RANKING the FIRST LAW 

Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie, say he's a genius!

I think The Heroes has more appeal for someone who enjoys military tactics. I love how each new day had a different map, showing where ground had been taken/lost by each side. Abercrombie writes very visceral battle scenes that make you feel part of the action. And it had Whirrun of Bligh. That mad lad was a joy to read about.

The last argument of Kings taught me that I could really LOVE the ending to a well crafted story. The Heroes taught me I don't give a shit about story if the characters are this amazing.

Can also confirm that Best Served Cold is indeed “tight as fuck.”

Best Served Cold is my favourite book of all time. My ranking of the series is almost identical to yours except I think I would put A Little Hatred at the number 3 spot just below Last Argument of Kings. LAOK is epic as fuck, the conclusion of all the storylines, the battles, the twists, the amazing character moments, for me all of that beats the first book in a new trilogy that is essentially setting everything up for the new story. And as good as ALH is, with books 2 and 3 it definitely has the potential to surpass the original trilogy. But Best Served Cold is a fucking masterpiece in my eyes. Everything about it is perfect, every single page of it. Also, Morveer is the most underrated character in the series. Fucking loved reading from Morveer's POV, he's so hilarious.

Steven Pacey's narration is fantastic as he says at in the interview with Joe, it an actors dream to play every role and he does soooo well, this world needs the big screen

Well I was going to read something new, but I guess I’m rereading First Law again 🤗

I'm reading The Blade Itself right now alongside the Sun Eater series. Man I love Glokta, he absolutely steals the page anytime he is on it. So many quotables

Abercrombie is amazing, his character development is unparalleled. Love Best served cold and Hero’s the best.

Friendly, shivers, and the blood nine are too cool. Friendly made me laugh so many times in best served cold

“I shit on their thoughts!” Is a great insult.

Heroes is one of my faves 😂. It was the first fantasy book I ever read though so it has a special place

Just started reading The Blade Itself. This is my first time reading Abercrombie. I'm glad to hear that it only gets better from here :)

The Heroes is the best standalone in the series!!

All are great and this is my fave series ever easily. But my ranking is as follows: 1. Last Argument of Kings 2. The Heroes 3. The Wisdom of Crowds 4. Before They Are Hanged 5. The Trouble With Peace 6. A Little Hatred 7. The Blade Itself 8. Best Served Cold 9. Red Country 10. Sharp Ends The sharp ends short story set is my least by a good margin. But still quite great at points. The other 9 - literally 1-9 - are in my like top 25 fave books ever. Maybe a little obsessed. The Heroes is as you can see an all time near-perfect book. The trilogy closers are also each stunning.

I love your energy talking about Joe Abercrombie books! As a guy in the Army, I like Heroes. Red Country did feel a little... tired. But I wasn't sure if it was the characters' emotions leaking through, the author, or my own feelings as it was the sixth JA book in a row for me. Best Served Cold was amazing. The whole feel of it was wonderful. The trilogy was actually my first jump into the fantasy world of books. I was accustomed to Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton... I was hooked after the first book. And Steven Pacey does a fantastic job of bringing the books to life on Audible. By far my favorite narrator. I still need to read (listen to) Sharp Ends. And I am holding off on the newer trilogy until the three are out. I don't do well with waiting. Thanks for the great video!

The Heroes is the best of the stand-alones. Incredible

Hero’s easily my favorite.

Here's my ranking from best to worst 1. Best served cold 2. A little hatred 3. The trouble with peace 4. Red country 5. Before they are hanged 6. The blade itself 7. The last argument of Kings 8. The heroes

I love the covers and titles, but that's all I can say since I haven't read them yet. And speaking of Grim Dark, have you read the Poppy War yet?

You know i get how you might not like the Heroes for its lack of large expansive plot, but i kind of feel thats what makes this book great. The Heroes had 1 thing it wanted to do and that was look at the complexities of war and in my opinion i thought it did it amazingly. Definately a top 3 first law book

Just wondering about Half A King and why it was left off this list?

Yes, a Whirrun of Bligh mention! XD

I love how enthusiastic you are about these books! Apart from Red Country, every one of them is 5-stars for me, but Best Served Cold would edge it as number 1. I think A Little Hatred is amazing and I love the humour, but as it's only a third of the big story, I can't put it top ... yet. But it has sent my hopes for the trilogy through the roof. I was surprised you put The Heroes so low; I love it!

Please tell us how you got all matching covers? Links please! Thank you!

It's comforting when the "least liked" book is still pretty good. As someone who reads randomly and put off reading Abercrombie because there were authors who'd been on the TBR longer, I was only depriving myself. Abercrombie's one who should jump the queue.

Would you consider Best Served Cold to be a good start for an Abercrombie newbie?

Check out the audio version on amazon the voice actor is the best in the business it will.blow your mind. Each character from glokta to Bayaz to Shivers has an incredible.voice

Lol, you’re going to get shit for Heroes being your least fav. It’s probably the most popular pick I see for people’s favorite. I don’t care myself, to each their own. My list would have to be (and keep in mind this is clearly fav to least fav. There is no bad book in the series): 1) Best Served Cold #TeamShenkt 2) Last Argument of Kings 3) Before They are Hanged 4) Red Country 5) A Little Hatred 6) The Heroes 7) The Blade Itself My big sticking point was 4-6 btw. I was really torn in that chunk. And my favorite Sharp Ends piece is “Hell”. But you’re right, the audio for the your pick was very funny. Ps: A Little Hatred might have my favorite chapter in the series. Or better yet the chapter that impressed me the most writing style wise.

It’s kind of funny because when I read the first law I figured I wouldn’t like Glokta as much if I didn’t get to read his thoughts, fast forward to the heros and I’m reading gorsts thoughts. I feel like being able to read his thoughts made me like him less, he’s kind of an asshole 😂

I'm more of a Ken Follett Dan Brown historical fiction guy but I've been trying fantasy now. It started super YA with Eragon and now I'm 80% through book 1 of First Law. It's really good. I love his writing style. Especially his witty conversation between characters. I've lol'd several times. But you hit it right on the head with the lack of plot comments. Nonetheless a hard book to put down.

Do you have an update to this??

I really did enjoy this video a lot because I've been wanting to read those books so this is definitely helped with that and I have also met Pierce Brown during a book signing for the Dark Ages he seems like a really nice guy he talked to us for about 40 minutes after the book signing it was me and three of my friends we drove 13 hours after working a 12-hour shift to see him just to stand in store for 8 hours

Wait, there's how many of these? Damn it, I just got around to reading 'Blade Itself.' (By the way, I really dug it, but you are absolutely right. It's a fits & starts book if I ever saw one.) Now I'm itching for 'Red Country.' About time somebody put swords in a Cormac McCarthy book. I grabbed 'The Wolf' when it was a Kindle deal a couple days ago. Hope it's worth that $1.99 I spent.

Just curious, how quickly do you read, like your overall speed. You seem to read a lot...

I'm only a few chapters into 'A Little Hatred' so of the 7 books so far I think I'd boringly just put them in release order for my list. Sucks to be boring but what can you do? Feels odd to try and separate them out. As if they are all just one giant book. Only odd one out is the short story collection but that is a problem with short stories, they feel fragmentally and kind of stop/start by nature. I feel like all 6 novels have a part in the whole story, and I appreciate the different styles and structures the standalones have in telling their stories. I feel no qualms putting them in release order so The Blade Itself being No. 1 - we get Glokta in all his glory and pain and it's glorious. Maybe if I ran a youtube channel I might try harder to separate them out :D

The Heroes is not the best standalone, but (as of finishing ALH) it’s the most important going forward.

When I was reading Jezel's shaving scene I was like "What the actual fuck?" Then Last Argument happened and it made sense

Take it back! The Heroes is amazing! 😤 Regardless of Logan Nine Fingers, I too rank Red Country last (even though like you said, they’re all still amazing). Followed by The Blade Itself. Ever thought of doing a more in-depth book review for Sharp Ends? Realize it’s an old video but just watched it, sorry. I really enjoyed The Heroes because it takes place in the north and they’re probably my favorite culture in this world. It also puts into prospective the romanticized notion of war and becoming a “hero.” Re-read The Heroes and take back what you said! 😤😜

It funny how people like the same stuff but for diffrent reasons, I think my favorits are Red Country and Sharp Ends. Besides Glokta and Logen, Shevedieh and Javre are my favorites and they made me laugh so much over the course of their adventure. My worst is just scenes with fake Gandalf (forgot his name), great characters, I just hate him :P

Tombstone is my favorite Western too (but also check out The Long Riders). Is there anything better than Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday? My favorite Ambercrombie so far is Best Served Cold. I haven't read the new one yet. Other Grimdark favorites include Deadhouse Gates from The Malazan Book of The Fallen series and The Warrior-Prophet from The Prince of Nothing trilogy. I did read the other day that someone thought Rob J. Hayes did grimdark better than Ambercrombie, but can't confirm. I have a few of his works but haven't got into them yet.

Did you watch Clint Eastwood's The Unforgiven? Red Country was heavily influenced by that film, straight down to a corrupt hero who hires a geeky scribe to chronicle and am embellish his exploits. You said you are not a huge fan of westerns but I would recommend giving Unforgiven a try, if it's only to give you another perspective of Red Country.

Ending The Last Argument of Kings sucked. I've started Best Served Cold, he better do some splaining. I couldn't get through The Blade Itself the first time I tried. I'd say Abercombie is a 4 star author, there's worse but there's better.

I see that you are suffering from Joe Abercrombie withdrawals too lol. Even after I've read and listened to this this entire thing 3 or 4 times already I found myself looking at RU-vid for other people's takes on First Law stuff lol. You provided my latest fix again lol. PS I predicted your list and was correct with all but sharp ends. I thought it was too small to count in the overall ranking. Lol

Oooh I’ve been waiting for you to do this list ever since my journey began thru Abercrombie’s crazy-as-fuck world! Due to everything that’s been going on, I’ve had very little time for reading, and so I’ve still yet to begin ‘The Heroes’ ....although, I do intend to pick-up where I left off over this coming week. I’m still so grateful that you got me into this series, & once I finally finish ‘A Little Hatred’, I’ll be sure to let you know how my list compares to yours. Best Served Cold is still my fave up to now -though all that could change! Btw - probably the best Western I’ve seen is Unforgiven (directed & starring Clint Eastwood) It was his last bow in the Western genre & it went on to win 4 oscars. It was made in 1992 & stars Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman & Richard Harris. It kinda fits with Abercrombie in that it’s about old men who’ve walked away from gunslinging, but who have reputations which they can neither escape from nor live up to.....very dark, gritty, & deeply moving stuff!

I really like The Heroes. Red Country is my least favourite. My favourite is Last Argument of Kings. Still didn't read A Little Hatred though... Your story about Pierce Brown makes me want to read his books so good job haha I've been avoiding Red Rising for years, just cause it's sci fi

Oh wow. There are two Abercrombie books more highly praised than the first law?!?!

Can I skip Red Country, The Heroes and Sharp Ends?

I haven`t read anything by him :D I`m sure i will some day, ut for now im tryin my best o read the books i already own. I`m intrested in them. I know that something by him has been translated to Latvian..

do i see some nivernight shade there? 😅

Oh wow, you're ranking your books harshly Only third one is 5/5?

Agree with A Little Hatred. Blew me the f away. He has always been the king of character development but he nailed telling mini story arcs for each which serve as fillers for an overarching plot. I think that's why folks who are not used to his writing style would dig this regardless of their exposure to his other books. But I would cringe if someone started here as they would've missed SOOOOO much.

My least favorite is red country , the Heroes is easy in top three 4 me just because of amazing Gorst...oh well.

The heros the worst? 😔

Heroes was my first Abercrombie and it ruined all other non Abercrombie books for me.

So let me get this straight... The First Law is your favourite book series, you didn't like Dune and you can't stand Sanderson's writing, on top of being beautiful and around my same age? Are you single? We should go out some time. Jk. Kind of. lol

His world building seems lazy. Angland. Like come on. Couldn't think of another name SMH

But the Heroes IS THE BEST ONE!