Books Like Joe Abercrombie

Jorg Ancrath is thirteen years old and already one of fantasy's most terrifying protagonists — a prince who leads a band of killers across a broken medieval Europe that is slowly revealing itself to be the far future. Lawrence writes with a baroque intensity that Abercrombie fans will find immediately familiar: beautiful prose wrapped around genuinely ugly events, and a protagonist whose intelligence makes his cruelty more disturbing rather than less. The Broken Empire trilogy is Abercrombie at maximum darkness.

If you've read the First Law trilogy and want more, Best Served Cold is the ideal next step — a standalone revenge epic set in the same world that follows a mercenary general betrayed by her employer. Monza Murcatto's quest to kill the seven men who tried to murder her is relentless, darkly funny, and populated with some of Abercrombie's finest characters. The perfect entry point for readers who want the First Law world without the commitment to the main trilogy.

Glen Cook is the grandfather of everything Abercrombie does. Written in the 1980s from the perspective of the mercenaries who serve the dark side, The Black Company invented the grimdark mercenary fantasy and still does it better than almost anyone. The prose is terse, the morality is muddy, and the company's loyalty to each other is the only fixed point in a world of shifting allegiances. Abercrombie has cited Cook as a direct influence — reading The Black Company is reading the origin of the First Law.

Baru Cormorant's island is conquered by an empire that uses economics as a weapon of subjugation. Baru decides to become the empire's perfect accountant — to rise through its ranks until she can destroy it from within. Dickinson writes moral compromise with the same unflinching honesty as Abercrombie, and the ending of the first book is one of the most devastating moments in modern fantasy. For Abercrombie readers who want their moral complexity served with politics instead of swords.

For readers who haven't started the First Law trilogy yet — start here. Logen Ninefingers is a barbarian trying to be better than he is. Jezal dan Luthar is exactly the golden hero you'd expect, and worse for it. Glokta is a crippled torturer who is the most compelling character in modern fantasy. The Blade Itself assembles these characters with extraordinary care before sending them somewhere you won't expect.

Eames takes Abercrombie's aging-heroes-past-their-prime concept and plays it for laughs — but sincere laughs, earned by characters you genuinely love. Saga is a legendary mercenary band that reunites when one member's daughter is trapped in a besieged city. Kings of the Wyld is funny in the same register as Abercrombie's darkest jokes, but warmer — a fantasy novel that loves its genre even as it teases it. The ideal palate cleanser between First Law rereads.

Azoth is a guild rat who wants to become the world's greatest assassin — and the price of that apprenticeship is higher than he imagined. Weeks writes the dark city fantasy with the same attention to the cost of violence that Abercrombie brings to his wars. The Night Angel trilogy is darker and more operatic than the First Law, but shares its willingness to let consequences be real and permanent.

The Age of Madness trilogy brings the First Law world into something resembling an industrial revolution — with all the class conflict, technological upheaval, and political chaos that entails. A Little Hatred is Abercrombie at his most structurally ambitious, juggling multiple storylines across a changed world while delivering the same moral complexity and dark wit. For readers who've finished the original trilogy and want to see what Abercrombie does when he's not just subverting genre expectations but engaging with history.