| Joe Abercrombie | |
| Birth Name: | Joseph Edward Abercrombie |
| Birth Date: | 31 December 1974 |
| Birth Place: | Lancaster, Lancashire, England |
| Occupation: | Novelist |
| Nationality: | British |
| Education: | Lancaster Royal Grammar School |
| Alma Mater: | University of Manchester |
| Period: | 2004–present |
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Notableworks: | The First Law Shattered Sea |
Joseph Edward Abercrombie (born 31 December 1974) is a British fantasy writer and film editor. He is the author of The First Law trilogy, as well as other fantasy books in the same setting and a trilogy of young adult novels. His novel Half a King won the 2015 Locus Award for best young adult book.[1]
Abercrombie was born in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. He was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, where he studied psychology. He has a wife, Lou.[2]
Abercrombie has been an avid player of video games since his childhood. In an interview with Edge magazine, Abercrombie stated that video games have been a big influence on his writing, including early interest in text-based adventure games and historically based strategy games such as Civilization and Age of Empires. Other favorite games of Abercrombie's include Elite, Dungeon Master, Street Fighter II, and Red Dead Redemption.[3]
Abercrombie had a job making tea at a television production company before taking up a career as a freelance film editor. As a freelance film editor, Abercrombie found himself with more free time than he previously had. With this time, he decided to reconsider a story plot he conceived while attending University.[4] [5]
Abercrombie began writing The Blade Itself in 2002, completing it in 2004. It took a year of rejection by publishing agencies before Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz accepted the book for a five-figure deal in 2005.[5] [6] It was published by Gollancz in 2006 and was followed in the succeeding two years by two other books in the trilogy, by the titles of Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings, respectively.[2] In 2008, Joe Abercrombie was a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer.[7] That same year Abercrombie was one of the contributors to the BBC Worlds of Fantasy series, alongside other contributors such as Michael Moorcock, Terry Pratchett and China Miéville.[8] In 2009, Abercrombie released the novel Best Served Cold. It is set in the same world as The First Law Trilogy but is a stand-alone novel. He followed with The Heroes (2011) and Red Country (2012), both again set in the world of the First Law Trilogy. The three standalone novels were later collected into an omnibus edition under the name The Great Leveller.[9]
In 2011, Abercrombie signed a deal with Gollancz for four more books set in the First Law world. In 2013, HarperCollins' fantasy and children's imprints acquired the rights to three books by Abercrombie, aimed at younger readers. The three standalone but interconnected novels were released as the Viking-influenced Shattered Sea trilogy.[6]
See main article: The First Law.
| scope=col style="min-width: 11em" | Series | scope=col style="min-width: 12em" | Book | scope=col | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope=row style="font-weight: normal" rowspan=3 | The First Law trilogy | The Blade Itself | |||
| Before They Are Hanged | |||||
| Last Argument of Kings | |||||
| scope=row style="font-weight: normal" rowspan=3 | Standalone novels | Best Served Cold | |||
| The Heroes | |||||
| Red Country | |||||
| scope=row style="font-weight: normal" rowspan=3 | Age of Madness trilogy | A Little Hatred | |||
| The Trouble With Peace | |||||
| The Wisdom of Crowds | |||||
| scope=row style="font-weight: normal" rowspan=3 | Short story collections | Sharp Ends | |||
| The Great Change (And Other Lies) |
The Age of Madness trilogy is set in the same fictional world as the First Law books during an industrial revolution.[10]
All short fiction is collected in Sharp Ends: Stories from the World of the First Law (April 2016) and The Great Change (And Other Lies) (September 2023).[11]
| scope=col style="min-width: 13em" | Story | scope=col | Published in | scope=col | Notes[12] [13] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "The Fool Jobs" | Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery anthology (June 2010) and in Sharp Ends. | Features Curnden Craw and his dozen in events prior to The Heroes. | |||
| "Yesterday, Near A Village Called Barden" | As an extra in the Waterstones hardcover version of The Heroes (2012)[14] and in Sharp Ends. | Focuses on Bremer dan Gorst on campaign prior to The Heroes. | |||
| "Freedom!" | As an extra in the Waterstones hardcover version of Red Country (2013) and in Sharp Ends. | Focuses on the liberation of the town of Averstock by the Company of the Gracious Hand. | |||
| "Skipping Town" | Legends: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell anthology (November 2013) and in Sharp Ends. | Features the couple pairing of Shevedieh (Shev) and Javre, Lioness of Hoskopp. | |||
| "Some Desperado" | Dangerous Women anthology (December 2013) and in Sharp Ends. | Features Shy South on the run during her outlaw days before Red Country. | |||
| "Tough Times All Over" | Rogues anthology (June 2014) and in Sharp Ends. | Follows courier Carcolf and the circuitous route one of her packages takes through the city of Sipani. It also features Shev and Javre. | |||
| "Small Kindnesses" | Unbound: Tales by Masters of Fantasy anthology (December 2015) and in Sharp Ends. | Features Shev. | |||
| "Two's Company" | Online on Tor.com (January 2016)[15] and in Sharp Ends. | Features Shev and Javre, a "female Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser style thief and warrior odd couple." | |||
| "A Beautiful Bastard" | Original to Sharp Ends. | Features Sand dan Glokta. | |||
| "Hell" | Original to Sharp Ends. | Shows the fall of Dagoska through the eyes of a young acolyte. | |||
| "Wrong Place, Wrong Time" | Original to Sharp Ends. | Features Monzcarro Murcatto. | |||
| "Three's a Crowd" | Original to Sharp Ends. | Features Horald the Finger and Shevedieh. | |||
| "Made a Monster" | Original to Sharp Ends. | Features the chieftain Bethod. | |||
| "The Thread" | As an extra in the Waterstones hardcover version of A Little Hatred and in The Great Change (And Other Lies). | Follows a thread of fabric from raw material to finished product, and the lives whose hands it passes through. | |||
| "The Stone" | As an extra in the Waterstones hardcover version of The Trouble With Peace and in The Great Change (And Other Lies). | Follows a diamond from discovery to finished product, and the lives whose hands it passes through. | |||
| "The Point" | As an extra in the Waterstones hardcover version of The Wisdom Of Crowds and in The Great Change (And Other Lies). | Follows an ingot of iron from discovery to finished product, and the lives whose hands it passes through. | |||
| "The Great Change" | Original to The Great Change (And Other Lies). | Follows the creation and evolution of the Great Change. |
"Tough Times All Over" won a Locus Award, and "The Fool Jobs" and "Some Desperado" received nominations.[16]
See main article: Shattered Sea.
| Book | Date | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Half a King | July 2014 | |
| 2 | Half the World | February 2015 | |
| 3 | Half a War | July 2015 |
| Work | scope=col style="min-width: 10em" | Award | scope=col style="min-width: 8em" | Category | scope=col style="min-width: 7em" | Result | scope=col class=unsortable | YEAR | WORK | AWARD | or | REFERENCES--> | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope=row style="font-weight: normal" | 2006 | The Blade Itself | Locus Award | First Novel | |||||||||
| scope=row style="font-weight: normal" | 2008 | Last Argument of Kings | Gemmell Award | Fantasy Novel | [17] | ||||||||
| scope=row rowspan=3 style="font-weight: normal" | 2009 | Best Served Cold | British Fantasy Award | Novel | |||||||||
| Gemmell Award | Fantasy Novel | [18] | |||||||||||
| The Kitschies | Novel | [19] | |||||||||||
| scope=row style="font-weight: normal" | 2010 | "The Fool Jobs" | Locus Award | Novelette | |||||||||
| scope=row rowspan=3 style="font-weight: normal" | 2011 | The Heroes | British Fantasy Award | Novel | |||||||||
| Gemmell Award | Fantasy Novel | [20] | |||||||||||
| Locus Award | Fantasy Novel | ||||||||||||
| scope=row rowspan=3 style="font-weight: normal" | 2012 | Red Country | British Fantasy Award | Fantasy Novel | |||||||||
| Gemmell Award | Fantasy Novel | [21] | |||||||||||
| Locus Award | Fantasy Novel | ||||||||||||
| scope=row style="font-weight: normal" | 2013 | "Some Desperado" | Locus Award | Short Story | |||||||||
| scope=row rowspan=3 style="font-weight: normal" | 2014 | Half a King | Gemmell Award | Fantasy Novel | [22] | ||||||||
| Locus Award | Young Adult Book | ||||||||||||
| "Tough Times All Over" | Locus Award | Novelette | |||||||||||
| scope=row rowspan=3 style="font-weight: normal" | 2015 | Half the World | Locus Award | Young Adult Book | |||||||||
| Half a War | British Fantasy Award | Fantasy Novel | |||||||||||
| Locus Award | Young Adult Book | ||||||||||||
| scope=row rowspan=3 style="font-weight: normal" | 2016 | Sharp Ends | British Fantasy Award | Collection | |||||||||
| Locus Award | Collection | ||||||||||||
| World Fantasy Award | Collection | ||||||||||||
| scope=row style="font-weight: normal" | 2020 | The Trouble With Peace | Locus Award | Fantasy Novel | [23] |