I'm a big fan of the First Law series and I loved how Joe Abercrombie was able to convince me to root for characters that were often pretty evil and selfish. However, the series quickly taught me that there can't possibly be a good outcome for any of those characters, because that's not how Joe Abercrombie rolls. Yet I continued to hope from book to book, all to no avail. So when I heard he was starting a new series, I was eager to jump into his new grimdark world and hopelessly root for a brand new set of characters in a totally new fantasy setting. However, in The Devils, Joe made some odd choices that impacted my ability to get into this new fantasy world, and I quickly worried that I was going to be the one with the bad outcome this time around.

For starters, the story is set in some kind of alternate reality Europe, where elves exist and the Pope is a 10 year old girl. The familiar city/country names and the odd take on the catholic church just instantly put me off. He could have told the same story in a made up world and I would have been much more willing to embrace it all. Then the main characters were introduced and I wasn't really a fan of any of them. The titular devils are an eclectic bunch of misfits forced into servitude on behalf of the church: an ancient vampire, an elf that can turn invisible, a necromancer, a lusty Swedish female werewolf, and a knight who was cursed by a witch and can never die. This group is tasked under the oversight of a newly assigned monk, Brother Diaz, to accompany the newly discovered heir to the throne, Alex, to the city of Troy so she can be crowned Empress. Unfortunately, even when I was two-thirds of the way through the book, I still didn't care for any of the characters except for the lusty werewolf Vigga.

Then events in the story then reached a point where it was time the main group of characters to disperse, and that's when I started to care about them. The final third of book was quite enjoyable and managed to salvage the experience for me enough to where I am now interested in continuing the series. I am still not a fan of the decision to tell this story in some alternate reality version of Europe, but I am optimistic that I will eventually get over it enough to enjoy the rest of the series. So if you are a fan of the First Law series and in the mood for some more grimdark Abercrombie story telling, then I can tentatively recommend The Devils.

Simon Vance is the narrator of the audiobook version and of course he is great as always.