Synopsis
Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.
Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters, and the mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.
Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it’s a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.
Review
“You spend years illuminating manuscripts,” said Baptiste, working off one boot, “and singing hymns, and tending the monastery gardens, but all anyone wants to talk about is the one time you fucked a werewolf.”
The absolute easiest way to torture me is to lock me in a room and say “Choose which of the character’s in Abercrombie’s devils is your most favorite and you’re free to leave.” I will go certifiably insane. I can literally visualize the people reading this and going – Oh Joe Abercrombie’s characters are great, what else is new? I can predict all variations from the oldie but goodies of grass is green, sky appears blue to the benign stuff like is the pope catholic, does a bear shit in the woods, to newer refreshing stuff like is a frog’s arse water tight, does a one legged duck swim in a circle to the ones that are unrepeatable here that the bawdy minded ones of you are thinking of. But what am I to do? Joe Abercrombie is phenomenal at character work and profoundly without parallels. The reality of grimdark fantasy has rearranged itself when Lord Grimdark started writing in the genre.
I speak so highly of his character work because in the hundreds of (I googled to check, anything more than 200 can be classified as hundreds of 😁) books I have read, I have not seen a writer with as much strength in introducing a character after a 100 pages and within two and odd pages makes me love that character more than all the others who I have traveled with through the 100 pages before. To be clear, there are definitely other writers who do this exceptionally well, but the might with which Joe does this is singular. A vampire, a werewolf, a cynical necromancer, and an invisible elf is not the beginning of a bad joke… but characters in the book that I cannot choose my most preferred of. There are 8 different main characters and each of them are unique, memorable, and hilarious. Any writer can be proud of crafting just one of these characters but to have 8 of them is just Joe Abercrombie showing off. In my ‘The Blade Itself’ review I said I hadn’t enjoyed a character’s inner monologue and voice as much as Glokta since Murderbot; now I say I haven’t enjoyed a character’s inner monologue and voice as much as Balthazar Sham Ivam Draxi.
“Wasn’t much more she could do. Nothing needed stealing, and no one needed lying to, and it was hard to see how loing at cards would help, so that was her whole skillset exhausted.”
It is obvious that Joe has had enormous fun writing this book and it translated into me guffawing and scaring my roommates through the night (because I was reading the arc every night after work.) I seriously think I haven’t laughed this much with any other book in the last couple of years. It is very different from First Law humor but it works just as well even better. The Blade Itself was nothing short of excellence for me and that was a debut book. This is Abercrombie at the peak of his powers and it reflects in the writing. Every other page, I was being reminded of how good the characters, the dialogue, and writing is. I have statistical proof. I actually did the math and counted my highlights – I had 51 of them in the first 100 pages. For more than fifteen years, we’ve seen First Law, and Glokta dominate the answers every time a question about a book or character is asked in r/fantasy. From May 2025, I think we should be prepared to see the Devils, and one of the Devils characters be added to the answers.
“The Dogeressa’s been excommunicated! Twice”
“Some very fine people have been excommunicated,” said Balthazar.
“It’s very well known she poisoned her husband!”
“Some very fine people have poisoned their husbands,”murmured Baptiste.
Coming to the plot, this has everything from catching lightning in a jar to necromancy to crab men to lesbian yearning. Slimy, grimy, and humorous, this is the story of a bunch of people escorting a thief for a quest across a very treacherous land. Yes, this is grimdark Hobbit. A dragon with treasures in his basement is Tolkien. A pope with a bunch of monsters in the basement is Abercrombie. We go through the same adventure of friendship, self-discovery, and character growth albeit with a grimdark twist and naval battles. I cannot talk about it without spoilers but the whole extended climax and the reveals are glorious. There are some twists pulled off in a way that can only be called masterful and only be done by Abercrombie.
All in all, I loved this book and cannot wait for the next installment. There were a few hurdles but I was just having too much fun to offer them more than a passing glance. The Devils has easily become not just one of my top reads of 2025, but of all time. It is that good and everyone should pick up a copy for their shelves, a special edition because you will love it, and the audiobook because you know, Steven Pacey.
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