The Age of Madness - A Little Hatred and The Trouble with Peace, with The Great Change (and other lies)

A Little Hatred

Dust jacket and interior illustrations by John Anthony Di Giovanni.

Welcome, readers, as the world of the First Law careers like an out of control mine cart into a dangerous new age. An age of money and machines, of pollution and corruption, of huge inequality and vast opportunity. An age…of madness.

A Little Hatred brings together everything you loved about the First Law—an irreverent attitude to the staples of fantasy, crunching action, merciless twists, a tight focus on vivid characters and a rich vein of dark humour—but seen through the lens of an industrial revolution. 

Many faces familiar from previous books lurk in the background, still pulling strings, hatching schemes and slitting throats thirty years on, but A Little Hatred and its sequels focusses on a new generation of characters as they struggle to win renown, settle scores, claw their way to the summit of the slag-heap of society, or simply survive.

Savine dan Glokta—daughter of the most feared man in the Union—has spun a web of favours, partnerships and blackmail and made herself one of the richest and most envied entrepreneurs in Adua. Her secret lover, Crown Prince Orso, crippled by expectation and the frustrations of a corrupt politics, struggles manfully to get out of bed. Leo dan Brock, the impetuous hero that men call the Young Lion, will finally get the opportunity he craves to win glory on the battlefield. Rikke thought herself cursed with fits, but as war comes to the North again she finds she might be blessed with the Long Eye—a vestige of magic in a world ever more dominated by the machine.

The fates of all four will become hopelessly entangled as fortunes rise, empires fall, and revolution threatens to turn the world upside down…

With A Little Hatred, Subterranean is creating a new flagship limited edition series, and have kicked the production up well beyond the expected.

This novel is one for the ages, and they want their efforts to reflect that.

The Trouble with Peace

Welcome, readers, as the world of the First Law blunders like a blind bull in a china shop into an ever-more dangerous age. An age of towering profits and crushing losses, of grand schemes and petty jealousies, of high conspiracy and low skullduggery. An age…of madness.

The Trouble With Peace ups the stakes for the rogue’s gallery of misfits and miscreants we fell in love (or hate) with in A Little Hatred, as alliances shift, rivalries blossom, and the stench of coming rebellion hangs heavy on the smoke-filled air of the Union.

Savine dan Glokta—whose golden touch in business was once the envy of the salons of Adua—finds herself tortured by regrets, paralysed by doubts and facing social armageddon. Only with the boldest of gambles can she hope to change her luck. Leo dan Brock, meanwhile, finds himself imprisoned by old wounds and new responsibilities, and burns to have his sword back in his hand. Orso must negotiate the maze of knives that is politics, a task for which a misspent youth of debauchery has left him ill-prepared, with fewer friends and more enemies by the day. And for Rikke, everything is about to change, as the North teeters on the edge of bloodshed once again, and she must master the power of the Long Eye…before it kills her.

The fates of all four become more hopelessly tangled than ever as the old certainties crumble, friends become enemies, and revolution threatens to turn the world upside down…again.

Features include:

• Printed in two colors throughout, on 80# Finch, the paper they use for higher end limited editions
• Oversized, 7x10 trim size
• Full-color wraparound dust jacket
• Two full-color interior plates
• Nine full-page interior black-and-white illustrations
• Signed by Joe Abercrombie on a full-color signature page

Limited: 500 signed numbered hardcover copies

The Great Change (and other lies)

Dust jacket and interior illustrations by John Anthony di Giovanni.

About the Book:

The Great Change (and Other Lies) will be printed in two colors throughout, with a full-colour dust jacket and a duotone illustration for each story by John Anthony Di Giovanni.

The Great Change (and Other Lies) is a novella-length collection that gathers four short stories related to Joe Abercrombie’s The Age of Madness, featuring old friends and new: from smugglers to kings, from diamond-cutters to dress-makers, from the most apparently insignificant of slaves to the most feared man in the Union, Old Sticks himself.

We follow the thread from the cotton-fields of Gurkhul to the heights of Aduan society, we follow a stone from the rivers of Kadir to the crown of the Union, we follow the iron from the prison-mines of Angland to a knife in the back of the old regime. And we follow the slow gestation of the Great Change itself, a revolution which will turn the whole world upside down…

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• The Thread
• The Stone
• The Point
• The Great Change

Limited: 1500 signed numbered hardcover copies

Lettered: 26 signed, bradel bound copies, housed in a custom traycase