On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal’s son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specializes in disappointments.

Savine dan Glokta – socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union – plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control.

The age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles to control the blessing, or the curse, of the Long Eye. Glimpsing the future is one thing, but with the guiding hand of the First of the Magi still pulling the strings, changing it will be quite another…

It’s really hard for me to overstate the way Joe Abercrombie’s books completely changed the trajectory of who I am as a reader. Prior to reading his Shattered Sea trilogy a few years ago, I was a little bit locked into a Star Wars/The Expanse/Harry Potter pattern. And I really wouldn’t have considered myself a fantasy reader at that time.

But then I just kinda stumbled into Half a King, and I was fucking floored. Obsessed. I bought up ALL THE ABERCROMBIE BOOKS (I think at that point, everything but Sharp Ends had been published), and got fully immersed in his work. I think the announcement about the Age of Madness trilogy was made sometime between me finishing the First Law trilogy & starting Best Served Cold. The long & short of it is, a lot of us have been not-so-patiently waiting for A Little Hatred to arrive! I can only describe the feeling of holding this book in my hands as a little surreal, and stomach-churningly exciting!

And my fucking stars, this book…whatever expectations I had heading into this, I wasn’t at all prepared for how incredible this would be. Joe Abercrombie has delivered a book that’s not just likely to be my favorite book of 2019, but really one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time!

Before I attempt to say anything remotely coherent about how goddamn brilliant A Little Hatred is, I want to get this out there: YES, this is the start of a NEW trilogy set in the First Law world. NO, I do not recommend reading this before reading ALL the other First Law books. And I will always die on this hill…you HAVE TO read them in publication order! Although Best Served Cold, The Heroes, and Red Country are considered “standalones”, you’re robbing yourself of some of the very best character development in fantasy if you decide to read them without reading the First Law trilogy first!

A Little Hatred picks up around thirty years after the events of Last Argument of Kings, and while there are plenty of familiar faces in this book, this is the story of the next generation of First Law characters. There’s a lot of new characters & POVs in A Little Hatred, but it’s pulled off effortlessly by Abercrombie. And all of these new characters are as vivid & complex as you’d expect them to be…honestly, this is what makes Abercrombie the absolute best. His ability to create characters that are either instantly likable, deplorable, or somewhere in between. But each of them is fascinating & utterly unique.

Of all these great new characters, it’s Rikke that steals the show for me. I just fucking loved everything about her. She’s a Northerner, and the daughter of one of the most famous & beloved Northmen (I’m not saying who, in case you don’t know!) When we meet Rikke, she’s off on a bit of an adventure under the tutelage of Isern-i-Phail, a hillwoman. Rikke is having fits, and with these fits come visions. She’s slowly learning what it means to have the Long Eye, and be able to see the future. Abercrombie is typically very stingy when it comes to magic or anything supernatural, so this is a really cool element of the story.

Leo dan Brock is one the most instantly likable Abercrombie characters ever, I think. He’s young & maybe a little too eager to earn his glory on the battlefield, but there’s just something about this kid that had me all WE MUST PROTECT LEO AT ALL COSTS…it’s possible he’s a cinnamon roll, I don’t know if that’s how you use the term! Either way, he’s just kind of delightful in his earnestness.

And then there’s Savine dan Glokta, daughter of the Arch Lector himself. Savine is this incredibly complex character…she’s fucking ruthless (I mean, what would you expect with that last name?), and a brilliant strategist & investor. Her journey over the course of this first book is incredible, and she’s probably the character that experiences the most growth as a person.

Things are changing in this world. It’s sort of the beginning of an Industrial Age, and we see the good side of that, as well as the horribly bleak side of that…poverty, pollution, people forced from their homes, rage & revolution…oof, there’s so much happening here.

Of course there are some fucking grueling & bloody battle scenes in A Little Hatred…this is a Joe Abercrombie book, and you have to be realistic about these things. There’s also no shortage of sex & romance, Abercrombie-style. But what carries this book is the richly detailed world in the background, the incredible characters, and Abercrombie’s trademark bone-dry and hilarious sense of humor.

There are some tough themes explored in this book, including PTSD. With the amount of war that’s figured into all the First Law books, a closer examination of how that impacts someone seems really natural, and I loved the way it was handled here.

A Little Hatred is an absolute masterpiece & an instant classic in the world of fantasy. I can’t begin to recommend this enough, and it really drove home something I’ve felt for a long time: there’s nobody that can do what Joe Abercrombie can do. This is the start of something new & completely masterful…a story that reinvents a familiar world, while paying deep respect to everything that came before. A Little Hatred was everything I could have hoped for…a joy to read, cover to cover. I’m just fucking blown away, and so grateful that we get to see more of this incredible world Joe Abercrombie has created.

An endless amount of gratitude to the great people at Orbit for sending me a copy of this! A Little Hatred releases September 17th!