Gollancz and Tor nab rights to new Joe Abercrombie trilogy

Gollancz and Tor Books have acquired the UK and US rights respectively to Joe Abercrombie's next fantasy project. No release date has been set for the project, but given that Joe reported only being about half done with it at the end of last year, I imagine it'll be 2023 at least before we see the new material.

The new trilogy starts with a book called The Devils and marks a change for Abercrombie in that it is set in a fantasised version of the real world, rather than his First Law work which is sent entirely in a secondary world, or his Half a King trilogy which melds fantasy with a post-apocalyptic setting.

The new trilogy will apparently meld epic fantasy with the heist, crime and thriller genres. The synopsis follows:

“In a magic-riddled Europe under constant threat of elf invasion, the 10-year-old Pope occasionally needs services that cannot be performed by the righteous. And so, sealed deep beneath the catacombs, cathedrals and relic stalls of the Sacred City lies the secret Chapel of the Holy Expediency. For its highly disposable congregation – including a self-serving magician, a self-satisfied vampire, an oversexed werewolf, and a knight cursed with immortality – there is no mission that cannot be turned into a calamitous bloodbath.”