Jack Brickman
Hall-of-Famer
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2012
- Messages
- 38,457
- Reaction score
- 61,545
- Points
- 148
What Abercrombie books would you recommend, and what order?
Well, the Shattered Sea books are independent of all his other works, so you can read those separately. The order they go in is Half a King, Half the World, and Half a War. These are shorter books and fall into the young adult category, although you don't really notice that when you're reading it. The world is still pretty awful and violent, but you see it through the eyes of younger characters.
His other series is The First Law, which includes a trilogy and three independent novels. You can read them in this order (publication order):
The Blade Itself
Before They Are Hanged
Last Argument of Kings
Best Served Cold
The Heroes
Red Country
The first three above are the trilogy and the latter three are the stand alone books. You should absolutely read the trilogy first, though, since there are a lot of characters that carry over.
Supposedly he'll be writing another trilogy set in the world of The First Law. He was supposed to be on a sabbatical from writing when he decided to write the Shattered Sea books.
I don't think it really matters if you read Shattered Sea or The First Law first. Both are really good and they're totally different. Best Served Cold is my favorite Abercrombie book, by the way.