Progress Report August ’20
Believe it or not, The Trouble With Peace is out in two short weeks, and the US and UK hardcovers are both in my possession:
UK art by Tomas Almeida, US by Sam Weber and Lauren Panepinto, and both beautiful in their own pleasingly distinct and different ways.
Promotion ramps up, as you’d imagine. You can read an extract from the point of view of trustworthy straight edge Jonas Clover on the book page here, while you can see how ruthless socialite Savine dan Glokta starts the story over at Forbes. Spoilers for previous books, it should be said. There’ll be some further extracts coming on Friday 4th, from peace-loving family man Gunnar Broad, and Friday 11th, and I’ll be putting up a previously in the Age of Madness summary here in the next few days, for those who need to refresh their memories about the events of A Little Hatred.
In person events are out, sadly, but I’ll be doing some virtual ones instead, which are at least easier to get to. You can find the details over here. There’ll also be plenty of signed stock and special editions out there, and you can see how to get hold of those over here. Proofs have now been out for some time, and while there’s been no communication yet from the Nobel, Pulitzer or Booker Committees, the first reviews are beginning to drift in. Publishers Weekly said:
“The impressive second epic fantasy of Abercrombie’s Age of Madness trilogy grounds the ongoing power struggles within the Union in issues that resonate with contemporary politics … satisfying plotting and expert subversion of genre expectations are sure to please. Readers will be gripped.”
While the Wertzone thought:
“The Trouble with Peace (*****) is Abercrombie delivering what he usually does – a story packed with memorable characters, action and dark humour – but with also more attention to worldbuilding and pace. A lot happens in a constrained page count (by the standards of the genre) and the pages fly by. There’s also an increasing, Pratchett-esque attention to fantasy’s oft-unfulfilled potential to reflect the world we live in, making for a smarter and more intelligent book.”
And Novel Notions concluded:
“Incredibly mesmeric and brilliant. The trouble with reading Abercrombie’s newest book is that there’s no more new Abercrombie book to read.”
Just saying. Book 3, now officially called The Wisdom of Crowds, is close to finished – it just needs to be Line Edited, any issues thrown up by the release of Book 2 attended to, then a last pass through for the details. It’ll be out September 2021. Most of the next couple of months will be taken up with promotion, interviews, events, and of course the horrifying question of what comes next…
The Trouble With Peace (Virtual) Tour
The Trouble With Peace is out in but 18 days, people. Due to the ravages of Covid, the usual practice of filling a bookshop shoulder to shoulder with people who then queue up to be breathed on by an author has rapidly fallen in popularity. But if the thought of NOT seeing me talk about […]
Trouble With Peace Extract … and links
Time flipping flies and, believe it or not, it’s under a month now until The Trouble With Peace comes out. We’ll be releasing a few extracts from the early chapters leading up the big day, and the first – a little episode from the point of view of that principled man of the North, Jonas […]
