Anti-heroes are all the rage.
Our popular culture has been saturated with them with for the better part of a decade, so when I began Joe Abercrombie’s “The Devils,” I had low hopes for a new take on the genre. But I was pleasantly surprised.
The book follows a group of fantastical characters as they work together to install a would-be empress on her throne. The titular devils — a vampire, werewolf, pirate rogue, witch-cursed knight, necromancer and disappearing elf — are all in the care of the church. Some of these ne’er-do-wells find themselves imprisoned, while others serve in a more indentured servant type of relationship. One thing is true across the board, though, each member of the troupe has a varied, intriguing and typically tragic backstory that will captivate the reader.
As important as the protagonists is the world they travel through, which I am happy to say plays out in our history, but with certain pivotal events reversed. This means no five syllable locales to remember.
The history changes are a nice touch. For instance, Hector beats Achilles, the Trojan horse doesn’t work, and the cross is replaced by a circle: just some of the ways Abercrombie’s world differs from ours. The result is a skewed mirror image of our own history that readers get to travel through in a story that can best summarized as Dungeons and Dragons mixed with the Suicide Squad, and the occasional introspective prose.
The book paces well. A portion in the latter third of the novel where the pack finds themselves separated from each other drug on a bit for me, but all-in-all the 540-page length is perfect to tell this tale.
“The Devils” is relatable, endlessly quotable and the most fun I’ve had with a book for some time. It’s intrinsically cinematic, with incredible humor, imagery and heart, and the perfect book for those looking for something different, or a fantasy reader bored of same old whimsy.