Recommendations
Books Like The Blade Itself
Best books to read after The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself is the foundational grimdark fantasy — Logen Ninefingers, Glokta, Jezal, and a world that is morally gray throughout. These recommendations continue the First Law world, explore the grimdark tradition, or offer companion reading in the tradition of the morally complex epic fantasy.
- 1Buy
Before They Are Hanged
by Joe Abercrombie
The direct sequel — three simultaneous storylines, the quest into the Old Empire, the defense of Gurkhul, the march north, the Second Law novel building toward the conclusion.
- 2Buy
Last Argument of Kings
by Joe Abercrombie
The trilogy conclusion — Bayaz's true agenda revealed, the election of the new king, the most-discussed ending in recent grimdark fantasy, required reading after The Blade Itself and Before They Are Hanged.
- 3Buy
Best Served Cold
by Joe Abercrombie
The First Law world standalone — Monza Murcatto's revenge quest through the city-states of Styria, accessible without the trilogy but richer for having read it, the Abercrombie novel many fans consider his best.
- 4Buy
The Lies of Locke Lamora
by Scott Lynch
The heist fantasy companion — Locke Lamora in Camorr, Lynch's morally complex protagonist in a secondary world that shares Abercrombie's commitment to realism about violence and the costs of criminal life.
- 5Buy
A Song of Ice and Fire
by George R.R. Martin
The political grimdark epic — the War of the Five Kings, Martin's willingness to kill major characters and to show that heroism does not guarantee survival, the most commercially successful grimdark fantasy and the one that most directly prepared audiences for Abercrombie.
- 6Buy
The Way of Kings
by Brandon Sanderson
The epic fantasy counterpart — Sanderson's Stormlight Archive is as ambitious as Abercrombie in scale but occupies the opposite end of the grimdark spectrum, offering heroism and hope alongside its complexity.
- 7Buy
Prince of Thorns
by Mark Lawrence
The grimdark novel with the most extreme protagonist — Jorg Ancrath at fourteen leading a band of brothers through a post-apocalyptic fantasy Europe, Lawrence's debut is the grimdark novel that pushed the genre's darkness the furthest.
- 8Buy
The Name of the Wind
by Patrick Rothfuss
The stylistic contrast — Rothfuss's lush prose and sympathetic trickster protagonist are the counterpoint to Abercrombie's brutal world, and many readers who love one love the other for showing the full range of what contemporary epic fantasy can do.
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