcock, and LeGuin, yes. But more recently, you can pretty much forget it. Bakker, not a word. Erikson, not a peep. Mieville, not a sausage.

I believe if you're going to be a serious critic, you need to know the genre you're talking about pretty damn well, so you can see where a piece stands in relation to others. Furthermore, as a writer of fantasy myself, I find a) rating other people's work is a bit close to the bone, since I know how it feels to be rated myself, and I don't always enjoy it, and b) I find it very hard to get properly submerged in fantasy writing now - I'm always picking at it, thinking how I'd do it differently, and so on - like a glassblower looking at someone else's beautiful vase and moaning that he wouldn't have done the fluting just that way. Some writers are critics too, and the best of luck to them, but I'm not one, really, except in the "like arseholes, everyone's got opinions" sense. But Simon Spanton at Gollancz asked me for mine (opinion, that is, not arsehole) on sf author Richard Morgan's foray into the world of epic fantasy, The Steel Remains.

I will not presume to review it, there'll be folk enough doing that shortly, I'm sure. I'll just say how it struck me.

This is a good book. It may very well be part of a really great series. It's an extreme book, a challenging book in all kinds of ways - themes, content, and style. It reaches the parts most epic fantasies don't reach and many fantasy readers may not want to have reached. Morgan seems to say to them - tough shit, and you've got to greatly admire his bollocks in doing so. No-one could accuse him of moving into fantasy in order to take the easy commercial path. NO-ONE.

Larry from Wotmania was recently examining bad criticism in the genre, and pointing out that there's nothing lazier than talking about one book by glibly comparing it to another. I will now, therefore, encaspsulate The Steel Remains by glibly comparing it to a whole load of other stuff that it's only vaguely like. Observe me in action:

There's not much Tolkien in the mix at all, not much epic massiveness, no good and evil whatsoever, just loads of evil, and boy is there no romanticism. But there's not much Martin either, which surprised me, because that's more what I was expecting - Morgan's isn't a low magic world really, in fact there's quite a range of the wierd and wonderful in there. Elves (but messed up), Lizardmen (kind of), Dragons (of a sort), Magic swords (ish), sorcery (maybe). If I had to say what the world made me think of (work with me, Larry, work with me) it's probably closest to something like the sweaty back-streets of Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar, with a bit of the endless steppe from the Conan the Barbarian movie, and the lost, ancient technologies of the Elder Scrolls computer games. A world full of the strange and unexplained, but also a very grim one, constantly in the shadow of old and terrible wars with lashings of religious bigotry, sexual oppression, messy executions, and slavery.

I'm probably doing it a disservice and making it sound piecemeal, which it isn't really. In fact it's pretty interesting with quite a few (to me at least) original notions in there, especially as the book goes on. A surprsingly tasty cocktail, for one with so varied a set of ingredients. Certainly the book doesn't feel at all like some ham-fisted reaction against fantasy, just a very different take on it. Some would probably say it's light on the worldbuilding, and be confused as to where x is in relation to y, but that suits me fine, as you can imagine.

What else can I compare it to? It has the explosive violence of, well, Richard Morgan (only about twice as explosive), the moral ambiguity of vintage Moorcock (but about three times as dark), with the explicit sexual content of Martin (only about ten times more explicit, and I'm not kidding), the harsh language of Scott Lynch (times about 1,000,000). If those things put you off, really, don't bother. The first couple of pages will probably give you a bit of mouth sick. The lyricism of Patrick Rothfuss? Not so much. The languid descriptions of Robert Jordan? No. The charming rural laughs of Eddings? No. No. No.

Anyway, I was honoured to be asked for a line or two on it, so here's mine:

"Bold, brutal, and making no compromises - Morgan doesn't so much twist the cliches of fantasy as take an axe to them. Then set them on fire. Then put them out by pissing on them."

I suspect the last sentence won't make many press releases, but I like to think that Mr. Morgan would approve. I ended up liking The Steel Remains a lot, and I think a lot of other people will too, but I must admit it took me quite a while to get there.

For one thing, I'm not used to reading other people's manuscripts, and since it looked kind of like one of mine, it took me a while to just read it without thinking stuff like, "no, no, wrong adverb." Setting and binding definitely helps to give books authority - I find reading proofs a bit odd, in fact, so this was quite weird to begin with. Also, Morgan's approach to fantasy feels somewhere in the same ballpark as mine. I mean, it's not actually alike in any meaningful way, far further apart than a whole host of writers are to Tolkien, say. But close enough that I felt not just like a glass-blower assessing someone else's glassware, but a maker of little glass unicorns looking at someone else's glass unicorns. A pathetic metaphor. What I'm trying to say is it drops you in at the deep end, in the middle of the action, and lets the reader sink or swim. It's harsh, with some occasional black humour, has used-up, world-weary, semi-likeable characters, some heavy violence, a very modern sensibility and a feel of edgy realism. Probably it was that much harder for me to achieve "submersion" in it, if you like, than it will be for most, because it's my cup of tea, and I was therefore tasting it with much greater and more critical discernment than usual. It's my cup of tea, only a lot stronger than I usually take it, I must admit. Real brown and soupy. Like the bag's been left in overnight, or something. This is some strong medicine, and as I was going through, I must admit that I found myself often wondering - how extreme, in all sorts of ways, is too extreme?

It's not that I'm a prude (he says, loosening his well-starched dog collar by just the tiniest fraction that strict social decorum will allow), and often I got caught up in it all and the heart would be pumping, but sometimes I'd wipe the latest explosion of gore, shit, or spunk from my face and just think, "must we? Must we, again?" It occasionally gave me that feeling of, "if you're playing on 10 all the time, and you want that little bit more, where do you go?" Some will definitely love this book and some will definitely hate it, but a few may reasonably think it could have been just a tad less lurid at times and gained punch as a result...

There's also an unremitting grimness that makes it all pretty heavy-going in places. Ariel coined the term "Brutalist Fantasy" and I think that's very apt. Everyone is in fear, in danger, alone, oppressed, hated, self-loathing, tortured by their pasts, and the result is that it feels, at least for the first half, perhaps a bit one-toned. The upside is that a couple of deft touches of humanity later on, from some of the places you least expect them, shine brightly against the grim backdrop, and when the central characters finally come together for the finale, the bond between them is surprisingly effective and really quite touching.

But probably the biggest problem I had with the book, and this is a personal reaction rather than a general criticism, is its utterly unflinching modernity - in the prose, and in the dialogue. No doubt it's entirely intentional, but I did find it jarring. Barbarians use phrases like "back in '55", everyone from swineherd, to knight, to emperor, says "yeah," frequently, and everyone, and I mean everyone, says "fuck." They say it a lot. They say it a fucking lot.

Now, don't get me wrong, I despise faux victorian romanticism in prose and dialogue as much as the next man. A lot more, in fact. I'm not asking anyone to go all "prithee", "pon mine honour" and "ifaith, my liege", but at the same time I feel the words you pick are very important, and for me some of the language didn't necessarily communicate much about the characters and the settings in question, in fact it conflicted with them quite badly, at least at first, and gave it all an oddly schizophrenic feel. An epic fantasy with the prose of ... well, of a Richard Morgan dystopian sci-fi. The issue of what is or is not anachronistic is one we could spend a great deal of time discussing, so I'll duck it like the coward I am. I must say I got used to the unflinching, unapologetic modernism over time, but I never quite liked it. I would not be at all surprised if Morgan has used the word "fuck" more in one book than Scott Lynch in two and me in three all put together. In fact I'd be surprised if he hadn't. He may well have used it more than in all of his previous books put together. I love a bit of swearing, I've written empassioned defences of its use in fantasy but there definitely is such a thing as too much. I wouldn't consider it an anachronism, but in the end, five times in one paragraph, it just gets repetitive, boring, ineffective. Obviously, everyone will have a different threshold there, but for me, there was waaaaaaay too much, at least early on.

Now I know what you're all thinking. "Joe, you hypocritical bastard, these are just the same criticisms you're constantly and shrilly defending yourself against!" Ooops. You're right. Modern verbiage. Too much swearing. Too much dark. Over-the-top violence. I can only scratch my head and say, it's all a question of balance, and every reader or writer will find theirs in a different place, and if you think my stuff is in any way extreme, then think again, rapidly, because fantasy just got a whole lot more extreme, guys. I am proudly middle-of-the road, now. I am made bland, and inoffensive, and believe me, so is everybody else.

Anyway, these are details, really, which made me struggle at first, but that generally fell away as the book went on and I got drawn into the setting, and the people, and the unfolding of the mystery. By the last hundred pages or so I was properly gripped. It's a slow builder, and takes a bit of time getting there (another criticism everyone always has of my books), but has a cracking action finale, and an ending that would seem to promise some very interesting developments as the series goes on. It also strikes a nice balance between resolution of a book and setting up of a trilogy, something that's harder than you might think. I hesitate to say, "if you like the works of x, y, or z, then give The Steel Remains a try," because really it's pretty much unlike anything else, and that's why you should give it a try. You might love it, you might loathe it, but you'll certainly find it difficult to ignore...

Labels: reading

Tuesday, 11 March 2008

Misogynist? Moi?

Came back from a few days away down in Bath to an interesting pair of posts from King Rat. It all began as a diffusely positive review of Before They are Hanged (though of course, nothing like as positive as I'd like), and then ended up accusing me of hardcore sexism. Perhaps I exaggerate. You be the judge. If you are minded to read on, beware of some very minor spoilers for the series:

"I do have something to say about the female characters in the book though. The word that comes to mind when I think about them is misogynistic. I know it's a loaded word to throw out there, but I can't think of anything else."

Ouch. Misogynistic? Woman-hating? Bringing to mind as it does images of bible-thumping pro-lifers, hardcore sharia law and brutalist rappers, yes, that certainly is a pretty loaded--

"The vast majority of the characters in the book are male. Contrast that with Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls which I didn't like all that much, but which included many female characters. I can think of only four in this book, three of them minor."

Well, true, there aren't that many women. The First Law was an attempt to do a retake on the classic fantasy trilogy, and epic fantasy, taking its cue from Tolkien, does tend to focus heavily on men, the women often restricted to the love interests of said men. Perhaps that makes it, in some ways, a fundamentally sexist genre, but it's not unlike war films or westerns in that sense, or romances in the opposite direction, I guess, and I'd argue it's more about the treatment of the individuals involved than the numbers. But by all means let's have a look at the female characters one by--

"The one to get the second most screen time is Cathil, who serves little purpose except as a semen receptacle. One of the big parts of Ferro's character is similar, she's a former slave/prostitute who must shut out a life of being used sexually and uses that to fuel her rage. Female character three is West's sister Ardee. While not a bimbo, she spends the entire book waiting for her male saviors. Practical Vitari is a pain-loving torturer list her co-workers. But, minor and unimportant spoiler here, she's revealed to have a soft spot for her multiple children. All four women defined by very stereotypical attributes."

Ouch. Granted, Ferro and Cathil both have histories of sexual oppression. Cathil suffers some during the second book. But if you're going to look at the experience of female slaves, or of female convicts in penal colonies, or of women caught up in war, unless you want to avoid any sexual element whatsoever (which seems to me cowardly in an adult book) there's really nowhere else to go and remain (to my mind) honest and convincing, which is always my prime aim. What is the alternative here that would make these characters "non-misogynistic"? That Ferro should be a well-adjusted, unmolested escaped slave? That Cathil should have been through incarceration equivalent to the Siberian Gulag without any event, then walked among a gang of sex-starved barbarians for a few weeks without it ever coming up that there's a woman in their midst?

Ardee is forced to wait for male saviors because of her position in society. That may be stereotyped, but I don't know that she's necessarily "defined by that stereotypical position". Could the same not be said for every female character in Pride and Prejudice? Are they, therefore, misogynist stereotypes? The argument seems particularly weak when used about Vitari. What, she's got children that she cares for, so she must be a female stereotype, even if she's a hard-bitten torturer? Mr. Rat doesn't mention Carlot dan Eider at all, incidentally, who's probably the most important woman besides Ferro in Before They are Hanged, and the only significant female in the books with considerable temporal power. Perhaps she should be considered stereotyped because she was once forced into an arranged marriage, though, I don't know?

"An argument can be made that anything modeled on Medieval times should follow Medieval culture, a very patriarchal one. But if we get to build a fantastic world, one with majic and invented geographies and societies created from the mind, could we not discard the typical female roles for a while?"

Perhaps we could, but if we do, I think there's a price to be paid in the relevance and realism of the invented world. I wanted to do something that was honest, that was truthful, that was firmly rooted in historical reality, becuase for me those are the fantasy worlds that I find most convincing, most concrete. I don't personally have much use for the argument, "this is fantasy, so we can do anything we like." I think it encourages some of the genre's most lazy, shoddy, unimaginative excesses. Since I wanted The First Law in a way to be a re-examination of classic epic fantasy, and classic epic fantasy takes place in a pre-industrial, patriarchal world, that's the backdrop I went for. And I would point out, as Scott Bakker has often done in response to similar accusations, that examination is by no means endorsement.

It's funny. I haven't read Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies, but I have noticed him getting quite a lot of stick for the exact opposite treatment of women (though one presumes from a different section of the readership) - he has a pretty 'equal opportunities' fantasy world in which there are a lot of woman soldiers, bodyguards, pirates, and so on. He's been taken to task by a fair few readers for this being unrealistic, unconvincing, an imposition of PC modern values onto a medieval/rennaisance fantasy world. I guess this is one issue, as with so many in writing, where you're pretty much damned in someone's eyes whatever you do. Unless your world and characters are utterly bland and hence of interest to no-one, you'll always be offending someone's sensibilities.

If you're a man, in general, it's harder to write female characters than male ones. Fact. The book I'm currently writing has a woman in the central role, and I don't mind admitting it's a challenge. You can say - you should approach the women just like you do the men - and by and large that's what I try to do, but men and women aren't identical, physically or socially, and there will always be elements of the female experience that you're guessing at. That tends to make you tentative, perhaps, especially when you know you'll never get accused of being sexist in relation to your male characters, but you almost certainly will at some point in relation to your female ones. Back to Mr. Rat, who's been thorough enough to post some additional thoughts:

"When a writer falls back on typical whore roles such as Joe Abercrombie or female as victim as Lauren Weisberger did, I think it reflects either laziness or a lack of imagination. Even if the character is a strong one such as Ferro is, when her strength is based on a reaction to common abused roles of women, there isn't much stretching involved. Sometimes there's a point needing to be made about women, their roles, or abuse, and sometimes these roles just work best in a story. But too often it just feels like a paint-by-numbers scene. That irritates me, especially in these cases. Do I know that's what Joe Abercrombie did? No. Another reader might easily have a different take on these characters."

The First Law is a series, like most epic fantasy, mostly about men, and so the women tend to be seen in terms of their relationships with those men. Perhaps a certain theme of sexual oppression did creep in without my noticing. Perhaps the women weren't my deepest or most succesful characters, that's not for me to say, and I think it's always a risk for a male writer. But "misogynist"? "Typical whore roles"? "Semen receptacle"? Seriously? That's strong, man, that's pretty damn strong. "Another reader might easily have a different take on these characters," apparently. Pray God that is the case. Answers below, please...

Labels: opinion, reviews

The Blade Itself to be Filmed!

Yes, you read that right. No lesser light of Hollywood than Ben Affleck is due to take the director's chair in a dramatisation of The Blade Itself. Brilliant news, one would've thought? So am I dancing around all over the house, or rolling about in a bath of 1,000 dollar bills today?

Well, not so much.

The tiny problem?

The book that's being adapted isn't Joe Abercrombie's ctically-acclaimed edgy debut fantasy, The Blade Itself, but Marcus Sakey's critically-acclaimed edgy debut thriller, The Blade Itself.

Say it with me now...

CURSE YOU SAAKKKEEEEYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still, you've got to look on the bright side. I suppose, if the film does get made, there are bound to be people who mistakenly buy my book looking for his.

Mmmmmmm ... mistake royalties ... there's no fruit sweeter than the one earned by accident and completely undeserved.

Labels: news

Wednesday, 5 March 2008

Gonzo Fantasy

First, some announcements. Worlds of Fantasy tonight, on BBC4, at 9pm, will include footage of me, saying stuff. About Peake, and Tolkien, and the "EPIC IMAGINATION", apparently. Possibly. Not to be missed. Anyone who sees it, by all means come back here and tell me how much I sucked ass.

Secondly, the good people of Romania will soon have the opportunity to join the fantasy craze that is sweeping the globe. Patrick Rothfuss, you ask? Well, no, not him, he's going there already, probably, but-- Scott Lynch, cry the crowd excitedly? Well, actually, I think he went there a while ago now, but-- Brandon Sanderson, Brian Ruckley, Alan Campbell, Tom Lloyd, Daniel Abraham, Felix Gilman, Robert Redick, or, or, or-- No, none of them. It's the First Law, I'm talking about. Yes, courtesy of Nemira, one of Romania's foremost genre imprints (Martin, Robinson, Herbert etc.), The Blade Itself should be coming within six months, with the other two books following about six months apart. Magic.

Now to some reviews. Do you remember Beezer? After reading The Blade Itself, he was left in two minds about my writing skills. "Mr. Abercrombie does show a knack for writing a solid tale. I think once he hones his craft and is able to correct some of these deficiencies he will truly be a name to watch in the fantasy genre." Well it looks like some honing went on some time last year, because of Before They are Hanged he says:

"However, in this novel, there seems to be an exponential growth in both his writing and his overall story. If this type of growth continues with the next novel (and any future stories after that) I think readers will be more than pleased ... The First Law trilogy seems to be taking on the mantel of a fine painting. Taken piece by piece each book is solid. However, taken as a whole, as the entire trilogy, the true beauty of this work begins to stand out."

It is, indeed, a positive Sistine Chapel ceiling among fantasy series. Internet humorist Elena, meanwhile, who earlier in the year was so taken with my phrase "a face as red as a slapped arse" has also checked out Before They are Hanged. She begins by voicing her amazement that I apparently know everything that is said about me on the internet, almost before it is written.

"I think he must have written a program to email him the URL of any website that speaks his name."

Luckily, someone else has written it already, and gifted it to the world in the same way that a crazy biologist might gift the world a lethal mutated virus. It's called Google Blog-Search, the most dangerous piece of technology since the a-bomb, and with it I waste 90% of my writing time. Elena has some interesting thoughts on the book too, though:

"I find myself wondering if this new sub-genre of fantasy--Abercrombie, Lynch, Martin et. al.--should be termed gonzo fantasy after Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo journalism. Consider: Filthy language? Check. Copious amounts of weapons for every occasion? Check. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong--hilariously? Check. An unlikely and perhaps unaware hero who stays alive against all odds, including his own activities? Check. Drug/alcohol use/abuse? Check. Written by someone you can see hunched over a typewriter smoking a cig without bothering to ash, slogging whiskey instead of caffeine, and not bathing for days on end? Check.

Gonzo fantasy. Goddamn brilliant."

I do wash, though, you know. Going back to where it all began, Larry, from Wotmania's Other Fantasy board, has finally run his critical eye over The Blade Itself.

"it is due to the strength of Abercrombie's characterizations and the rather up-close and personal approach to the storytelling that manages to keep the plot just interesting enough for readers to want more ... The "action," such as it is, is more of a set-up for the following two volumes, but with the promise that what follows after will make these oft-meandering plot threads into portents of something rather moving."

By no means a slating, but I will hold off on my assesment of Larry's reviewing capabilities until I have read the entire trilogy ... of reviews, apparently due to culminate in a piece of something they call professional criticism on Strange Horizons. Keep your eyes peeled for that. Long established blogger of the sci-fi and fantasy scene, Joe Sherry, had a more positive first reaction to The Blade Itself:

"There is so much going on in The Blade Itself. There are fascinating characters, political maneuvering a plenty, sword-play, action, a dash of romance, class politics, a variety of cultures, more action, magic, empires and feudal warlords, still more action, foul language, inventive language, something called action – all this, and more. The Blade Itself has something for everyone all wrapped up in a violent, action packed, sometimes profane package.

And I like it.

A lot."

However, he then goes on to refuse me my due of a perfect 10/10 score on the paltry bases that a) the book has no ending, and b) he does not give books numerical ratings. As if such feeble excuses will save him when my righteous wrath descends like a crimson tide upon the reviewing community...

To be fair to Joe, I don't really expect any perfect scores for The Blade Itself - too many unanswered questions, too much set-up, too much that depends on how the series develops and concludes for anyone to be throwing top marks around. It's the forthcoming Last Argument of Kings that'll get me the big scores, if I'm ever going to get them. We'll just have to wait to see how the mainstream print media responds to ... what's that you say? Early copy from next month's lead review from Dave Bradley in SFX?

"You should always end with the best. Wow them in the final act, make the last chorus a belter, build to a climax and get them on their feet applauding when the curtain falls. Last Argument of Kings is the textbook example of this theory in practice."

Oooh. That looks promising. What else?

"The third in Joe Abercrombie's debut fantasy series, The First Law, reveals everything a finale should: conveys some answers, ties together the loose ends from various plot strands, knocks over pieces painstakingly set up in the preceding stories, and in the aftermath delivers character development that surprises as well as delights."

Better yet. Final thoughts?

"It builds to a tense final act which fulfils every facet of the phrase, 'leave them wanting more'"

And how did the world's biggest selling SF magazine rate the book, I wonder?

Well, 5 stars, as it happens.

5 stars, you say? Out of?

Why, out of 5.

5 stars out of 5? You mean the maximum possible score? The best score? Top marks, as it were?

That's right. 5 stars. Read 'em and weep. I bet Pat Rothfuss never got none of that 5 star top marks shit from SFX!

Yes, yes he did.

Bastard. Well, I bet Scott Lynch never did!

Yes, yes he did too. Both of them did. First books. Five star debuts. Right out of the blocks.

Right. Great. I'll just go, then, shall I?

Labels: announcements, news, reviews

Saturday, 1 March 2008

Magic March

March is upon us and, by heavens, I do declare that it will be the biggest month yet here at joeabercrombie.com. We're all very excited. Well I am, anyway. There is no we. There's only me here. But let's not dampen the enthusiasm, but look forward, forward, to good things this month! Appearances on TV and in person! Releases by the bucketload! New books! Old books! You lucky f*ckers!

March 4th - Official release date of Before They are Hanged, US edition courtesy of the wonderful Pyr Books. The shine has been taken off this a tad because the book's actually been available on amazon for about a month already. Will it stop me celebrating this very special day? No, it won't.

March 5th - The Worlds of Fantasy on BBC4 at 9.00pm, repeated at midnight - proper television, mind you - will be on the subject of the creation of fantasy worlds, focusing on writers the likes of Tolkien and Peake. It will feature comments from, among other proper authors such as Philip Pullman, China Mieville, and Terry Pratchett, me. That's right, if you've ever wanted to see me looking uncomfortable and talking bollocks in a darkened room, this is your chance.

March 12th - SFX 168 goes on sale, with a profile of that Joe Abercrombie guy - ha ha ha, that there is one rising star of the UK fantasy scene that always cracks me up - plus a lead review of his latest book, Last Argument of Kings. I've seen it already. It's good. Very good. The review, that is, not the book. Though the book is also very good. But don't take my word for it, take SFX's. On March 12th.

March 13th - Release of the UK Mass-Market edition of Before They are Hanged. You like it small and floppy? Handbag size BTAHs should be available in all good bookshops from this date, in good time for...

March 20th - Here's the big one, folks. It's only the UK release date of the final thrilling installment of The First Law trilogy, Last Argument of Kings! 11,000 copies sold already, incidentally, and it isn't even on the shelves yet. To mark the occasion I'll be signing books at Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue from 6pm to 7pm or even beyond, if necessary. If you've ever wanted to see me looking uncomfortable and talking bollocks in a well-lit cellar, this is your chance. If you want a book signed, this is your chance as well. Take those chances, people. Take them.

March 21st-23rd - Orbital. Eastercon will be taking place at the Radisson Heathrow, accompanied no doubt by the lilting purr of low-flying aircraft and the gentle whoop-whoop of drunken genre authors. I'll be one of them. Authors, that is, not aircraft.

I'll be there Friday, Saturday overnight, and Sunday, and I will be appearing on 2 panels, believe it or not. Adapting Tolkien from book to film, Tetworth Room, Saturday at 11.00 and Roughening up Fantasyland, Tetworth Room, Sunday at 21.00. All attendees are of course welcome to come along and see me make an ass of myself. Otherwise I'll be attending other panels and listening to some of the guests of honour, hanging around the bar, or around Gollancz's stand in the dealer room. If anyone wants anything signed, by all means come along to either of those panels or just collar me about the place. If anyone wants to buy any of my books, they should be available at the Gollancz stand, and of course I'm happy to sign those too. If anyone wants to attack me, not in the face.

And I think that will just about wrap it up for March. Are you as stoked as me? What's that? You're MORE stoked? Get out of here!

Labels: appearances, news