Thursday, 31 December 2009

Best Of...

Happy Birthday to Me. Happy Birthday to Me. Happy Birthday dear me-eeeee...

Yes indeed, another year of dry humour, wet nappies, sleepless nights, wonderful reviews, shitty reviews, and storming success drags to a close. So long 2009! Nice knowing you. A busy year, for me. I had a baby. I moved from London to Bath. I sold a flat and bought one. I even published another book! With all these good things to celebrate, one wonders why I still feel slightly anxious all the time. It's the modern condition, people!

An end, as well, to another year of blogging. Shall we look back to some of the highlights...?

Most Commented On Blog Post
Storming up the charts with 80 comments was my response to my favourite review of the year "People suck, war is bad, and the world is a bottomless shithole," which included, alongside the trademark apparently self-deprecating while actually being self-glorifying wit, some thoughtful introspection on the subject of ragged and unhappy endings. It even managed to beat last year's 60 comment winner. Proof positive, as if any were needed, that thought-provoking consideration of genre issues CAN be more interesting than being hit over the head with a piece of wood. A score for the intelligentsia. Runners up were an opportunity for you all to bitch about my US cover (always popular), with 55 comments, and my musings on my neighbour's teenage son never having heard of Dungeons & Dragons, with 42. Perhaps if I can think of more worthwhile and thoughtful posts to make I can break the 100 mark next year. No. I don't think so either...

Best Foreign Trip
I might have felt strangely sick the whole time I was there for no apparent reason, but Sweden/Norway your streets is clean, your trains is reasonable yet punctual, your people is friendly and above averagely good-looking, and your sf&f specialist bookstores is excellent. I also remain a committed fan of your modernist minimal design, unassuming royal families, and efficient education, health, and welfare systems.

Best Authorial Bitch-Fight involving me
Was definitely the no-holds-barred grudge match between me and Brent Weeks at the Borders Book Blog wich I totally won. Ask anyone. There's even some talk that we'll be taking this show on the road next year...

Best Authorial Love-In involving me
My thoughtful yet hilarious interview with Patrick Rothfuss on the occasion of his recent charity drive.

Best Authorial Blurb about my Works
Has to be the George RR Martin. I still feel deeply smug about that one.

Best "Best SF&F of 2009" list of 2009
Werthead demonstrates his impeccable good taste by selecting Best Served Cold as his best book of 2009, saying, "a tale of revenge, murder, assassination, war and generally pleasant stuff, with Abercrombie somehow outstripping the first trilogy in terms of mayhem." Graeme demonstrated an equal level of discernment - "It delivered on all fronts and just kept delivering." The redoubtable Dave Bradley, editor of SFX, has also declared Best Served Cold his best book of 2009 calling it a "brilliantly brutal tale of revenge". I note in passing he also had Dragon Age up there. Nice call, Dave. Rob Grant's taste at Sci-Fi London would have been as good if it weren't for that pesky Jesse Bullington and his bleak medieval european stylings...

Best Served Cold has popped up on a few other lists too. Fantasy Book Critic's, Joe Sherry's , even the editor's picks for sf&f at amazon.co.uk, where I stand proudly among such notables as Terry Pratchett, Jane Austen, and Stephanie Meyer. It's a varied crowd over there...

But lest we over-sugar the pudding, Best Served Cold also made Western author Iain Parnam's most disappointing books of 2009. He thought, "everyone is repellent, the story is dreary, nothing matters much, and the wit is missing." I shrug me a river. It's all subjective, people.

Books
I know what you're thinking - who the hell reads books any more? But this year I managed to get through a few, and some of them weren't even written by me. Non-fiction highlight would probably be CV Wedgewood's Thirty Years War. A classic of narrative history. Fiction highlight? Despite some tough competition from the likes of Fritz Leiber, Junot Diaz and Jeff Vandermeer, you'd have to walk a very long way through a post-apocaplyptic wasteland to beat Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Searingly stark and bleak, but somehow still life-affirming. Like a visit to Brooks Nightclub in Lancaster used to be.

Films
Well I must say my socks were quite blown off by Avatar, it may well have been the most jaw-dropping cinema experience for me since Fellowship of the Ring, way back in 1904 when I didn't have kids, but along somewhat more traditional lines District 9 and No Country for Old Men were certainly memorable too. Watchmen ... not so much.

TV
Battlestar Galactica ended more with a whimper than a bang, which left the final season of The Shield as my TV Highlight. That certainly ended with a bang. IN YOUR FACE. Michael Chiklis also stalks off with my coveted "Most Loathsome yet Strangely Sympathetic Bald Character" award. Mad Men continued to be great, second series of Dexter was good but, for my money, not as good as the last. Other things that have variously titillated, intrigued and amused included 30 Rock, True Blood, and, of course, Strictly Come Dancing. What am I going to DO with my Sunday mornings now it's over?

Games
Good year, good year. Despite tough competition from the old-school roleplaying of Dragon Age and the Medici-stabbing thrills of Assassin's Creed II, it has to be the smooth-as-velvet next-generation adventure charms of Uncharted II that gave my boat the most float this year. The importance of PC games seems to be very much dwindling for me, as console games gradually invade the rpg and srategy territory that was traditionally theirs. Medieval:Total War is possibly my favourite game of all time, so I found Empire to be a tad disappointing. I haven't played it a lot since I lack a PC powerful enough to run it well, but the AI seems kind of rubbish to me. It usually takes them a year or two to get those games properly balanced, though, so who knows. Perhaps a future classic...

And there we have it. Let rip the party poppers. Roll on 2010...

Labels: film and tv, games, interviews, reading, reviews

Monday, 7 December 2009

Rothfuss and Abercrombie - in Conversation

Have you ever wanted to see your very favouritest new-ish epic fantasy author interviewed by, say, your second favouritest? Well now could be your chance...

For over at his blog, you can witness the transcript of a conversation between award-winning, New York Times bestselling, widely highly thought of author of Name of the Wind Patrick "best new beard in fantasy" Rothfuss, and award-nominated, not quite New York Times bestselling, widely thought of author of other books which aren't Name of the Wind, Joe "could you even call that stubble" Abercrombie.

Unfortunately it was a conversation carried out via her majesty's email rather than in leather armchairs, upon a spotlit stage, with much furrowing of brows, steepling of fingers, silences exploding with meaning, and staring at the ceiling in consideration of the fantastic depth of our own thought processes before a rapt audience. But still. No less (or, indeed, more) insightful for that.

The occasion? For anyone unaware, Mr. Rothfuss last year ran a fundraiser for Heifer International which pulled in over $100,000. This year he's at it again, and he has all kinds of wonderful things to give away contributed by persons in the science fiction and fantasy community. Among them some signed copies of some book called Best Served Cold by some author who isn't Pat Rothfuss. So give today, and you can combine that warm glowy feeling (no, not of wetting yourself, of philanthropy) with the joy of self-centred acquisition.

Proof positive that the world isn't actually as evil a place as you'd think from JUST reading The First Law.

Labels: interviews, news

Monday, 23 November 2009

On the Spot

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...

Labels: interviews

Monday, 22 June 2009

The Brief, Wondrous Road of Oscar Finch

For a man who reads few books, I have read quite a few books recently. Three excellent pieces of fiction in particular, though only one of them could be considered fantasy and that of a rather peculiar and fungus-ridden variety. Still, I warmly recommend all three to anyone capable of reading in English, for they are excellent (as I said above), and all quick, sharp, page-turning reads as well. You could probably fit all three into a hollowed out hardcover of Storm of Swords and have room left over for a banana. And believe me, once you'd finished the last of them, you'd really need that banana.

First up - Junot Diaz' Pulitzer prize-winning The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The exodus from the Dominican Republic of Trujillo and the immigrant experience in the US as examined through the eyes of several members of one dysfunctional family. If you expect that the winner of such a heavyweight prize would have to be written in an overbearing, difficult, heavyweight way, then (in this case, at least) you're WAY wrong. This is airy, readable, conversational, bursting with humour and personality. My mum gave me a great piece of writing advice - always be truthful, always be real, and this book has authenticity in spades. It's also told partly from the point of view of a geeky child obsessed with Lord of the Rings (among other fantastic and science fictional things) and so is littered with some brilliant genre-based metaphors for those of you who know about that sort of thing (not me, obviously), sometimes hilariously innapropriate (the great dictator, when assassinated, stumbles from his bullet-riddled limousine having taken 400 hit points of damage). There's one brilliant paragraph in which Diaz manages to use a metaphor from Star Trek and one from John Boorman's Point Blank. Has he been inside my mind? The book's split into several parts, each from the point of view of a different member of the extended family, some going back to the 30s and 40s in the Dominican Republic (which is wild, vivid and dangerous enough to virtually qualify as a fantasy world, especially for someone who grew up in 80s Lancaster), some taking place right up to the present day. For me some sections worked better than others, but overall it's a joyful, characterful, rewarding read.

Next up, Jeff Vandermeer's Finch. A compromised detective struggles to solve a difficult double murder in a bizarre, crumbling city occupied by enemy forces. So far so noir. Except the enemy are giant mushrooms. I hadn't read any of Vandermeer's stuff before, but his reputation is ... kinda literary, I guess. All these distinctions are fundamentally bullshit, of course, but nonetheless I was expecting something complicated, difficult, possibly with wild ideas and beautiful writing but perhaps not too much in the way of coherent story. But the writing, though vivid, is tight as a drum, never over-complicated, and the imagination as man meets fungus meets city and all three flow together into a noir nightmare is like nothing else I've read. He makes the book work both as a crazy fantasy and as a tough detective story, both parts complimenting the other. If I were to go for a filmic metaphor I might have to say Chinatown meets Naked Lunch with a sprinkling of Tetsuo II: The Bodyhammer. And a side of mushrooms. Giant, man eating, hallucinatory mushrooms. There are a few moments, perhaps, where the forward momentum slackens and we come dangerously close to infodumping, the plot seems to creak a little and there's a risk that - like a jet fighter driven forward only by its own thrust - it might come crashing to the ground, explode and kill its pilot in an almighty fireball. But then the fungal afterburners kick in and the book blasts once more into the heavens of imagination. Nothing's fully explained at the end, but that isn't really the point of a book like this (if there are any other books like this, which there probably aren't). I read this in proof form, and I don't think it's out for a few months, but I strongly advise you to pick up a copy when it does appear because I very much doubt you'll have read it's like before. A must for fans of fantasy, noir, great writing, or, of course, fungus.

And so we come to the end. Of this post, and the world. Cormac McCarthy probably doesn't need my help in drawing the attention of readers to his (also) Pulitzer-winning The Road, since it's been out for a long time, has been on Oprah and that and sold squillions of copies, and is being made into a film even as we speak with that nice Viggo Mortensen. But if you've been frozen in a glacier for the last few years, allow me to expound. The Road is an irripresible comedy of manners that will have you chuckling from the very first page. Perhaps that's not entirely accurate. Unless by irrepresible comedy of manners you mean ash-blasted post-apocalyptic horrorshow, and by chuckling you mean gripped and harrowed. This is one bleak-ass book, but also a completely magnificent one that in the midst of its brutality, desperation and utter waste somehow manages to be strangely inspiring. I'd read a couple of McCarthy's books before and found them interesting but difficult to get into, so stripped bare and brutal are the prose, the characters and the events. But the stark and ruthless writing matched the content beautifully in this book, no doubt. Awe-inspiring.

Anything else - er, there's an interview up with me at SF Signal, should anyone be interested, and with that I'm off to Scandinavia to talk at some bookstores. If any of you will be attending in Stockholm, Gothenberg, or Oslo, I will look forward immensely to seeing you there. The rest of you, I will post when I get back...

Labels: interviews, reading

Monday, 13 April 2009

interviews, reviews, awards

Various things to link to. A lengthy and in-depth interview with me up at Literatopia, a german books-related site. English version here, German translation should be coming shortly. Though it occurs to me that if you can read this, your English is probably good enough to follow the English version. Anyway, we discuss all kinds of things, from writing female characters, to inspirations, to foreign covers, to whether I'm like Inquisitor Glokta. Only in that I often poo myself in bed. A ha ha. I'm joking. Really.

Or am I?

Next, I note, somewhat tardily, that my close personal friend Joe Mallozzi (alright, I admit we've never met) - writer, producer, executive producer, and dark overlord with sundry parts of the far-flung Stargate empire has cast his discerning eye over a proof of Best Served Cold:

"It's fast-paced, absorbing, darkly humorous, and unabashedly violent, fraught with crosses, double-crosses, triple-crosses and 'back up a second did that really happen?!' moments. Gripping stuff. A terrific introduction to the work of Joe Abercrombie for first-time readers, and an immensely rewarding read for fans of the author. Highly recommended."

I'd like to deny it, but it's all true.

In other news, I note that I've wormed my way onto the Shortlist of five for the inaugural David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy with Last Argument of Kings. Also appearing are Juliet Marillier, Brandon Sanderson, Andrzej Sapkowski and Brent Weeks. Hmmm. My hissed congratulations through gritted teeth to my mortal rivals AHEM colleagues on the ballot. My heartfelt commiserations (alright, touchdown-dance-style gloatings) to those who didn't make the shortlist.

The process for deciding the winner is some kind of a public vote, so naturally I will let you know how YOU can help ME overcome the forces of evil as represented by these four authors, and strike a blow for righteousness in the form of ... er ... me, as soon as I know. It is YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, PEOPLE.

That is all.

Labels: interviews, news, reviews

Friday, 27 February 2009

See me through your Eye-Holes

You need no longer only read my words upon a computer screen, but can now be privileged to watch me say words via the miracle of You-Tubular technology. A five part interview with the fearsomely knowledgable yet wonderfully polite Marcus Gipps of Blackwells, accompanied by music only slightly reminiscent of the feast scene from one of those forties hollywood medi-evil films in glorious technicolor:

Part 1 Best Served Cold
Part 2 Of Series and Standalones
Part 3 Gruesomeness
Part 4 The 'M' Word
Part 5 Characters

Strangely, this is the first of several bits of video of me blathering which were shot recently. Others will no doubt surface soon, and believe me you'll be the very first to know. I mean, this shit is like a DRUG. One taste and you are HOOKED.

Labels: interviews

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

What They are Saying Feb '09

Some ongoing responses to / and discussion of / the US cover to-do, including a positive response from the aptly named BRUTAL WOMEN who, I have a sneaking feeling, may appreciate the content of the book as well...

With nearly fifty comments on my own post on the subject, it's clear that, as far as getting attention for your forthcoming book, controversy over US cover art is second only to getting hit over the head with a length of poor-quality pine. Moving swiftly on.

It's been a while since I surveyed any reviews of my own work from around the internet. I hear it's bad form to respond to your critics, you see. An author would have to be a complete IDIOT to do such a thing. So let's begin with an interesting review of Last Argument of Kings, from Ken at Neth Space:

"Abercrombie embraces the cliche of fantasy, spins it around, turns it upside down, and covers it in stinky, dark, sardonic wit ... In the Last Argument of Kings Abercrombie offers up more of the same from the previous two books and then adds some more with an ending that is simply brilliant ... This series has overwhelmed many and under-whelmed more than few - but it something that fans of epic fantasy simply must read for themselves."

Chalk up a win to the forces of righteousness. Overall I think it's fair to say he liked the first book a lot, felt the second was not bad but disappointing, then liked the third a lot again. I'm kind of strangely pleased by the spread of opinions the First Law books produce. My own feeling was always that they got steadily better, and I'd say overall most readers who get past the first book seem to broadly agree, but I've seen pretty much every variety of opinion expressed. I've seen people who liked the first, second, or third books the most (as well as some who just didn't like the whole approach, of course). The ending in particular leaves some disappointed/befuddled/swearing they will never read anything by me again, but many others love it. Who loves it, you ask? Well, how about Joe Sherry?

"This is where Abercrombie excels, in creating characters the reader can care enough about that when Abercrombie brings the pain and the nasty, the reader can't help but be fully engaged. Make no mistake, Abercrombie brings the pain and the nasty. Abercrombie excels at pain and nasty and Last Argument of Kings is chock full of pain and nasty. This is Abercrombie's wheelhouse ... The deal is, this is a damn fine book and one of the best conclusions to a trilogy I have had the pleasure to read."

Mmmm. I love the smell of wheelhouse in the morning. Smells like ... victory. I actually recently experienced what must be a key moment in the development of any author - I was sent the first post-graduate dissertation by an English student focusing on my work. You think I'm joking, don't you? Joe, I can hear you saying, stop! Stop! My sides are splitting! Your stuff is disposable genre fantasy trash, who could possibly take an interest in serious academic analysis of your semi-literate sword-obsessed scrawlings?

But I'm not joking. It came from a very polite student at Arhus University, Denmark, and focuses on the affirmation of meaning versus non-significance, analysing the key differences between the approaches of the First Law and classic epic fantasy using Bakhtin's theory of chronotopes sprinkled with a little existentialist philosophy.

That's right. Shelve me with the literature, motherf*ckers, because not even I understand how high-brow I am. What with that and the Junot Diaz quote, it's high time I got some frakkin' RESPECT around here! RESPECT! IT COSTS NOTHING!

Before I forget, for those of you who, like me, can't get enough of the sound of my voice, there's a little interview with me up at Fantasy Book Review. Read it and weep.

WITH LAUGHTER.

Labels: interviews, reviews

Wednesday, 24 December 2008

God Bless Us, Every One

Ho, ho, ho! Ah, tis Christmas Eve. Some very merry Yuletide cheer to all readers of my books or blog at this most festive season of the year.

All alone at Christmas? Reconstituted turkey roll and one bar on the electric fire? Never fear, there is an extremely lengthy and in-depth video interview with yours truly available courtesy of Rob Grant at Sci-Fi London. Why, it's the next best thing to actually having me as a house-guest over the Christmas period!

Er...

As well as the season of holly, carolling, snowmen and Santa, it's also the season of year-end best-ofs throughout the blog-o-sphere. Let me dip into my sack (ooh er) to see what Christmas goodies I can find...

SFX magazine asked its readers to vote for their favourite book of the year. Who's down there at number eight? Why, it's only Last Argument of Kings! And Pat of Pat's Fantasy Hotlist has posted his 10 favourite genre novels of 2008. His top four are a total mess, but around number five he starts to sort himself out. Werthead did better, he only got number 1 wrong! Last Argument of Kings came in at number 2 on his list.

No doubt there will be more top 10 style amusement as we pass into the new year. I for one can hardly WAIT.

Labels: interviews, reviews

Friday, 17 October 2008

Two More Things

Tired of reading me make an arse of myself?

Now you can LISTEN to me make an arse of myself, because I've been interviewed by Michael Stackpole, Summer Brooks and Michael Mennenga at The Dragon Page. I am really not so good at this spoken interview business yet ... but conversation runs towards language, violence, and innovation in fantasy, plus an enormous amount of dithering and massive over-use of the meaningless phrases, "if you like," and "kind of". It starts about 15 minutes in, by the way, because Mike Stackpole takes that long to really rip a book to shreds (not mine, I'm relieved to say).

Not like me to link to the blog of another author, you would have thought, but in this case it's OK to share the glory because the redoubtable Pat Rothfuss, stablemate at Gollancz, owner of the most exciting new beard in fantasy, and author of the vastly successful Name of the Wind, has been speaking about The First Law. A little quote:

"The books are good, really good. They pulled me in. Well-developed world. Unique, compelling characters. I like them so much that when I got to the end of the second book and found out the third book wasn't going to be out in the US for another three months. I experienced a fit of rage, then a fit of depression, then I ate some lunch and had a bit of a lay down."

I owe him a beer now if I'm ever in the States, but it's OK because Marcus Sakey emailed me the other day promising me a beer if I'm ever in the States for giving his The Blade Itself a shout. Authorial karma.

Hey, maybe I could just get Marcus Sakey to drop off a beer to Pat Rothfuss...?

Labels: interviews, reviews

Friday, 10 October 2008

The Other The Blade Itself

So I've just done a little piece for a website called Writer's Read, a website where writers say ... what they read. Shockingly, I have actually been reading something recently. Thought I'd crosspost it here:

Over the last couple of weeks - in an airport, on a flight, and standing on the stairs for an hour this evening - I have been reading an exciting first novel that has set its genre aflame, called The Blade Itself.

I know what you're thinking. "But isn't that your book? How dare you promote it in such a barefaced manner? You pompous arse!" And you'd be right. I am a pompous arse. But not for that reason. Because although I have been reading an exciting first novel entitled The Blade Itself, the genre it set aflame was not fantasy but crime, and the author was not me, but a very pleasant young man from Chicago called Marcus Sakey.


Allow me to explain. It was, I think, several months after I sold my book, The Blade Itself, to a publisher, but several months before it was published, that I became aware that someone else had sold a book called The Blade Itself in the US. There is no hint of copying, the timing makes it impossible, we had simply, simultaneously, picked the same title, derived from a quote from Homer's Odyssey, "the blade itself incites to violence." Great minds think alike, I guess. And mine. When The Blade Itself was optioned for a film a few months ago I received a welter of congratulations from readers. A welter which greatly surprised me, since my agent had not been in touch. It was, in fact, Marcus Sakey's book, The Blade Itself, which had been taken to the bosom of Hollywood. In Siena, Italy a couple of weeks ago, my wife needed a book for the flight, so we stopped into a bookshop to peruse the English Language section. As I occasionally do when in a bookshop, I checked to see if my books were in stock. They did have The Blade Itself. You guessed it. Marcus Sakey's The Blade Itself.

So I thought I'd check it out. And I'm glad I did. It's a recognisable style of story - guy with a shady past makes good but his shady past comes back to haunt him - but it's nicely written with some good characterisation, a strong eye for detail, and the tough prose one would expect. At times I felt the plot tended to drive the characters rather than the other way around, but the build up and climax really were cracking, hence my finishing the book standing on the stairs. All in all a great piece of crime writing, and I look forward to reading whatever else Sakey puts out. Providing none of it shares titles with any of my other books, of course....

So my advice? Read The Blade Itself. Both of 'em.

Labels: interviews, reading

Friday, 26 September 2008

This Writerly Craft

There is a positive Trilogy of Interviews with yours truly up at Writer Unboxed, a site devoted to the craft and business of Genre Fiction and run by a whole set of writers, including Juliet Marillier, who ran this interview. It focuses a lot more on my approach and techniques of writing than the usual array of dumb jokes and me making an ass of myself. A glimpse behind the grease-paint happy clown face at the tortured artist's soul beneath? Perhaps, my friends, perhaps...

Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third

But don't worry, I was interviewed for a podcast the other day and really made an ass of myself there, so if that's what you came for, you've never got long to wait.

Labels: interviews

Friday, 5 September 2008

Italy, Germany, Greece

Konigsklingen, Heyne's german translation of Last Argument of Kings, is out a month early, and now available on amazon.de. Get 'em while they're hot, German speakers...

In great news for the ancient nation of Greece, Unicorn publishing have secured rights to translate the entire trilogy into Greek. I think that's fourteen translation deals for The Blade Itself now, though I could easily be miscounting there. Tis humbling to think of people scattered across the globe enjoying (or indeed despising) stuff what I made up in the middle of the night.

And I'm going to be away on holiday (so working harder than ever, probably) in Italy for the next couple of weeks. A week in Rome, a week in Tuscany, so we'll aim to take in a bit of Florence and Siena as well. I'll probably be off the interweb in that time, and not responding to email, but for those of you who simply can't get through a week without the sound of my voice, There's a new interview with me up at SFRevu, discussing such matters as worldbuilding, the state of epic fantasy, change, and failure. Yeah, like I know anything about THAT. Well, apart from the last one, of course. There's also a reprint of John Berlyne's review of Last Argument of Kings. Mmmmm, smells like ... victory.

See you all in a couple of weeks.

Labels: interviews, news

Friday, 27 June 2008

If You're Just Joining Us...

Is there no end to the talents of Jon Armstrong? As well as being the author of the acclaimed sf book Grey, he also does frequent and regular podcasts. He's a nominee for this year's Campbell Award for best new writer, and he's in the process of interviewing the other five nominees. This week's interviewee? Well how nice of you to ask. It's only fantasy author Joe Abercrombie. I frakkin' love that guy!

Check it out, if you dare, at If You're Just Joining Us... and hear me talk out of my ass on the subjects of fantasy, family, role-playing, writing tricks and massive success. It is a hoot.

Obviously, as always, I take no responsibility for complete ignorance/total hypocrisy/factual inaccuracy etc. Even less responsibility than usual, in fact, since speaking live gives you less time to make sure you're properly qualifying your responses. Something I always do exhaustively here on my blog, of course...

Labels: interviews

Saturday, 24 May 2008

Joe Mallozzi's Book Club Part 2

So I have responded to the questions of Joe's readers over here at immense and self-indulgent length. Check it out, it is a scream. And exciting. But also makes you think deeply. Kind of like The First Law trilogy, in fact.

So if you've somehow missed me talking about my general approach to fantasy here over the past few months, or if you wanted to know my answers to such questions as:

"Do you prefer sugar or no sugar in your tea?"

"How much research did you do into swords and battles?"

"Do you tone it down for readers of a sensitive disposition?"

And many more, or if you were curious about the difference between whinging and whining, there really is nowhere else to go. My thanks to Joe M for providing the forum, and, of course, for shifting some books to the unwitting public...

Labels: interviews, news

Monday, 28 April 2008

Ownership and Back Pain

I did an interview recently with Marcus Lanyon, a London-based artist and occasional reader of edgy yet humorous fantasy, for a piece about ownership in The Royal College of Art Magazine, mostly focusing on working with the staples, cliches, tropes etc, of an established form, and how one goes about trying to twist them, turn them, make them one's own.

Now I know that the vast majority of the readers of this blog probably already receive the Royal College of Art Magazine, but in the unlikely event that some few of you are not that high-brow, and have accidently stumbled wide-eyed into the fountain of culture that is my work, Marcus has kindly given permission for me to reprint the interview here. Enjoy, or possibly don't. It is in your hands...


Poking Frodo In The Eye

Joe Abercrombie's novels have been variously described as "deliciously twisted and evil" and as "a seminal work of modern fantasy". Picking up the well-entrenched genre of fantasy by the ears and re-positioning its bloodied nose as something worth engaging with once again, Marcus Lanyon spoke with him about regaining ownership of this spiky-helmeted genre in a fresh, innovative way, process and putting your back out...

1. The fantasy genre is full of staples, tropes and well-entrenched stereotypes - you could say it is owned in particular by Tolkien and the standards he laid down in his work. How do you place your work in relation to this? How have you re-claimed it and made it your own?

I'd like to think of what I'm doing as standing in relation to Lord of the Rings (and the classic epic fantasy that's been strongly influenced by Tolkien) in the same way as - if I can use a cumbersome extended metaphor - Unforgiven stands in relation to High Noon. A slantwise look at the cliches of the form from a more modern, cynical, realistic perspective, perhaps even a bit of a satirical riff on the form at times, but first and foremost a strong example of the form. I hope that I've got something to say about the ways that good and evil, power and violence are traditionally represented in fantasy, but at the same time I hope that above all what I've written is a cracking fantasy tale, and can be enjoyed purely on that level.

I think humour is a key area as well. For all of Tolkien's great strengths, I don't think most people would make much of a case for him as a humorist, and the genre has tended to take itself rather seriously ever since, or, perhaps in reaction to that, to take the mick out of itself with full-on comedy. I wanted to sit somewhere between the two - incorporate the humour of everyday life, maybe. The odd chink of light only makes the darkness harsher by comparison, to my mind.

2. When absorbing influences, inevitably the creative process is part of one long evolution of the ideas that went before. You took a very particular genre, one that is filled with orcs, elves and magic, and somehow very successfully merged it with contemporary 'punch' - honest human flaws, everything a shade of grey and peppered with sex, violence and loss. Did the two ever come into conflict?


As you say, there's nothing new under the sun, and every artist or author tries to incorporate into their work all the different things they've read, seen, viewed, and liked or been affected by (sometimes without even realising it, I'm sure). Don't get me wrong, I've got a lot of admiration for Tolkien and a lot of love for epic fantasy as a genre, but at the same time I've read a lot of more general fiction and non-fiction, been very influenced by film, and more recently the movement in TV towards much more realistic, difficult, morally complex material (with shows like the Wire, Deadwood, the Shield and so on that certainly have, as you say, contemporary punch). So I've done my best to combine the things that I enjoy in fantasy - the adventure, the epic scale, a little bit of mystery and magic - with some more modern-feeling, stripped down prose and dialogue, and some more morally complicated, shocking, unexpected plotlines.

I've tried as hard as I can, in fact, to bring the classic and contemporary elements into conflict wherever possible. As you say, there are certain expectations on the part of the reader when they read a book like this, and you can use those to surprise them. For me, that's what makes writing in a genre with a lot of well-established cliches so interesting. I should point out as well that there are a lot of other authors who have been doing interesting, difficult, and surprising things in fantasy ever since Tolkien and, indeed, before. But, especially with the success of the Lord of the Rings films, orcs, elves, magic, and climactic struggles of good against evil still do seem to define fantasy in the public consciousness.

3. Your characters inhabit the book through the third person limited perspective, a method that really sucks the reader into the action, up-close and intensely. Would you say this gives you a greater range of options with illustrating them throughout the books? Or do you enjoy the control it gives you over focusing the reader's eye on certain details?

The big advantage of this approach for me is the feeling of closeness it gives the reader to the characters, and the feeling of involvement it can give with the action. Epic fantasy tends to be about huge events, about tiny characters within a vast landscape, and I wanted very much to focus on the people, and on their individual experiences of the events. I'm not so interested in the troop movements in a battle, for example, (though those have to make sense) as I am in what it feels like to be there.

4. Further to 'focusing', you are also a professional film editor. Has this affected your development as a writer - certainly the action scenes have a very cinematic flow to them?

My background is mostly in documentary and live music rather than drama, but definitely my experience as an editor has had an effect on the way I write, certainly it's been invaluable experience as far as pacing is concerned. It may sound strange from someone who writes pretty chunky books, but I try to make every scene as lean and effective as possible, and cut out everything unnecessary.

5. The character of Inquisitor Glokta - a tortured war hero turned torturer himself - is a repulsive yet strangely attractive character who consistently finds himself wrestling with control and ownership of decisions that have wide-reaching impact. Could you tell us a little more about him?

Inquisitor Glokta was born out of the experience of injuring my back, which I did pretty frequently over a period of about five years. It gives you a strange, savage and twisted outlook on the world when every movement is painful. I suspect many of those who've been unfortunate enough to suffer from back trouble will instantly know what I'm talking about. Things you take utterly for granted, things you normally do without thinking about them - getting out of a chair, using the toilet, climbing a flight of stairs, coughing even - become exhausting, terrifying ordeals. You see the remote just out of reach. Oh god, oh god, oh god. How much will this hurt? Your world contracts to the limits of your own pain. You come to hate everyone and everything. Lying there one day, staring at the ceiling, I can remember thinking: What if this was your life, and it was never going to get better? How bitter, how cynical, how venomously ruthless would you become? How utterly indifferent to the pain of others. A man who felt like this all the time would be a woeful, a disgusting, a pitiable thing. But with nothing more to lose, nothing more to fear, he would also be a terrifying one...

6. The process of writing fiction is arguably one of self-absorbed control; a true puppet master. This is then passed on through editors and such - what is your relationship with this process? Do you rely on the input of trusted others or do you fight for how you want it to turn out?

Perhaps I've just been very lucky with my editor, but I think there's a common misconception that book editing is often a battle between the creatively-minded author and the commercially-minded editor, and that publication inevitably involves some compromise between the two. My experience is that my editor and me want exactly the same thing - to make the book as good as possible (and, secondarily but hopefully following on from that, to shift as many units as possible).

The editing process is a key opportunity to look at certain parts of your story through new eyes, make improvements and solve problems you perhaps haven't seen because you're just too close. You might not always agree with the change an editor suggests, but it usually has a way of focusing your attention on a problem and making you come up with an improvement of your own.

7. Your debut, The Blade Itself, is now published in eight countries, in seven languages, with seven different titles. How do you feel about the inevitable changes that this incurs - the 'lost in translation'?

In terms of the content it's hard to say, since I don't speak any languages other than English at a high enough level to have much of a notion whether the translations are good or not. But clearly in terms of titling and covers there are some pretty significant changes that I can comprehend. When you first see a very different treatment of the book it can be pretty surprising, but different markets have different tastes, and you have to trust the publishers in those markets to know their business and present the books in a way that's going to sell. Being completely honest, there's not much other choice anyway.

8. When you end a character's life, a creation you have perhaps incubated for years, does this element of ownership affect you at all? Do you feel a duty of care - a twinge of loss, even - or is your relationship with them purely technical?

If you do decide to kill someone off, for a reader that might seem a single moment, but as a writer it's a decision you came to probably months before when you were first planning the book, thought about at length, developed, tried to write in the most effective way, then revised frequently over the course of months of editing. So I don't feel there's necessarily that emotional element involved. Nothing you could call a twinge, anyway. For me the duty of care is more towards the reader - to give them the most effective, intense, surprising experience possible. If you can help produce that strong response by killing off a character, then that character will have been very well used. Nothing to be sad about, from my point of view. Having said that, I do think that in general there are more interesting things you can do with a character than kill them off...

9. In terms of ownership, how would you react to a cinematic treatment of the trilogy (also something you have experience of) - as obviously the transference of novel to film incurs a change to the whole piece - would you be happy to let your baby go or would you retain some authority over its development?

When you sell film rights to your book, I think you do just that. It's sold, and you have to step back, and accept that there are all kinds of tough decisions inherent in turning one thing into another that you, as the original creator, might find impossible to deal with. I think films, or any other piece of art, tend to be most effective when they're largely the result of one person's vision, and a film should belong to its director. I doubt it would be possible to retain any authority, but even if it was, I'm not sure it would be desirable.

10. Last Argument of Kings was recently published, wrapping up the trilogy. Is there a sense of satisfaction or a sense of what next?

The odd thing about writing is that publishing schedules can be pretty lengthy - anything from 6 to 18 months between finishing a book and seeing it on the shelves. You feel a great satisfaction when you finish the first draft, and again when you've completed the first edit and tightened and improved it. But the process of refinement is ongoing for quite a while, so there isn't really that sense of putting it down, done, that a reader might have. By the time you've completed more editing, copy editing, and a proof read, you're probably more than happy to wave goodbye to it. So though the third book has only just been published, strangely enough it feels like something I finished quite a while ago. Something slightly separated from me in a weird sort of way, since I'm already more than half way through the next book - a standalone this time, though set in the same world - and wrestling to make that work. So I'm very happy with the trilogy, very satisfied with how it turned out and, on the whole, the response from readers. But at the same time, yes, the question of "what next" is one that I don't think a writer can ever escape from...

Labels: interviews

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

Wednesday, 13 February 2008

Back on the Grid

Woooo! Got my computer back and it works, and now makes a noise like a quiet exhalation of air rather than an orc dying slowly of an agonising bowel wound. Got to be a good thing. Five star service from Sony, which has quite bowled me over. Six days between leaving the house and coming back fixed, all data intact, they even cleaned it top to bottom, put a nice letter in there apologising for any upset they'd caused me, included a new cleaning cloth, and all completely free of charge. I feel like a VIP. Damn it, I am a VIP! It's amazing the low priority a lot of companies seem to put on customer service these days (he says, bitching like a grumpy old man). As a result of this experience I feel more fondly disposed to Sony than I did before the malfunction. By contrast, I will never buy another Dell product as long as I live. Surely that's worth the relatively small investment in the customer service, one would have thought? Truly, it is a world gone mad...

Anyway, email and other services should now be resumed as normal. You've probably all been missing me during the five days since my last post, right? You've probably been feeling a sense of aimlessness, emptiness and depression. You've probably all been checking your browser every ten minutes to see whether I'd made another post. Fear not. Here is an interview with me run by Aidan over at A dribble of ink. Should clean up those sweaty shivers of withdrawal quick sharp...

Labels: interviews, news

Friday, 8 February 2008

Curios and Trivia

Various First Law related curios and trivia from the interweb this week:

An interview with yours truly over on French website Elbakin.net conducted by Pat of Pat's Fantasy Hotlist in English or in French. It's more of an introductory sort of an interview for the French audience, focusing on the first book, so those of you who've been slavishly following my every word (and I'm sure there are many thousands) will probably find nothing massively new. But hey, if you slavishly follow my every word (as everyone should), I'm sure you'll love it anyway, because that Joe Abercrombie guy is a hoot. There'll be some other interviews over the coming weeks that perhaps broach newer subject matter.

A very pleasing review of Last Argument of Kings from a man I've shared enough beer with to consider a friend. Mr. Marcus Gipps works for Blackwells and is a respected bookseller with an understanding of the fantasy genre both deep and wide - so you must believe him when he tells you things like this:

"It all works really well, is what I'm trying to say - I care about these characters ... the plot all comes together nicely in the end, people are actually changed by their experiences, and along the way we get some lovely writing. There's a battle scene here that rivals anything I've read in fantasy, quite frankly ... I'm hugely impressed, and if you have any interest in modern fantasy with a (seriously) dark edge, these are well worth reading."

Woo hoo! It's particularly pleasing since Marcus, I think it's fair to say, took time to win over. Someone who I'm still in the process of winning over is one Amras at A Slight Apocalypse. His reviews of The Blade Itself and Before They are Hanged tickle me much:

"I thought that the Blade Itself was one of the most over-hyped and poorly written fantasies I've had the misfortune of reading, and I could not believe why everyone was loving this trite bullsh*t ... I reread The Blade Itself to better learn to love myself. That's a horribly selfish thing to do, you might say, and you would be in the right. It was selfish and also a tad pompous, but somehow I believe that Joe Abercrombie would approve of it nonetheless."

Selfish and pompous? How could I not approve of my two favourite qualities?

That's all for now. I continue not to receive e-mail directed to joeabercrombie dot com, but will hopefully be picking it up within the next couple of weeks, and will respond then. Honest.

Labels: interviews, reviews

Monday, 29 October 2007

The Blade Itself on Neth Space

Ken has run one of his 'Questions Five' interviews with me over on his long-established blog Neth Space. For those that don't know, it's an attempt to ask five questions an author will never have been asked before, and hence to illicit unexpected and hilarious responses.

He's also reviewed the book, as it goes, and he kinda liked it:

"The Blade Itself easily equals anything released in epic fantasy in the past few years, and just may rise to the top ... This book is about characters first, and Abercrombie skillfully portrays them with near-perfect internal and external dialogue set at an ideal pace ... he stops just short of spitting in the face of genre and set my heart racing through some the best written fight scenes of any genre. This one is not just for fans of epic fantasy."

Get in.

Labels: interviews, reviews

Friday, 26 October 2007

Hot New Authors (and me)

Jeff Vandermeer has run an interview in two parts (Part 1, Part 2 and some additional material including a truly mighty cover of the US Blade Itself) with some of the new wave of heroic fantasy authors: Karen Miller, Brandon Sanderson, Brian Ruckley, oh, and that Abercrombie bloke as well.

It's what you call a round-table interview. No, not an interview in which we wear shiny armour and quest for a grail, but one in which we are all responding to the same questions. What's kind of amusing (at least to my tiny mind) is how some of their responses are very similar to the sort of thing that I might say (except better written, of course). So, from Karen Miller:

"My work is predominantly character-driven. Most of the action derives from the internal landscape, desires and psychologies of the characters, rather than huge external set pieces and sweeping vistas, as it were. Those tend to form the backdrop of my novels--what really interests me is the impact of events on a cast of individuals. How the big picture looks through the eyes of the people involved."

Yes, yes! Me too! The whole character-driven thing with the backdrop and the impact of events, and the big picture through the little eyes and that! And from Brian Ruckley:

"I tried to make my imagined world pretty realistic, in everything from its landscapes to its politics, its characters to its battles. This is fantasy in which no character is safe once the world starts to slip towards chaos, and where even the bad guys think they have good reasons for most of what they do."

And me! And me! I'm like that as well! All gritty and realistic and bad guys with reasons and what have you! Talking about influences, Brandon Sanderson writes:

"During the 80s and 90s, quest epic was the big seller. A lot of the new writers like myself grew up reading Eddings and Jordan and Brooks. Some of us, when we sit down to write, then try to emulate their formula. A lot of us, though, react against those stories we love. Not because they were bad, but because they've been done–and done well ... I write mainstream fantasy epics - my primary goal is to produce books that people will enjoy. I'm a big believer in the sheer power of a well told story, and don't focus on intricate prose or ponderous messages. Story first, everything else second. However, I think that puts me in a harder position than if I were trying to write something completely revolutionary. I want to write books that all of the people who loved the old epics will love - books that have the same feel. However, I also want to write books which innovate and expand the genre."

That's what I'm trying to do as well! With the reading of the Eddings, and the reacting against stuff, fusing the new into the traditional framework, and the reinterpretation of the mainstream epic and whatever. It's a bit like what I was saying a few posts back about the need to combine the innovative with the familiar, except said in a mature manner by an adult.

Labels: interviews

Wednesday, 10 October 2007

Covers, Uniqueness, and a Couple of Gags

For those few of you who have yet to hear too much of me talking, there is an HILARIOUS interview with yours truly over at Fantasy Book Critic. I actually really enjoyed doing this one, as Robert went to heroic efforts to come up with some questions that I hadn't been asked before.

Topics range as widely as Upcoming Releases, Fantasy Cover Art, Music and Video Games, Film Adaptations and Toilet Seats, as well as giving my favourite straw man of world-building versus character another battering. Take THAT, you straw b*stard!

Enjoy...

Labels: interviews

Wednesday, 1 August 2007

Characters, Worldbuilding, and a Couple of Gags

There's an interview with yours truly over at Aidan Moher's blog A Dribble of Ink, where we discuss such matters as: how I got into this crazy game, characters, worldbuilding and so on. I advise you to take a look because it is a hoot.

Out of interest he'd also reviewed my books The Blade Itself and Before They are Hanged saying such things as:

"Abercrombie has written a wickedly clever novel, with a biting sense of humour rarely found in the over-serious Fantasy genre, but does so with a subtle hand and a flair for the macabre that can't be ignored."

"As with the first novel, Abercrombie's characterization is top notch. As we spend more and more time with characters such as Logen Ninefingers, Sand dan Glokta and Jezal dan Luthar we find ever more intriguing facets to their personality ... I felt closer to some of Abercrombie's characters than I ever have before in reading a novel."

Which obviously warmed me to my very nethers. He did have some trifling concerns over the pace and plotting, but we'll just pretend that never happened, eh?

Labels: interviews, news