The First Law Trilogy

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. The complete three-book set of Lit Escalates' first special edition, created with Orbit and funded through Kickstarter: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings. Blood-red hardcovers with gold foil stamping on the boards and spine, full-colour wrap-around dust jackets painted by Joel Daniel Phillips, illustrated endpapers carrying six more of his paintings, and a fold-out map of the First Law world. This is the campaign's Falchion tier ($150), which included all three books unsigned.

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. The complete three-book set of Lit Escalates' first special edition, created with Orbit and funded through Kickstarter: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings. Blood-red hardcovers with gold foil stamping on the boards and spine, full-colour wrap-around dust jackets painted by Joel Daniel Phillips, illustrated endpapers carrying six more of his paintings, and a fold-out map of the First Law world. Each volume carries a personal inscription from Joe Abercrombie alongside his signature on a full-colour illuminated bookplate. This is the campaign's Executioner's Sword tier ($250), the only way the personalized books were sold — they were not offered individually.

Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled and increasingly bitter relic of the last war, former fencing champion turned torturer extraordinaire, is trapped in a twisted and broken body - not that he allows it to distract him from his daily routine of torturing smugglers.Nobleman, dashing officer and would-be fencing champion Captain Jezal dan Luthar is living a life of ease by cheating his friends at cards. Vain, shallow, selfish and self-obsessed, the biggest blot on his horizon is having to get out of bed in the morning to train with obsessive and boring old men.And Logen Ninefingers, an infamous warrior with a bloody past, is about to wake up in a hole in the snow with plans to settle a blood feud with Bethod, the new King of the Northmen, once and for all - ideally by running away from it. But as he's discovering, old habits die really, really hard indeed...especially when Bayaz gets involved. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Glotka, Jezal and Logen a whole lot more difficult...

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. The complete three-book set of Lit Escalates' first special edition, created with Orbit and funded through Kickstarter: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings. Blood-red hardcovers with gold foil stamping on the boards and spine, full-colour wrap-around dust jackets painted by Joel Daniel Phillips, illustrated endpapers carrying six more of his paintings, and a fold-out map of the First Law world. Each volume carries Joe Abercrombie's signature on a full-colour illuminated bookplate. This is the campaign's Long Steel tier ($200), the only way the signed books were sold — they were not offered individually.