Joe Abercrombie

Joseph Edward Abercrombie (born 31 December 1974) is an English author of epic fantasy books and a film editor. He is the author of The First Law and The Age of Madness trilogies, as well as other fantasy books in the same setting, and a trilogy of young adult novels. His novel Half a King won the 2015 Locus Award for best young adult book.

Life and education

Abercrombie was born in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. He was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, where he studied psychology. He has a wife, Lou.

Abercrombie has been an avid player of video games since his childhood. In an interview with Edge magazine, Abercrombie stated that video games have been a big influence on his writing, including early interest in text-based adventure games and historically based strategy games such as Civilization and Age of Empires. Other favourite games of Abercrombie's include Elite, Dungeon Master, Street Fighter II, and Red Dead Redemption.

Career

Abercrombie had a job making tea at a television production company before taking up a career as a freelance film editor. As a freelance film editor, Abercrombie found himself with more free time than previously. With this time, he reconsidered a story plot he conceived while attending university.

Abercrombie began writing The Blade Itself in 2002, completing it in 2004. After a year of rejections by publishing agencies, Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz accepted the book for a five-figure deal in 2005. It was published by Gollancz in 2006 and was followed in the succeeding two years by two more books in the trilogy called Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings. In 2008, Abercrombie was a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer. That same year Abercrombie was a contributor to the BBC Worlds of Fantasy series, alongside other contributors such as Michael Moorcock, Terry Pratchett and China Miéville.

In 2009, Abercrombie released the novel Best Served Cold. It is set in the same world as The First Law trilogy but is a stand-alone novel. He followed with The Heroes (2011) and Red Country (2012), both again set in the world of the First Law Trilogy. The three standalone novels were later collected into an omnibus edition under the name The Great Leveller.

In 2011, Abercrombie signed a deal with Gollancz for four more books set in the First Law world. In 2013, HarperCollins' fantasy and children's imprints acquired the rights to three books by Abercrombie, aimed at younger readers. The three standalone but interconnected novels were released as the Viking-influenced Shattered Sea trilogy.

In April 2022, Tor announced that it had acquired a new trilogy from Abercrombie at auction. The first book in the new series, The Devils, was released in May 2025. In June 2025, it was announced that James Cameron's production company acquired the rights to The Devils, and that Cameron and Abercrombie would write a script together after Cameron completed work on Avatar: Fire and Ash. The second book in the series, The Heretics, is slated for release in May 2027.

Abercrombie has contributed to the Netflix animated anthology series Love, Death & Robots. He wrote the third season episode "Mason's Rats" from the third season, a whimsical tale about a war between a farmer and a group of intelligent rats that live in his barn. In season four he wrote the screenplays for two episodes: "Spider Rose", based on a story by Bruce Sterling, and "Golgotha", adapted from a story by Dave Hutchinson.