Grimdark Fantasy discussion

I'll get the Grimdark wagon rollling here. Joe Abercrombie is the current king and ruler of Grimdark fantasy in my humble opinion. (His Twitter handle is https://twitter.com/LordGrimdark so he accepts this thorny crown.)

I have to recommend his First Law trilogy, but the rest of his books are in the same world and share some characters. I will admit, I've not read his young adult "Half A Prince" books yet, but will likely do so soon.

I still keep meaning to read the First Law books. I did buy the first one, but just haven't found the time to read it. I have read the two YA books Half a King and Half the World and loved both of them.

Oops. Half a King, not Prince. I am halfway thinking I need to wait until the third one is out that way I can just plow through them all.

I hope you give the First Law books a try. The characters are hard to like, but easy to love.

I read the first book of the first law book. I liked the characters, just found the book a bit too long for me stay interested the whole time. I'd be up for suggestions for some shorter in length books (300 pages would be great).

The First Law is very good, in my opinion. I've only been reading fantasy for a 2-3 years and TFL was one of first few series I read, and I loved it. In particular, the second and third books. The first one, The Blade Itself is good, but the story did not become as gripping as it did for me until the second book.

As a general Grimdark recommendation I would suggest giving The Prince of Nothing trilogy by R. Scott Bakker a try. It lacks the dark humor of TFL books, but makes up for it in prose and depth. It is however very dark, much darker than The First Law.

Also, since this group is about Grimdark fantasy, recently a magazine called Grimdark was established. Three issues of the magazine have been published so far, with short stories and interviews from Mark Lawrence, R. Scott Bakker, Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch Luke Scull (I keep confusing them), Richard Morgan, and others. It is fairly cheap and some of the stories in there are good.

Wissam, I've not read The Prince of Nothing, but it has been on my to read list for a while. I'll have to check out the Grimdark magazine.

Might I suggest Brian Ruckley's The Free. Not as grimdark as TFL or 40k, but very well written and dark enough to leave you wondering if we may have just damned to world.

That sounds like a good one Perry. Reminds me of Cook's The Black Company with it centering on a mercenary company.

The Black Company... That was a seriously good series. Though, I must admit, that I kind of stalled out with Water Sleeps.

I read the first four Black Company books. They were good, but I moved on to something else and just haven't got back. Cook's writing style was very interesting. It nearly read like a hard-boiled mystery.

I Had TFL on my to-read list for so long now… Don’t know why I keep postponing. I’ll move it up and give a try in the next month or so.

Not sure why no one mentioned Mark’s The Complete Broken Empire Trilogy: Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns, Emperor of Thorns yet. Almost finishing the last book and I can’t help but love the characters… Jorg is, and I quote Mr. Chompa here, “hard to like, easy to love”, he is awesome.

I just recently heard about the prince of nothing trilogy from a friend, solid recommendation by Wissam. As well as Grimdark Magazine, sounds like a good place to look for new stuff.

I don't even recall saying that about Jorg, but it is totally true.

I'll be interested in what you think about Abercrombie. He's big on characters that are hard to like.

Oh, I was actually quoting your previous post on The First Law characters, barely using it to describe jorgy hahaha.

That may explain why I didn't recall it for Jorg. I read the First Law books a while back.

Hard to like for sure. So hard to like that i've put off reading the other books in the series. Do they get better?

I realize that when I posted a few weeks ago, I made reference to "40k", as if everyone would immediately know what I meant. I was referring to the books set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, they are sci-fi with some fantasy elements thrown in, i.e. dark gods, sorcery, etc. While they are fairly easy reads, the scope is massive: over 300 books covering 10,000 years of a never ending and, ultimately, hopeless war that can only truly end when humanity is either extinct or corrupted beyond recognition. Okay, stepping off my soapbox now. If you skipped that paragraph here's the tag line: give it a try.

Hi Perry, I`m still to write my review on The Broken Empire, but I must confess that the end was fairly disappointing... I mean we get to explore a more human side of Jorg, so to speak, and he might get more likable for some that couldn`t do it on the first book, but the intended plot wasn`t able to get to me.

Maybe its because I figured most of it out very soon on Emperor of Thorns, or maybe because it was not really THAT twist one would get excited about for the ending of a series, seemed a little sudden...

I would like to know other opinions on it, though...

Don`t get me wrong, I had a great time with the reading and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys the genre, but at the end I could not help to think: "this is it?"

It is very disappointing when you wrap up a book, or series, and all that you're left with is "that's the end?" I did that with Wheel of Time, spend a decade reading it only to end with "Is that all?"

That's a good bargain.

I've been thinking about this for a while. I've never really read any fantasy that I'd really call "grim" or "dark". Brittany just pointed me to this group when I asked about books like this in the regular Sci-Fi/Fantasy group.

I'm glad to see some of the recommendations here as a few listed are some that I just bought recently when kindle version was on sale at Amazon and they were pretty much my next intended reads.

Specifically, The First Law series and the Black Company series.

Thanks for pointing me to this group, Brittany. :)

I said I would bring some, but this week has been crazy...

I just recently finished Mark's Broken Empire and already own a copy of The Blade Itself and really want to dig into it, so if we could settle for Abercrombie would be great!

Brittany wrote: "Are we attempting to do a group read? Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, Black Company and The Godless War series have been mentioned I think? I've never done a group read to date but this being my..."

P.S.: Just saw that you already started the First Law... :/

Abercrombie would be great. I was thinking of hitting him next already, anyway.

I love Abercrombie, but have no interest in his young adult stuff. I guess I don't like young adult. I do love Abercrombie. I'll do Abercrombie if everyone else wants to, but I vote for Lawrence, whom I haven't read yet.

I read the 3 Broken Empire books in about one week so I'm a bit hungover hahaha but I would gladly do The Prince of Fools.

In which case I need a heads up to order the HB for the collection. :)

Brittany wrote: "Prince of Fools is on sale on Amazon now too if you prefer Kindle. I'm reading it now but will gladly slow or even start over. The second book The Liars Key is due out any day I think"

o/

So, what will we do?

Joe or Mark?

Depending on what we decideI will or won't get the ebook.

Can we set until tomorrow afternoon to reach an agreement?

P.S.: Already bought Prince of Fools on amazon's sale. :D

I do know, and fear, that.

But If Mark can keep it up, and I suppose he will, the 3° book will be out by mid 2016. That much I'm ok with waiting. Haha

Weeks seem's good, I had The Way of Shadows for some time now on my TBR...

I read the Night Angel series by Weeks and enjoyed it. I need to check out this next series.

So, about the group read... I have 3 simple questions:

- When can we get started?
- Prince of Fools or The Blade Itself?
- Who will bring the cookies?

My answers:

- Right friggin' now!!! hahaha
- Both will do, but I would prefer Joe's
- My cooking skills a lame

I just started The Blade Itself #1. This will be my first Joe Abercrombie adventure. I'm excited. :)

BTW....did someone mention cookies? I'm looking for them, but I don't see them.

Great, I'll start tomorrow probably...

Should we split the book in sections, and set a day for weekly discussion? That is how I normally see this things going in other groups.

Ah, and about the cookies, wish I could make some like these for us: http://cdn-113a.kxcdn.com/sites/defau...

It's better with just free-form comments. I think trying to set weekly discussion sounds waaay too formal.

Just make sure people use spoiler tags for those that hate spoilers.

I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend China Miéville. Specifically Perdido Street Station He's not as bloody, but he is in many ways as dark. And he writes so beautifully. Don't be put off by the first few pages in italics, that's not the style throughout.

Brittany wrote: "what about Warded Man? has any one read any Peter V Brett? it's on my to do list"

My copy of The Warded Man arrived last week in the same shipment as The Blade Itself #1, The Lies of Locke Lamora, The Demonologist, Kenobi, Assassin's Apprentice and The Final Empire If anyone wants to discuss these after Abercrombie's, even though some are not grim dark, or dark at all, haha

Deborah wrote: "I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend China Miéville. Specifically Perdido Street Station He's not as bloody, but he is in many ways as dark. And he writes so ..."

I started The City and the City a while back found it to be very interesting, and his writing style is quite good, but then Prince of Thorns arrived and I could not resist, since that I couldn't get myself to go back...

I loved The City and The City, but that's because I think you get to see him play with writing, and not because it's the most successful of his books. I don't know that it's a book I'd recommend, even though it's a book I loved. Perdido Street I recommend without any doubts.

The Warded Man has been on my "to read" list for a few years. I have a copy of the paperback, but would rather get it on Kindle.

The Warded Man was quite good. I need to get onto the rest of that series. And for my money, The Lies of Locke Lamora may be one of the best written books ever. Scott Lynch is a brilliant writer.

I'm going to try it. (Lies of Locke Lamora that is.)

Deborah, I've read all three of the published "Gentleman Bastard" series and loved them all. I hope you enjoy it.

Unsurprisingly, Joe Ambercrombie is in my top 3 as well. But as I read his books as they get published (one of the very few authors I do that), I run out of him pretty easily.

I also like the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks. I don't really like his demon stuff, but the Black Prism was the first book after a really long time that left me raving.

And the Riyria series by Michael Sullivan. It's a little less dark than Joe's stuff, but the books are really great reads. And the humor sometimes sounds especially Ambercrombie-ish to me, especially when Royce is talking.

I read the initial Riyria series by Sullivan. It's not really grimdark, but was very enjoyable.

Locke Lamora Could be our next "group read"!

I may finish The Blade Itself by the end of the week tops, since I am also doing The Demonologist (very good thriller, btw).

I second the nomination for Locke Lamora.

Lies of Locke Lamora is a brilliant book, so go for it :)

When I was young I would often read books several times. In the last decade the Lies of Locke Lamora is one of two books I've reread. I'm totally good with that being the next book.

Check out the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss

I read The Name of the Wind by Rothfuss when it first came out. He's a wonderful writer. It has been long enough that I probably need to re-read it in order to continue the series.

I put his writing along the lines of Scott Lynch. It is nearly poetic in how good it is.

I've been meaning to re-read KKC, would be pleased to do it with you guys :)

Btw, I really want a KKC tattoo, and this re-reading would come in handy

Rothfuss beign a re-read for me would be nice, because I'm planning on doing Warded Man + Mistborn at the same time hahaha

Also, "nerdbrainstormingwise"(lol) actually I'm now trying to come up with a mashup of nerd/geek/fantasy for the tattoo. Saw an arm-length tattoo with 5 book references in symbols and got excited! I'll post the link later.