What to Read After The First Law Trilogy
Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy redefined grimdark fantasy — morally grey characters with no guaranteed redemption arcs, violence that carries real weight, and a world that refuses easy answers. The most direct next step is Abercrombie himself: three standalones and a full sequel trilogy set in the same Circle of the World. After that, these authors come closest.
- 1
Best Served Cold
by Joe Abercrombie
A mercenary general betrayed and left for dead assembles a crew of killers to work through a list of seven names — set in the same Circle of the World as the First Law trilogy. The most direct next step: same world, same moral register, same refusal to let anyone off the hook.
- 2
The Heroes
by Joe Abercrombie
Three days of a single brutal battle told from multiple perspectives across both sides of the conflict — another standalone set in the Circle of the World. Abercrombie at his most focused: a forensic examination of what war actually costs the people who fight it.
- 3
A Little Hatred
by Joe Abercrombie
The Age of Madness trilogy begins thirty years after the original First Law trilogy — the same world now in the grip of an industrial revolution, with familiar family names reappearing. This is the full sequel series and the next major chapter in the Circle of the World.
- 4
Prince of Thorns
by Mark Lawrence
A thirteen-year-old prince leads a band of hardened criminals across a shattered post-apocalyptic world on a path of calculated revenge. Lawrence writes the darkest end of the morally grey spectrum — Jorg of Ancrath is a protagonist you cannot stop reading even when you want to.
- 5
The Poppy War
by R.F. Kuang
A peasant girl's exceptional exam scores win her a place at the empire's elite military academy — and drag her into a war with no good choices and no clean hands. Kuang writes grimdark inspired by 20th-century Chinese history with the same refusal to flinch as Abercrombie.
- 6
Red Rising
by Pierce Brown
A miner from the lowest caste infiltrates the ruling elite with plans to spark a solar-system-wide revolution. Brown shares Abercrombie's interest in how power actually works — heroism is useful until it isn't, and every alliance costs something.
- 7
The Lies of Locke Lamora
by Scott Lynch
A found family of criminals in a fantasy city run elaborate cons against the nobility — until a new threat forces them into something far more dangerous. Lynch shares Abercrombie's wit and his investment in morally grey protagonists who are genuinely good at what they do.
- 8
The Way of Shadows
by Brent Weeks
A street rat in a city controlled by guilds and assassins apprentices himself to the most feared killer in the world and learns that skill has a price. Weeks writes the criminal underworld with the same grit and moral weight that defines Abercrombie's Circle of the World.
- 9
The Name of the Wind
by Patrick Rothfuss
Kvothe — legendary, hunted, hiding as an innkeeper — begins to tell his story to a chronicler and the story turns out to be far darker than the legend. A change of tone from Abercrombie, but the same investment in a protagonist whose reputation and reality diverge sharply.