Title: The Devils

Author: Joe Abercrombie

Series: The Devils #1

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 4/5 stars

The Overview: 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. –Goodreads

The Review:

This is Joe Abercrombie at his most indulgent. And you know what? I was there for it.

Abercrombie‘s humor is easily one of my biggest draws to his work. He has such a knack for that subtle, dry humor that hits you when you least expect it. So damn funny, he has impeccable timing (I could listen to him in interviews for hours) and a great instinct, so his humor almost always lands. Now here’s the thing, in The Devils he’s not subtle, he’s not pulling any punches (they come so often, it’ll almost reminded you of a Pratchett book) and the humor is often quite juvenile. Normally, immature, humor of this type doesn’t work for me, but I think it a combination of how much confidence I have in the author along with how well he timed the jokes and how far those jokes went to enhance character that made this work for me. I laughed out loud several times. I also rolled my eyes several times. It is what it is.

Now don’t get me wrong, events in this book are downright brutal. The overall tone was funny, but it’s still an Abercrombie. It’s not a good day’s work until someone is getting eviscerated on the page. Proceed with caution.

My favorite thing about the story were the characters. No surprise there. The book was a slow, measured experience with this wildly interesting group of individuals, all of them sort of enigmas. I lived for the many reveals of character as the story went along and found myself latching on to the least likely of them (the werewolf is my favorite). Such great character work, everything from the dialogue to subtle mannerisms – Abercrombie is truly a master at making his people distinct.

If you’re more of a plot reader, I think you’d find The Devils a bit of a slow burn. However, if you’re a character reader, I think you’d feel like things were progressing with each of them at a good clip. I’m somewhere in the middle, so I think elements of plot were too repetitive and the pacing could have moved along just a tad faster. But because I was enjoying myself with the characters, it wasn’t a huge factor.

I’ve heard through the grapevine that this is going to be, at least initially, a trilogy, with the subsequent books containing entirely new story arcs but still following a sporadic mix of the same characters. I’ve enjoyed this one so much that I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do next! He gets massive points for creativity in his world-building.

Recommendations: if you’ve never read an Abercrombie before, I’m afraid the intensity and outrageousness of this book might scare you off reading anything else by him. So I’m hesitant to say start here! However, I think if you’ve read a ton of other Abercrombie and are a fan of his general overall being, you’ll enjoy the heck out of this. It’s nice to see him do something that’s not quite so serious.

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