The Devils

This book is so. much. fun. If you're familiar with Guardians of the Galaxy or Suicide Squad - or even better, Creature Commandos - you've got the gist here: a ragtag band of quippy, surly misfits is dispatched on a secret and impossibly deadly mission. This book hit for me on every level. Yes, at the most basic and zoomed-out level, it's an entirely formulaic plot, but the details that Mr. Abercrombie works in and around the scaffolding make it sing. The setting is one of two major highlights for me. What a fascinating, twisted funhouse mirror of our world Mr. Abercrombie is playing in here. Everything is familiar and utterly alien at the same time, which makes it both entirely approachable (no need to learn the grammatical conventions of some made-up language just to follow a simple conversation!) and also thrillingly unpredictable (what do you mean the Pope is a...?!) Abercrombie does a wonderful job of having characters toss in little asides that make sense to everybody on the page, but left me wanting to spend even more time here to learn what exactly they meant. And the other highlight, of course, is our cast. I have seen some criticism leveled at this book that it's too quippy, that everybody is a bit too much of a smart aleck. You know what? I see it, and I don't care. Not when it's done this well. These characters are all complete jackasses, it's true, but they're our complete jackasses; and maybe, just maybe, over the course of the book, they can become each other's complete jackasses too (the real treasure being the friends we - well, you know). Jakob, Vigga, and Sunny were particular highlights for me, but by the end of the book you truly do love them all. Or at least, I did. And I'd argue that the humor in here is actually vital, because otherwise there is a LOT of grimdark in these pages. Which is fine, I have no problem reading something heavy, but what a difference it makes to the experience to ease the darkness sometimes with a laugh-out-loud joke or two. The only two things holding this back from near-perfection for me are that it is perhaps a touch longer than it needed to be, and the ending so blatantly tees up a sequel that it might as well have ended with the words "THE DEVILS WILL RETURN IN..." (Luckily for us, we know they will return, and soon, and Mr. Abercrombie seems to have no difficulty churning his work out, which is a blessed relief these days.) (crossposted from my Storygraph review.)

Looking forward to the film adaptation.

I had a good time reading this! It was Suicide Squad meets Van Helsing meets Kingdom of Heaven. The Church has holy knights for clean and noble conquests, but for the dirty work the Church employs a band of powerful fugitives condemned to either die or serve the Church’s aims. As the quest goes on, they come to realize they might not be the monsters they have been made out to be. Or maybe they are. A fun, action-packed tale of camaraderie, redemption, and the ability to look beyond appearances.

Joe Abercrombie never clicked with me. Until this book. I really love this book.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It is very well written but I feel that the author over uses language and crude imagery to a point where it doesn’t feel believable. That aside the overall story is good and the characters are very interesting. I like the way that it ends to a point. I think the back half of this book is where it shines and the first half is a trudge. Overall it was fun and could be interesting to see more from these characters.