Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Bingo 6: travel and violence abound

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

by Leave a Comment

Bingo 6: Map The Devils is about a journey, both in the literal and metaphorical senses. So ‘Map’ spot it is. The general premise is somewhat familiar: a monk is put in charge a group of seriously magical/supernaturally powered misfits (at least according the Church) and sent to escort a newly discovered princess to secure her throne. Brother Diaz expected a promotion when he was summoned to meet the Pope. Except he was actually meeting with the Cardinal in charge of behind the scenes, who […]

“She’d played so many parts she hardly knew which one was her. She was an onion made of only skins with nothing at the centre.”

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

by 1 Comment

Nowhere Book Bingo 26: Book rec from a friend (Ashley/Narfna loved this) Defeat the Goblin TBR: The Rogue Book – a book with politics/intrigue/sneakery involved (this book has all three and lots of it) CBR18 Bingo: Left (All of my fiction books are alphabetised by author, so Abercrombie comes to the very top left of the bookshelf it’s placed on) A cowardly monk. A mercenary. A vampire. A werewolf (who used to be a viking warrior). An elf. A necromancer. A knight who cannot die. […]

Violence, Screwball Comedy and Found Family

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

by Leave a Comment

I have only read Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy even though I know he has written more novels, including some in the same world as the First Law. While I enjoyed the First Law trilogy, the ending was also a bit darker than I had hoped for/some characters didn’t end up where I wanted them to. Since it’s been a while since I read them, I can’t quite remember too much about the writing style – I am sure there were moments of dark humor in […]

“He flopped sideways, mute testament to the greatest fighting technique of all: a friend behind your enemy.”

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

by 7 Comments

The Devils is my first Abercrombie book. I’ve had Half a King on my TBR for over a decade, but it hadn’t made its way onto an annual list yet. But as is often the case over the past many years narfna reviewed something ecstatically which had me checking to see if it fit a reading challenge (I’m counting this as weird horror for Read Harder and Black for CBR Bingo) and then it made its way to this year’s list.  My brain is tired having finished the nearly 550 pages of this book. But the good kind of tired. The “I just […]

Better the devils you know

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

by Leave a Comment

Joe Abercrombie recently became one of my favourite authors (just after I finished his First Law series last year), so his most recent book, The Devils (the start of a brand-new series), has been at the top of my list for my most anticipated releases this year (also I got an ARC so I got to start reading it a couple of weeks before it’s officially released, yay! (but obligatory this didn’t affect the contents of this review, etc.)). The book is set in a […]

“You have to be realistic about these things…”

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

by Leave a Comment

I originally purchased the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie(consisting of The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and The Last Argument of Kings) sometime around 2009. I’ve somehow went 15 years without reading them, so figured it was finally time to do so… The books are mostly set in a country called the “Union”, and explore the inner politics of the nation, along with a series of conflicts with both the “North” (essentially a loosely organized collection of barbarians), and the “Gurkish” (an expansionist […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo