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Book: “The Devils” by Joe Abercrombie
Publishing Info: Tor Books, May 2025
Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!
Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound
Book Description: Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.
Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.
Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it’s a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side
Review: I’m one of those rare modern fantasy readers who HASN’T already read a Joe Abercrombie book it seems. But rather than start with one of his trilogies, I was excited to see that he was releasing a new book/series this spring, thus giving me a great entry point!
I’m on the record with how difficult I believe it is to write ensemble casts in these sorts of books. Nailing down one unique character with a compelling arc and clear point of view is difficult enough. Now do it multiple times! But here Abercrombie illustrates how well a properly portrayed and established ensemble can elevate a fairly simple story to something much more! At its core, this is a fairly standard questing fantasy, with our group travelling the continent to reach a defined point, meeting enemies along the way. What carries it, however, is this amazing group of characters who make up our little troupe.
The simplest way to put it, perhaps, is this is essentially the epic fantasy version of “Suicide Squad.” Not all of our characters are outright villains, but many of them have some level of darkness to their past. By slowly adding layers to these characters, the author neatly side steps the pitfall of these characters falling into overt fantasy stereotypes. Something that would be all too easy when you have a cast made of up werewolves, elves, undying knights, vampires, snarky thieves, etc. All the good stuff us fantasy readers are all too familiar with! However, here, each goes beyond many of the initial assumptions brought in by the sort of fantasy creatures/characters they are.
Our werewolf is a Viking who relies on her poor memory to cope with the death of her friends, often at her own hands. Our elf is just misunderstood, her ability to turn invisible mirroring how she feels in the group itself. Our sorcerer, ahem, “magician” just wants out of this whole freak show, sure that he is more powerful than everyone around him. And, of course, our thief is a con artist now caught up in a con that has gotten out of control! That’s only touching on some members of the cast! Throughout it all, whenever it felt like the characters were getting a bit lost in the extreme violence on the page or even some of the humor, Abercrombie always managed to pull it back to a humanizing moment, dealing with themes regarding penitence, grief, and what we owe one another.
Speaking of violence and humor, as I said, I haven’t read this author’s work before, but I do know that he is known for his dark fantasy. So I went in with an expectation of reading a grimdark fantasy novel, even though those are not necessarily my favorite of the fantasy subgenres. However, I wasn’t expecting just how funny this book was! Even in the midst of some of the most gruesome fight scenes that I’ve come across, I often found myself chuckling out loud. I will say that while most of the humor hit home for me, I did find a bit too much emphasis on bodily function humor. Perhaps this just comes from living in a household with three boys (my husband and two sons), but I only have so much tolerance or interest in reading jokes about farts, even if they’re incredibly well written.
Overall, I really loved this book! It was action-packed, hilarious, and full of a cast of characters of which I could never quite settle on a favorite! It’s truly a testament of the author’s steadiness at the wheel when I was only ever excited to see what the next character had to say! It’s hard to remember a book where I didn’t have at least one dud POV character. But here, they were all excellent! If I had to pick favorites, perhaps Vigga (werewolf) and Balthazar (sorcerer/magician) might come out on top. But honestly, they were all great. If you enjoy epic fantasy, definitely give this one a shot! I will only warn that it is definitely high on the violence, but I think the excellent humor balances this out well.
Rating 9: How to write “grimdark fantasy” without all of the “grim.” Abercrombie hits it out of the park with this one!
Reader’s Advisory:
“The Devils” can be found on this Goodreads list: 2025 Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction.
The Library Ladies 