2025 in Review

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear me-eee, yes indeed, 51 years old today and STILL a fresh new voice in this genre etc. etc.

A YEAR IN BOOKSELLING – This was a big year for me, with The Devils coming out in May, my first new book since The Wisdom of Crowds in 2021. The longest gap I’d ever had in nearly 20 years of publishing. Would anyone still give a shit? Had they ever? Big long series can be great, but there’s a risk (in fact it’s almost inevitable) that you end up preaching to an ever more enthusiastic but less numerous crowd with every instalment. Very hard to make the same kind of impact with book 10 of a series that you can with the first volume of something new. New series give you the opportunity to try something a bit different creatively, but also to shake up the publishing and for publishers and booksellers to make a bigger push and create a bigger stir, and perhaps pull in a slightly different readership.

That certainly seemed to be the case with The Devils. It was a no. 1 hardcover bestseller in the UK, with no. 3 being the highest I’d reached before, and no. 5 in the US, where I’d never got into the top 10. I also did my first serious US tour, with nine events scattered about the country, and I even popped back for a couple more in September, some of which were a fair bit bigger than anything I’d done before – more details here, should you be interested. Also visited my home from home at Celsius festival in Spain where the crowds were like never before (partly due to the visit of some guy called Brandon Sanderson, I think he might have a bright future in the genre), and did the longest signing I’ve ever been involved with – about 6 and a half hours, I think, for maybe 1000 people.

Week 1 sales aren’t the best guide to future performance, of course – they’re partly the result of the publisher’s marketing efforts, partly the result of the audience you’ve built with your previous books. The Blade Itself did not trouble the scorers on the Times Bestseller list on its week of release in 2006 (I vaguely remember there being about 12 people at my first signing at Forbidden Planet and I knew at least 11 of them), but the amazing thing about that book is how well it’s sold, and continues to sell, 20 years later. Whether The Devils will have anything like that staying power only time will tell, but it’s now sold over 250,000 copies in all formats in the US, and over 170,000 in the UK, which I’m sure is way the best any of my books have done over an 8 month period. Not far off 50% of those sales have been in audio formats, which is partly a sign of the times with audio becoming an ever bigger slice of the market, and partly a sign of how successful the brilliant Steven Pacey’s readings continue to be with the listeners. Pretty small proportion (less than 20%) via e-book, which is surprising when you consider everyone thought a few years back the physical book would largely die out. It seems in fact to be in ruder health than ever, with a whole bevy of specialist and subscription services offering special editions of books on release. The Devils had no less than four special editions with assorted cover treatments, special boards, exclusive endpapers and (of course) lavishly sprayed edges…

A YEAR IN BOOK WRITING – With all the publicity and touring, as well as a fair bit of film and tv work I’ve been doing on one thing or another, it’s not been the most productive year on the book writing side, I will admit, but the sequel to the Devils (as yet not with a set title) drags itself doggedly forward. This time last year I’d done a rubbish draft of 2 parts of 3. 12 months later I’ve finished the first draft and I’m half way through a second. I’m getting to the point where I’m guardedly pleased with it (thank the Saviour), but there’s still a lot of work to do. Once the second draft is done and I’ve got a coherent book that runs from a almost all the way to b, I usually then do several sets of of revisions: one focusing on character and voice, one on setting, one on detail, and though my editors have already made many good points in this second draft round there’ll be plenty more editorial comments to consider, I have no doubt. The aim is to get a finished, edited manuscript by May this year, leading up to a publication in May 2027.

A YEAR IN BOOK READING – God damn it but I hardly read these days. A shocking admission for a writer, I know, but it feels like exercising the same muscles I use when writing, or endlessly reading and reviewing my own work, and it’s hard to turn off the editorial side of my brain, especially with fiction, especially with fantasy. But it’s something I’d very much like to get back into, and I have in fact read not one but TWO count them TWO fantasy (or perhaps fantasy adjacent) books I’d recommend this year. The first is Joe Hill’s King Sorrow (full disclosure, Joe’s a friend) which is a sprawling tale about a group of college friends and how their friendships and rivalries develop over the course of several decades – when they have to find someone for an immortal dragon to murder every year. The second is Cristopher Buehlman’s remarkable Between Two Fires, a dark, gripping and atmospheric tale of a knight and a girl crossing a hellish medieval France in the grip of the Black Death.

TV AND FILM – These days I spend quite a lot of time working in the field (with remarkably little ever making it to the screen), so rather than brutally shredding stuff, just a few things I liked: The Long Walk was creditable though I feel like they slightly fumbled the ball in the end zone with a conclusion that didn’t make much thematic sense compared to the one I remember in the original story. Frankenstein was incredible looking if a bit overwrought at times. Sinners was a pretty wild twist on the vampire genre with some great performances and a very clever ending. My favourites of the year were probably Warfare at the start – brief, tight, explosive, and matter-of-fact, focusing on the personal experience of modern battle – and Marty Supreme at the end – a lovable, horrible, unpredictable, weird mutant of a sports movie/heist movie/period drama.

On the TV side, no doubt I will forget loads but a few things that stood out: I hadn’t seen Primal before, so that was a really inventive and rewarding watch. The Rehearsal is pretty astonishing – I don’t know what the hell you’d call it but it’s certainly unlike anything else. All Her Fault was a very well acted thriller that went in some interesting directions. Department Q and Task were two very different takes on the cop show that I enjoyed for different reasons. The Studio I found very clever and a lot of fun (especially for anyone who’s worked at all in film). The Diplomat continues to be very watchable and surprisingly multifaceted. Adolescence was amazingly well made and acted and pretty horrifying for anyone with a teenage son. Probably the best TV experience for me has been re-watching Mad Men with my daughter, who’s never seen it before. Remains absolutely spectacular, and remarkably consistent throughout its 7 series run.

GAMES – Felt to me like a strong year on the gaming front. I always play a fair bit of Total War and Crusader Kings and that has by no means changed, but there’s been a lot I’ve enjoyed on the PS5 too. Ghost of Yotei looked beautiful at times and was well scripted and acted but could be a bit gamey – Ghost of Tsushima was probably a bit more memorable and thematically on point for me. Death Stranding 2 was another slice of complete madness, a mixture of incredible sequences and incomprehensible waffle that came together a bit more effectively than the first game, for me. It’s a true original, at least. Kingdom Come Deliverance II was a cracking sequel – far bigger and more polished than its very creditable forebear. One of very few games that manages to create an authentic feeling medieval world, although for me didn’t resolve as strongly as it began. Borderlands 4 seems better than the previous instalment but in the end isn’t adding much to the (admittedly winning) formula. Which leaves my game of the year, in common with many, I’m sure, as Expedition 33, a game which somehow fuses the very familiar with the very original, along with some brilliant acting, art, design, music and a constantly surprising and even occasionally quite moving story.

THE YEAR AHEAD – Doesn’t look like I’ll have a new book out this year, but the mass market paperback release of The Devils will be coming in May 2026, and I’ll be doing some events, probably in the UK and US, around that time, as well as going to Celsius in Spain again this year in July. Outside of that I’ll be cracking on with the sequel to The Devils and have, as always, quite a few film and TV pots on the stove (including adapting the Devils with James Cameron, as it goes), so we’ll see if any of those finally come to the boil. Cross your fingers, as ever, but don’t hold your breath.

Happy New Year, you beautiful bastards, and thanks to all those who read (and more importantly buy), my stuff…

Posted in film and tv, games, news, progress by Joe Abercrombie on December 31st, 2025.