Updated Timeline and Map from Joe Abercrombie's FIRST LAW world

With Joe Abercrombie's first First Law book in eight years, A Little Hatred, in stores now, I thought it was worthwhile revisiting the setting for the books with a refreshed map and timeline.

The map shows all the lands that lie within the known Circle of the World. Midderland, the island in the centre, is the heart of the Union and the location of Adua, the capital city. Styria, the setting for Best Served Cold, is the island or subcontinent to the east. The North lies to the, er, north with the Orsrung Valley (the setting for The Heroes) located in the mountains and hills south of Carleon. The Far Country, the setting for Red Country, is located to the west of Midderland. Dagoska and the Gurkhal Empire are to the south.

For this map I added the city of Valbeck, a vital location in A Little Hatred. The city lies inland, north of the lands of Isher and somewhat north of Adua, although there's not a huge amount in it.

Also at the time of A Little Hatred, Styria has become a unified nation-state with its capital at Talins (to the disquiet of the Union), the Old Empire has been (somewhat) reunified and the Gurkish Empire has fallen to internal dissent and civil conflict, although for the purposes of clarity on the map it can still be said to exist. Dagoska is now more of an independent city-state, although it remains reliant on the Union for its economic status (as seen in the short story The Thread), so I have marked it as remaining part of the Union.

A map of the Circle of the World. Please click for a larger version.

The timeline of stories and books is as follows, with novels in bold and short stories in italics. These short stories can all be found in the new First Law collection Sharp Ends, which was published this week.

565 (summer): Made a Monster
566 (spring): A Beautiful Bastard
573 (autumn): Small Kindnesses
574 (autumn): The Fool Jobs
575 (summer): Skipping Town 
575 (spring-autumn): The Blade Itself
575-576 (autumn-spring): Before They Are Hanged
576 (spring): Hell
576 (summer): Two's Company
576-577 (summer to winter): Last Argument of Kings
579-80: Best Served Cold
580: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
584 (summer): Some Desperado 
584 (autumn): Yesterday, Near a Village Called Barden 
584: The Heroes
587 (autumn): Three's a Crowd
590 (summer): Freedom!
590: Red Country
592 (spring): Tough Times All Over
605: The Thread
605: A Little Hatred

Previous lists and Sharp Ends list "Made a Monster" as taking place in 570. This was an error, as noted by Joe Abercrombie, and the book has to take place around 565 to better fit the narrative references in the books themselves. A precise date for "The Thread" (the short story that accompanies some editions of A Little Hatred) is not given, but it appears to be relatively shortly before the events of the novel.

Note: this is an updated version of a post previously posted here.

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Timeline and Map of Joe Abercrombie's FIRST LAW world

Joe Abercrombie and his publishers have unveiled the complete world map (well, the explored bit, anyway) for his First Law novels, and a timeline of when the works take place.

The map shows all the lands that lie within the Circle of the World. Midderland, the island in the centre, is the heart of the Union and the location of Adua, the capital city. Styria, the setting for Best Served Cold, is the island or subcontinent to the east. The North lies to the, er, north with the Orsrung Valley (the setting for The Heroes) located in the mountains and hills south of Carleon. The Far Country, the setting for Red Country, is located to the west of Midderland. Dagoska and the Gurkhal Empire are to the south.

The timeline of stories and books is as follows, with novels in bold and short stories in italics. These short stories can all be found in the new First Law collection Sharp Ends, which was published this week.

566 (spring): A Beautiful Bastard
570 (summer): Made a Monster
573 (autumn): Small Kindnesses
574 (autumn): The Fool Jobs
575 (summer): Skipping Town 
575 (spring-autumn): The Blade Itself
575-576 (autumn-spring): Before They Are Hanged
576 (spring): Hell
576 (summer): Two's Company
576-577 (summer to winter): Last Argument of Kings
579-80: Best Served Cold
580: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
584 (summer): Some Desperado 
584 (autumn): Yesterday, Near a Village Called Barden 
584: The Heroes
587 (autumn): Three's a Crowd
590 (summer): Freedom!
590: Red Country
592 (spring): Tough Times All Over
605: New Trilogy Book 1 (due in 2017 or 2018)

The new trilogy, which Joe is writing now, will begin 28 years after the events of Last Argument of Kings (although this may change).

A glimpse of a FIRST LAW world map

The First Law comic adaptation has given us a glimpse of a world map for Joe Abercrombie's fantasy world. On his blog, Abercrombie has confirmed that the map is mostly accurate and canonical. On the following image the map is shown with the existing maps of the Old Empire to the left and Styria to the right, whilst at the bottom is an attempt to combine them into one image.

Obviously, the comic strip image is small, somewhat compressed and not entirely to scale with the published maps, though it is possible to get a good sense of what's going on and what is where. I will try to use this information to construct a clearer map at a later date.

The island in the middle is clearly Midderland, the island-continent on which the heart of the Union and Adua are situated, whilst to the north lie the Northlands, with Angland likely being the peninsular immediately to the north-west of Midderland. Kanta is one of the two landmasses to the south; likely the one to the south-west, with Dagoska located on the narrow peninsular reaching up towards Midderland (it's also possible that both landmasses to the south are Kanta, with the sea between them being a very large bay rather than a separating ocean).

Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

Gold has been discovered in the hills and mountains of the Far Country, that untamed frontier beyond the Old Empire and far to the west of the Union. Prospectors, mercenaries and those eager to find a new life flock to those lands, only to find the greed and violence of their pasts following them, even those of honourable intentions. Shy South and her adopted father are searching for missing kinfolk, kidnapped for purposes unknown. Their pursuit across the Far Country leads them into an alliance with a fellowship of the plains, a caravan hoping for a better life in the distant mining town of Crease. But, with rebels gathering in the mountains and Nicomo Cosca and his Company of the Gracious Hand also on a sworn mission to root them out for His Majesty's Inquisition, this is a journey where nothing will turn out as hoped.

Red Country is Joe Abercrombie's sixth novel and his third semi-stand-alone set in the same world as The First Law sequence. As with its two immediate predecessors, Best Served Cold and The Heroes, Red Country can be read by itself, but regular readers will pick up on a lot of nods and winks to previous novels, from cameo character appearances to the ongoing development of a 'cold war' between two opposing factions.

The book moves between several major POV characters. Shy is our main protagonist, but shares a lot of the page-time with Temple, a lawyer in Cosca's army whose moral centre is gradually crumbling in the face of so much pain and violence. Other characters also flitter in and out of the story, with Abercrombie re-using the 'POV handover' trick from The Heroes to great effect several times, where the perspective shifts between several characters in succession to help clearly tell the story of a battle or confrontation. As usual with Abercrombie, the characters' personalities and motivations are convincingly laid out and developed, and there are some nice pay-offs for returning characters (Cosca, in particular, gets some fairly thorough character development here). One slight flaw is that the storyline following one of the kidnapped children never seems to really develop, and feels like it either needed several more chapters dedicated to it or the whole thing dropped and the reader (like Shy) made to discern for themselves what happened off-page.

The novel has been billed as 'Joe Abercrombie's Western' and there is certainly a degree of that in the book's influences. Brief nods to The Searchers, Unforgiven and the mighty Deadwood can be discerned, though unexpectedly the most constant cultural reference is the original Star Wars movie: one brief line of dialogue by Obi-Wan Kenobi inspires an entire subplot in the novel. However, there are significant deviations from the Western motif. The West in this case is the long-abandoned northern provinces of the Old Empire, festooned with ruins from ancient times, rather than a totally virgin and untamed land (apart from the natives, of course). The area is also (relatively) close to the Old Empire, the Union and the North, making it much more of a cultural melting-pot and having it effect (and be effected by) events in more established lands than you might expect. Finally, there's no six-shooters, with everyone falling back on the old stand-bys of swords and bows. More or less.

The tone of the book is bloody and cynical, with Abercrombie's trademark line in black humour preventing things from getting too depressing. However, the cynicism feels a little harder-edged and a bit blacker than in his previous books, the humour perhaps a tad less prevalent. It's still a page-turning, well-written book with points to make about human nature, but at times the tone feels wearier than his previous books. However, this also ties in with a feeling of tragedy underpinning the book, one that results in a grimly satisfying pay-off at the end (and one element of the novel that is completely lifted - if appropriately - from a Western).

Red Country (****½) is Joe Abercrombie doing what he does best, writing a story of violence, mayhem and vengeance and the effect it has on all-too-human characters. As with his previous stand-alones, the book works as both a satisfying novel in its own right and also moves a lot of political and religious pieces into position to be (presumably) used to good effect in his next work, a full-on trilogy. Some may find the cynicism a tad overwhelming at times and at least one of the subplots doesn't quite work as well as it could have, but this is a strong effort from one of the better writers in the genre. The novel will be available on 18 October in the UK and 13 November in the USA.

Cover art for Joe Abercrombie's RED COUNTRY

The UK cover art for Joe Abercrombie's Red Country has been unveiled:

And the full cover:

The US cover art, which has been previously unveiled:

The jacket blurb:

"They burned her home. They stole her brother and sister. But vengeance is following.

Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she’ll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she’s not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old stepfather Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb’s buried a bloody past of his own, and out in the lawless Far Country, the past never stays buried.

Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust…"

The book will be published on 18 October 2012 in the UK and 23 October in the USA.

New cover art: Abercrombie, Sanderson, Banks, Sapkowski

A host of cover art for forthcoming books.

First up is The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson. This 30,000-word novella is a limited edition from Tachyon Press and sees a young woman use her forbidden magical skills to save the life of a dying emperor. The book appears to be set in Sanderson's unified Cosmere super-setting, but not on one of his established worlds. The book is due in December.

Next up is the American cover art for The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks, his ninth novel in The Culture setting. This book is due in October.

The American audience is also getting new covers for the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski. The Last Wish and Blood of Elves are being rejacketed and should be available soon, and will later in 2012 be by The Time of Contempt, which is finally hitting the stands after years of delays due to rights issues.

Finally, there's the American cover art for Joe Abercrombie's Red Country (dropping the 'A', at least on this early version of the cover). Aidan has more info on the cover art here. The book is currently being revised and edited and will be out in late 2012 or early 2013.

Next Joe Abercrombie book gets a title

Joe Abercrombie has revealed that the title for his next novel will be A Red Country. Or possibly just Red Country. This is the Western-meets-(edgy-yet-humourous)-Fantasy he's been talking about for a while, with the writing going well and a mid-to-late 2012 release date likely.


I'm going to hazard a guess his next book will involve blood, swearing, hard men and women living by their swords and absolutely no hard info on if Logen is alive or not.