The Blade Itself

Epic fantasy. It’s all the same, no? There's a grumpy wizard, a deadly barbarian, a jumped-up nobleman and some feisty girl, more than likely. They're all engaged in a mysterious quest to bring that from there, and they're all made out of cardboard. Probably there's a dark lord of some kind involved. They talk like extras from a bad soap opera. They fight like extras from a bad cop show. Probably there's a prophecy, and a farmboy with mysterious parentage, and if not a magic tower, then certainly a strange tall building of some kind. There'll be battles, there'll be intrigue, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if a magic sword came up somewhere along the way. I don't need to read that again. I want to read a fantasy with all the grit, and cruelty, and humour of real life. Where good and evil are a matter of where you stand, just like in the real world. I want dialogue that actually sounds like people talking, and action that actually feels like people fighting. I want magic and adventure, sure, but I want it to hurt. I want blood, sweat, and tears, and plenty of them. I want to read about characters as selfish, as flawed, as complicated, and as unpredictable as real people. I want a fantasy that can shock and surprise, amuse and horrify, delight and excite me, all at once. I spent a long time looking, and I couldn't find a set of books quite like that. So I thought I'd write some. You like your fantasy with the edges left on? Try The First Law.

Lit Escalates' first special edition, created with Orbit and funded through Kickstarter. Blood-red hardcovers with gold foil stamping on the boards and spine, a full-colour wrap-around dust jacket painted by Joel Daniel Phillips, illustrated endpapers carrying six more of his paintings, and a fold-out map of the First Law world. This copy carries Joe Abercrombie's signature and a personalization on a full-colour illuminated bookplate; it was offered through the campaign's Executioner's Sword tier ($250), which included all three signed and personalized First Law books.