Book Buzz: The Devils by Joe Abercrombie
I guess a lot of the fantasy I read as a kid was very much in the shadow of Tolkien, and in Lord of the Rings there is an objective right and wrong. You either give in to Sauron or you fight him, and the text leaves no doubt which is good and which evil. Not that I ever lost interest in Gandalf and Aragorn but as the years went on I started to find Saruman and Boromir more interesting. People who fall from grace, or rise to it. Characters in flux, in turmoil, weighing greater good against personal good, with mixed motives, with uncertain outcomes. People who surprise the reader. In our world, everyone thinks they’re in the right. Battles aren’t of good against evil, but one man’s good against another’s.
― Joe Abercrombie, Interview, GrimDark
What booksellers are saying about The Devils
- Joe Abercrombie’s newest standalone fantasy novel is everything I wanted it to be and more. A collection of lovably disgusting rogues (and one terrified priest), magically bound to serve an other-world incarnation of the Catholic church, are sent on a mission to perform a coup in a distant land and heal a long-standing schism in the church’s infrastructure. Things do not go as planned. The Devils is violent, riotous, cynical, anti-authoritarian, and, above all, a bloody good time.
― Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore, RichmondVirginia, Georgia | BUY
- The Devils takes readers on a Tolkien-esque journey through Medieval Europe with a band of morally-grey misfits readers will fall instantly in love with. It’s a bloody, exuberant reading experience that shows just how much the fantasy genre has to offer. To call The Devils a gem is a vile understatement.
― Courtney Ulrich Smith, Underbrush Books, Rogers, Arkansas | BUY
- Rollicking and gruesome, The Devils feels like an epic DND campaign with an ensemble lineup — “a vampire, an elf, a werewolf, a knight who can’t die, a sorcerer magician, a monk who never even wanted to be a bloody monk, a former assistant barber to a mercenary company,” and the “sulking milksop” soon to be Empress. Combining eight points of view, backstories, and motivations into one quest, Abercrombie’s engaging character work will have you falling in love with this band of dangerous fools and the friendships they forge. Hilarious, gory, and even at times heartfelt, perhaps the real holy quest is the friends we made along the way.
― Flora Arnsberger, Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews, Chapel Hill, North Carolina | BUY
- With a world as filthy and dank as medieval streets and every character a crime against the church, The Devils is a fantastic, irreverent, and unpredictable masterwork of epic fantasy.
― Jordan April, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, North Carolina | BUY
About Joe Abercrombie
Joe Abercrombie was born in Lancaster, England, studied psychology at Manchester University, and worked as an editor of documentaries and live music before his first book, The Blade Itself, was published in 2006. Two further installments of the First Law trilogy, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings, followed, along with three standalone books set in the same world: Best Served Cold, The Heroes, and Red Country. He has also written the Shattered Sea trilogy for young adults, the Age of Madness trilogy for old adults, and Sharp Ends, a collection of short stories. He lives in Bath, England, with his wife and three children. The Devils is his thirteenth novel.
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