The other month, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin sat down with fellow author Joe Abercrombie as part of Abercrombie's tour promoting his new book The Devils. The Devils is a Suicide Squad-esque story about a group of monsters undertake a dangerous mission at the behest of a young child pope. It's funny, gritty and grimdark, something that Abercrombie's books have become known for.
What exactly is "grimdark?" Martin himself probed around the edges of the definition while speaking with Abercrombie. "You've read [my] books, so you know I occasionally kill a character, and or have dark things, and you became instantly known for doing something similar, expect moreso," he said. "You were dubbed 'the king of grimdark.' And I had never heard the term 'grimdark,' but evidently I inspired it somehow. But you were grimmer and darker than I was, I think."
So grimdark, generally speaking, is a style of fiction where the tone is very grim and dark; lots of death, lots of violence, lots of hopelessness. You could easily argue that Martin's work falls into that category, if for no other reason than because he kills so many characters. Although I don't think of Martin's work as feeling too heavy or oppressive. Even amidst all the death, there's an expansiveness to it that feels buoying, and he rarely kills characters just for the hell of it. Even when he kills a universally hated character like Joffrey Baratheon, he still sympathizes with him, which I think prevents those moments from feeling too bleak.
"I suppose the character that most of the world was glad to see die was Joffrey...but I wanted to try and write so that even as you're reading it — and people hate him, rightfully — and getting some joy, would be reminded that he's a 13-year-old kid," Martin said. "He's a 13-year-old kid who's dying in front of his mother. At some level, I wanted to keep that resonance there. I don't know if that succeeded or failed, but that was my goal."
Joe Abercrombie's books are grimmer and darker than Martin's, which is its own kind of fun. Martin can't endorse them strongly enough. During the talk, he heaped praise on a chapter from Abercrombie's book The Heroes, where a battle sequence is narrated from the point of view of eight different characters. "It's a fucking brilliant chapter," Martin enthused. And writing on his Not a Blog, Martin endorsed Abercrombie's work in the strongest terms:
"If you have not read any of Joe’s previous novels, you don’t know what you’re missing. He’s a powerful, evocative writer with a unique voice, one of the brightest fantasists on the current scene. He never disappoints. He writes a lot faster than I do too, so there won’t be nearly as much waiting."
The Devils is available to buy everywhere now. And if you like that, you may want to check out Abercrombie's First Law series, the grimdark high fantasy epic that put him on the map. The Devils is a standalone book set in an alternate version of our world, rather than in the world of The First Law.
Although he's a pretty big name in fantasy, Hollywood has yet to adapt Abercrombie's work to the screen, although there have been a few tries. The latest might stick; none other than James Cameron is working with Abercrombie on a movie adaptation of The Devils. If the guy behind Titanic and Avatar can't help your movie get across the finish line, I'm not sure what can. While we wait for good news on that front, there's a whole world of Joe Abercrombie books to enjoy.
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