Thanks to you, the discerning book-reading public, and of course to the scintillating quality of the work, not to mention the efforts of my and my publisher’s extended family and friends, Best Served Cold has made the Shortlist for the second David Gemmell Legend Award, celebrating all that is best in heroic fantasy since 2009. Get in! The full selection:
The Gathering Storm, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Warbreaker, Brandon Sanderson
The Cardinal's Blades, Pierre Pevel
Empire, Graham McNeill
And:
Best Served Cold, Joe Abercrombie
Any of those catch your eye? If so, you can, by all means, feel free to vote here. I can’t help feeling it’s a little unfair on Brandon Sanderson to only be nominated twice since he writes FOUR TIMES as fast as the rest of us, but twice he is. I guess you’d have to imagine that Wheel of Time would be the runaway favourite for this, but who can say? I have tediously held forth about the value of a double internet poll for an award – I always preferred the idea of a poll for a shortlist then a panel for a winner. In fact I was discussing this at Eastercon with the author Mark Charan Newton, and strangely we both seemed to advocate the method of voting that was most likely to endorse the kind of books we each write. Weird, huh?
Incidentally, the rather excellent UK hardback cover of Best Served Cold by Didier Graffet, Dave Senior, and Laura Brett is also nominated for best cover art. You could vote for that here, if you felt the need.
41 comments so far
Just submitted my votes. Congratulations Joe and the art team! Is it completely unethical to vote according to “Mugabe rules” where the number of votes does not necessarily reflect the number of people who voted but how strongly they felt about the vote? (hence Zimbabwe’s rathercurious habit in the past of having over 100% of te popuation turn out to vote according to the official count). Good luck, I think I may just go and vote a few more times…
The chances of getting more than 100% of the world’s reading public to vote for Best Served Cold seem slim, but I certainly will not complain if that is the (entirely reasonable) outcome.
I believe there are some measures in place to ensure multiple voting from the same computer is controlled…
Have just ordered a copy of two of you’re rivals. In the interests of balance I have also reread Best served cold. Really great book, honestly Joe, I laughed out loud more times than any other book,( can I check that was what you intended or was this a serious exploration of the human condition).
Can one not laugh and explore the human condition simultaneously?
Nice one, congrats. I’ll go and exercise my democratic right – about the most use I’ll get out of doing that this year.
Sanderson is a writing machine, or cyborg perhaps. Maybe his two books will cancel each other out, allowing Best Served Cold to get the win. Of course, BSC doesn’t NEED the cancelling effect of the Sanderson Cyborg, but it couldn’t hurt. And how can the cover NOT win? Everyone on the blog is always on about how above par the parchmenty covers are.
Voted for Best Served Cold, much as I liked The Gathering Storm(Didn’t expect to really, bit of a surprise there)
Dissapointed Jesse Bullington’s The Sad Tale of The Brothers Grossbart wasn’t nominated for the main award, only best debut as its a cracking book so far.(Halfway through at the moment)
Best served cold gets my vote. Brilliant book.
Just voted for Best Served Cold, all the other Authors are hacks… Obviously…
Even though I’ve not finished BSC yet (Faithful Carpi’s dead two to go) I still voted for it & the artwork seeing I have all your books in that style (hoping Heroes will be the same even though I liked the recent US cover I still prefer the parchment)
What do we get for voting fot ya ?
( another book?)
Joe, you’ll be delighted to know you’ve made the shortlist for the Newtoncrombies this year, too.
Thank you all for your votes.
Pink Ink,
The satisfaction of standing with the righteous.
MC Newton,
Whoo! But hold on, isn’t it my year to give it to you? Rats!
How about in return for my vote, you tell us when we will next see the Bloody Nine in action, eh?!!
I liked the above comment so much I tweeted it to help spread your gospel as —
Can one not laugh and explore the human condition simultaneously?-Joe Abercrombie, author Best Served Cold. VOTE http://bit.ly/5RyUtT
perhaps a few more will turn out for vote.
You got my vote
Did you get to see the cage matches over at suvudu? Jamie Lanister Lost but it was really close
Too bad the Bloody nine wasn’t in that contest
Dan,
Tell you what, if I win, I’ll tell you.
David J.
Let us hope.
Og,
I dunno about all that cage match stuff. Far be it from me to rain on anyone else’s parade, and fun’s fun, and all that, but it seems a little bit lame to me. Feels a bit like rating authors on the basis of who has the tallest magic tower. I mean, I can just say my tower is three hundred miles high, can’t I? Does that actually make it a more dramatic tower? Will scenes involving it be nine hundred times more exciting than more reasonable high buildings from other authors? Likewise with character power. If I say that one of my characters has a kill-anyone ray concealed in his pants that will enable him to beat anyone in a fight, even the mostest ultra-over-poweredest characters of other authors, does that make it canon?
Yes it was completely lame. But at least there was new material from GRRM in the writeups.Particularly Tyrion’s masterplan for defeating Cthulu-“Don’t wake him up”!
Hey Joe, check out the front page of Rottentomatoes.com. The lead actress in “The girl with the dragon tattoo” looks like a dead ringer for Monza.
Ahw, no Jon Obercrombie on the list :S
@ Chris – I loved Pat Rothfuss’ writeups. The whole cage match thing was just a popularity contest really; pretty lame, but I do love it when characters become so real to people that they think about them outside of the books. Maybe not fan fiction – that’s generally just scary – but to create a character like Kvothe or Logen who people love and want to see more of, even if it’s in something as silly as those cage matches … that must be a good feeling.
I think that might be just enough!^^ voted
Also I’m gonna stick with Dan, see if we can beat the highscore and get Mr. Nine out of his grave!
Ha! voted, but don`t hold out much hope after last years Debacle… sorry was that too negative… must be all those cheery books I read.
I just started reading your work in March Joe and having just finished the First Law trilogy, am now currently in the middle of Best served cold. Voted for this deliciously gritty story. Good luck with the award. Without giving too much away for those who haven’t read it yet, my top three favourite bits thus far in BSC:
1) the elf shit at the end of the rainbow ruminations
2) the ‘fumbling’ romance scene at the top of Monza’s tower
3) the visceral shudder caused by the eye incident.
Rachel-Yup. Poisoning Jamie was amusing.
Just voted, Joe. All the very best.
As I am on the lookout for some more fantasy while Joe finishes his next masterpiece, can anyone recommend any of the other shortlisted books? Of course, its only proper of me to presume they lie, shivering in the shadow of the fantasy behemoth that is BSC… but still. Worth asking.
Seeing Best Served Cold on the finalists lists has restored my faith in democracy.*
Seriously, congratulations – got my vote! (Votes, if the server lets me)
*That is, the sort of mob-rule democracy that involves votes with no criteria, overseen by people who hadn’t heard of half the entries.
I haven’t read the last couple of Wheel of Times… IS the end finally coming in sight?
Good luck on the voting!
Mark C. Jesse Bullingtons The Sad Tale of The Brothers Grossbart is superb. Its nominated for best newcomer rather than best book. There’s a sex scene in there that made me nearly dry heave and I haven’t done that since I last read Graham Masterton. Complete depraved stuff but very funny.
@mark – Warbreaker has great feel to it. It’s not like any of joe’s work in that it has a kind of sweetness hidden behind all the betrayal going on. Cyborg Sanderson tells a great story.
Congratulations are in order; great work, vote cast.
David P – I take you “visceral shudder caused by the eye incident” and raise you Glokta’s “removal of the Inquisitor’s nipples” with pincers in Before They Are Hanged 🙂
Ouch you might have me there Phil. Also eye watering was the gradual slicing of finger portions.
I was a bit worried as the First Law series drew to an end that young Glokta was getting a bit soft – but my concerns were happily put to rest as he visits his one time employer for a bit of torture for pleasure rather than business.
What did you do to upset the nice folks at Fantastic Literature, Joe? Their latest subscriber email puts the verbal boot in:
The David Gemmell Legend award shortlist has also been announced. Is Joe Abercrombie a “shoe-in”?
Don’t worry, it didn’t stop me from voting for BSC and for the cover art.
Thanks guys, I’ll check them out!
Should I vote for Best Served Cold or the Joe Abercrombie entry? Hmm. Choices, choices.
To the fella above who mentioned THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO’s Noomi Rapace as Monza, I absolutely agree with you.
I’d seen that movie literally a few days before I started reading BEST SERVED COLD and instantly I had her in my head as Monza.
Could we possibly live in a world so wonderful that HBO would greenlight a ten-part series of BEST SERVED COLD with her in the lead role? Probably not, but we can hope.
Colin, that was me. Cool. Happy to see someone else saw her as Monza too!
Ok Joe, I understand your book won the award! Congrats! Now, about our agreement…I believe some news on Ninefingers is in order!
Sorry Dan, it won for cover art, not for the main award. You will have to wait for news…
ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!