 She gives Joe Abercrombie a run for his money, but he had recently been binge-watching Stranger Things. Tyrion and Janey Lannister mixed together. It's just not my cup of tea. I have found yet another way to talk about Joe Abercrombie. Today I have a list of seven read-alikes for you. Read-alikes specifically for First Law. These read-alikes are not necessarily, in fact, pretty much none of them are read-alikes that are like a one-to-one. If you like First Law, then you will like this book. What they are, and what I think is much more useful in general in terms of read-alikes, because if anything is that much of a one-to-one, then it's plagiarizing. But what I do think is possible to find is read-alikes for a particular writing style, a particular vibe or setting, a particular character dynamic, a particular sense of humor, things like that. So I have seven read-alikes for you that are to a greater or lesser degree reminiscent of something in First Law. So without further ado, let's chat about them. The first one I have for you, I actually will be chatting about in greater depth and length with Jimmy from the Fantasy Network. And it's kind of been talking to him about this and other things and talking with other people about this and other things that actually gave me the idea for this video and also the idea for the chat with Jimmy. But anyway, all that to say, Ravadha, the realm of the elderlings. This is an ambassador for the entire series, not for just the Farseer trilogy or Just Assassin's Apprentice. I have often said, as I've been making my way through the realm of the elderlings, I've said it to multiple people and they have tended to agree if they are in a position to have an opinion on it, i.e. they have also read First Law, that a lot of things about Hobbes' writing do remind me of Joe Abercrombie. Or at the very least, she gives Joe Abercrombie a run for his money in terms of character work. So I often say that Joe Abercrombie is the goat when it comes to character work, that it's almost unbeatable, and his ability to make every single character in his world feel like a fully fleshed out three-dimensional human being, even if they are only there for a page. Robin Hobb might have him be, or at the very least, they're like, they're on par. Because her character work that I've witnessed in now two of the trilogies in the realm of the elderlings, the Farseer trilogy and the Livestrater trilogy, her character work is right up there with Abercrombie. So that's what you love about Abercrombie is his ability to paint the portrait of humanity over and over and over again, three-dimensional characters that each are unique individual human beings that feel like living, breathing, complicated individuals. If that's what you love, Hobb does it just as well. And in addition to that, the stories she writes and the character she writes are often as grim and as dark and as morally gray and reprehensible as anything that Abercrombie would write. There are certain, there are great many characters in both the Farseer trilogy and in the Livestrater trilogy that would feel entirely at home in the world of the First Law. The difference is larger when people say that all that is is Hobb, grim, dark. I mean, no, a lot of that is to do with the perspective. So Abercrombie would take those characters that are in these books and make them his POVs. Hobb doesn't do that. So the sort of biggest difference, I mean, the thing that makes the Farseer trilogy not the First Law, I mean, other than obviously it's a different story and it's a different world. But the main thing that makes it not that is that we're seeing this world with the eyes of Fitz-Tivoli Farseer who's a fairly sweet, innocent, naive, do-gooder kind of character, even though he himself is also rarely complicated because her character work is good. So he's not a boring, two-dimensional good guy. But he is overall more what you'd consider a good guy. And there are a lot of characters around him that do terrible things. So things that happened to him are as dark and as harrowing as, again, anything you might read in First Law. But the perspective you're reading from is not a cynical, hardened, you know, morally gray one. So for like the character of Regal, for example, in the Farseer trilogy, that would be the POV character that Abercrombie would choose. And that character could easily be in a First Law book. So anyway, if you haven't tried Hobb, just in general, Hobb is amazing. I've been loving reading Hobb. But also, if you like First Law and you haven't tried Hobb, try Hobb. Next up I have a book that is partially on this list because when I talked about it, I had a great deal of difficulty describing it and I still do. But the way that I went about describing it was by including a comparison to Abercrombie. So it pretty much had to be on this list. So by First Law and by Lobby Tadar, when I read it, the only way I could think to describe this very, very strange book was that if Joe Abercrombie decided to take a stab at retelling the Arthur myth, but he had recently been binge-watching Stranger Things and on the heels of that, sat down to write his Arthur tale, you might get by First Law. Which is a weird description and it is also a weird book. So a weird description is apt. So as weird as that sounds, nevertheless, that is what I feel like By First Law is. So what is it actually? By First Law is a very dark, cynical, grim dark version of the legend of Arthur and the birth of a nation that is a legend of Arthur. I myself am not that well-versed in any of the Arthur legends. So what I do know about the Arthur legend and what I am able to recognize in here, I think he's playing with the archetypes and the concepts and the figures from those myths in very interesting ways. And I know that I'm not even getting all of it because I'm not that familiar with the myth. So I'm sure he's playing with even more things that I don't even realize. But so he's telling the Arthur myth in a way that completely deheroicizes it and tells it in a way that, again, is very Abercrombie-esque for that reason. And the grim dark that I do not favor and that I too often find is grim dark that is just reveling in gore and being myelin for violence's sake and is like, isn't this just so metal? And like, that is not my cup of tea. I like First Law and books like First Law because they approach it in a more cynical way where you're like, the world is filled with self-serving individuals. So the idea that the events of your story and the people populating your world would be driven by ambition and greed and other sort of selfish and unpleasant desires and inclinations and needs, that people are kind of gross and gray and that the view of the world presented in First Law and in this version of Arthur is that the idea that you have heroes doing heroic things for the good of the nation and to be good to the goodness will prosper like that that's ridiculous. So it's not a story where you're like, I'm just gonna make this so bloody and metal. It's that the people who would have been creating an Arthur myth, the figures that are in the Arthur myth would have had personal vested interests in the myth being going the way that it did and in being presented the way that it was and that these would not have been just benevolent figures that were just chivalrous and et cetera, et cetera. So complicating the Arthur myth with this sort of cynical take is very Abercrombie-esque in my opinion. It comes across as, again, the way that Abercrombie would approach mythical figures like this. So we know the myth that came out of these events, but what greedy, selfish things would have probably motivated the events that might have become mythicized in the way that they were is sort of what my porcelain is doing. But in addition, he's added an incredibly speculative element and it's not a magical Maryland being a wizard and therefore magic or the Lady of Lake is magical. It is a very strange speculative element in this book. So that's why, I mean, I did compare to stranger things for that reason. So it's a strange book for that reason. The idea of deheroicizing and sort of giving us a cynical grimdark take on King Arthur, I've, you know, yeah. That doesn't make it weird. It's the speculative element that makes it so weird. And then combining a speculative element that is so out there with the already dark and grim take on Arthur. I mean, it's a strange book. But if all of that sounds good to you, then I recommend it. And I also, I did not know about this when I filmed my anticipated releases video. So that book would have been on there if I had known about it when I filmed it. But so it turns out that this is going to be a series now and not a sequential series where we get part two of the Arthur story, nothing like that. But this sort of grimdark, deheroicizing and also speculative approach to British history. Lobby Tadar has done that with Arthur and it's now going to continue to do it with Robin Hood. And that book comes out, I believe in June and I think it's called The Hood. So I, I mean, I really liked Biforce of Land. So I fully intend to read The Hood. And if you now pick up Biforce of Land and find that you like it, well then look out for The Hood as well. Next up, I have another book that I did the same thing where like when I was trying to describe it or trying to explain how I felt about it, the only way I could think to describe it was by comparing it to Abercrombie. Shalak is my name by Howard Jacobson. This is one of the Hogarth Shakespeare retellings. My friend Heather and I have been going through the Hogarths and reading the play and the retelling the play and the retelling and chatting about them on my channel. And we have been largely unimpressed with the project of the Hogarths. And for the most part, pretty well, I say for the most part, but pretty much entirely none of the Hogarth retellings stand on their own. You have to have read the play and been and be pretty familiar with the play to read the retelling because the retelling is more often than not so linked to the play and so much of commentary on the play and so much in conversation with the play that if you don't know the play, you're gonna be like, what? So if the title of this book does not immediately tell you what this is, then you shouldn't read it because that means that you don't know the merchant of Venice at least well enough to recognize this and to therefore understand what this book is going to be about. That said, if you're interested in it, then I do recommend reading slash watching. I mean, I always recommend watching Shakespeare first because it was meant to be performed. I recommend watching an adaptation of merchant of Venice and then maybe reading it as well before reading Shalak's, my name if you're interested in it. But basically, when I read Shalak as my name, I was like, this is, if I was to imagine Joe Abercrombie doing a modern retelling of the merchant of Venice, I feel like this is what it would be. This is the vibe, the tone because the merchant of Venice is quite a tricky and problematic play even for the time that it was written and it's certainly only gotten more complicated I don't know, people have been more troubled by it as we've become hopefully lesbian. So basically, the character of Shalak is famous for a line that is often used in, you know, when we talk about anti-racist type of things, he's famous for having said, if you prick us, do we not bleed? So he's not written entirely unsympathetically but he's not written sympathetically either and he is a Jewish money lender. And it's, you know, the ending of the play, I don't want to spoil it if you haven't read it or seen it. It, it's kind of, when you remember that it's classified as a comedy, it's the end of the play. You're like, I don't know how I should feel about this. I could not call it a happy ending. But in any event, the, that being the case, if you've decided to tackle the merchant of Venice, there's only really two ways you can go about it. You can ignore all of the like troubling content and just like pretend that's not there and just focus on, I guess, very basically the events of the plot or something, which like would be a coward's choice. And I'd be like, well, then don't engage with this play. Don't choose this play. Or you confront how problematic and icky and gray and troubling and dark and all of that, you, you confront it. And this book absolutely takes the approach of confronting it in a very Abercrombie-esque way. So the characters in this book are very morally gray and they, he doesn't shy away from the various sort of like bigotry and privilege and prejudice and racism that is present in the play and that would need to be altered for it to make sense for a modern era because this takes place in a modern era. So to be in conversation with was already present in the play and then also to adapt it, like update it for the modern era. What does that look like now? What does that translate into now? And then to, I don't know, to play with those concepts in a way that, I don't know, troubles your understanding of them. And it does definitely feel like it's in conversation with the merchant of Venice. And in fact, Shylock is a character in this. He gets to sort of comment on his own story, which is a fascinating choice. And there's a thing that is in merchant of Venice that if you know that, I mean, if you've read the play, then you know this is a thing in the story and it is kind of a pivotal thing in the story. And it's one of those like weird Shakespeare logic type things that you suspend disbelief for Shakespeare plays when people, you know, out of like mistaken identity type stuff and like weird plot contrivances that you're like, that what, that doesn't make sense. That wouldn't happen. People, that wouldn't work, but it's a Shakespeare play. So you're like, okay, well, we're going with it. But when you're trying to tell a sort of like realistic modern story with realistic modern people, then you know there's gonna be these beats in the plot that you can't really tell the story and call it the merchant of Venice or call it a retelling of the merchant of Venice without those plot elements. And the whole time you're reading this, you're gonna be like, how are they gonna do that? How is he gonna deal with it? Is he gonna deal with it? Is he just gonna like not deal with it and just like not have that in there? But he does have it in there. And the way he handles it is fascinating and is very creative. Which is again, why I don't recommend reading this if you've never read merchant of Venice because it's a bizarre thing to have to try to tackle. And he does it in as interesting and as believable a way as I can imagine you doing. But if you don't know what it's based on you will be extra WTF about that part of it because you'll be like, why in the world did any of that happen? It happened because it's in the merchant of Venice. And again, the way he handled it I think is quite clever. So all that to say, if the idea of Joe Abercrombie tackling the merchant of Venice, like what that might be like appeals to you then I highly recommend, which I like is my name. Next up I have a book that I don't really super recommend actually, but it cannot be denied that there is a parallel to Joe Abercrombie and that is 16 Ways to Defend a World City by KJ Parker. This author's humor is extremely reminiscent of Joe Abercrombie's humor. Now why this doesn't work for me so well is because this book is entirely composed of witticisms. So Abercrombie characters are often quite witty and have funny dialogue and funny one-liners and can be very clever and there's great banter. But the books have up and downs and there's not every character's like that, not every scene is like that. And when it pops up it's great and it's not all the time. And much like Shakespeare plays, you have comedy in your drama and drama in your comedy and they're both heightened by the juxtaposition. So in this book it's kind of non-stop witticisms and it's very much the style of humor and the style of word play that would be found in an Abercrombie book. It's just constant, which is why it doesn't really work for me. But if you love Abercrombie sense of humor, I think this would really, really work for you. Because 16 Ways to Defend a World City, I mean the main character and it could easily be in an Abercrombie book and it's kind of like if you had Nika Mokowska telling an entire story from his perspective and it's just like constantly just that. Which like I love Nika Mokowska but I like him, you know, in small doses. I like him in a mix of other things. So that's again, why this doesn't really work for me but if you would love many pages, like 300 pages of like non-stop Abercrombie-esque witticism then I highly recommend to you 16 Ways. It's just not my cup of tea. Next up I have a book slash series that I shill for at every possible opportunity and every time I talk about it, people are like, I've never heard of that. I'm like, do you not watch my channel? Because I swear I talk about it all the time. But apparently it still flies under the radar even though I try to hype it all the time. And that is The Ravensmark Trilogy by Ed McDonald. And it begins with Blackwing. This is the first book. I made Bethany read it. I made Alan read it. I put it on many list videos. I constantly push this on people and force them to read it. So read it. But why is it a read like for Abercrombie? This is the nature of the storytelling, the political intrigue, the main character, the tone of it, the cynicism of it, the character relationships are very reminiscent of the kind of thing Abercrombie would write. However, this book is like, if you loved the first law and you love that kind of thing, but you wish Abercrombie had really leaned into more speculative things if he had included more magic users and more horrifying magical encounters, magical creatures, beasts and forces, more of that, then this is the one for you. Because this, unlike Abercrombie, unlike the first law, it's filled with as Alan aptly put it, very lovecraftian kind of horror and lovecraftian monsters. So our main character, Ry-Helt-Gel-Hero, you could pluck him out of the Ravensmark and plop him into the first law and he would feel right at home. But in this world, his job is to sort of guide people through this sort of very nuclear fallout zone type of area called the misery. It is not nuclear fallout, it is magic, but that's the vibe of it, that there was this magical sort of cataclysmic event which left this wasteland. This wasteland which is toxic, the very air you breathe. It has deformed the life that once was there. So now there are horrible magical deformed creatures and monsters, but there is a sort of doomsday device that is being used, the threat of which is being used to keep at bay the forces that caused the misery in the first place. So people do need to get through the misery to go to weigh stations to keep up the doomsday device, basically. So people for various reasons do need to get through the misery, but no navigation equipment works there. It's hard to get through, it's dangerous. So Raiholt and other people like him have the job of getting people through, finding their way through it. So that's his day job. It's clear that he was somebody more, somebody different. There's more to his backstory than that, but that's what he's currently up to. And his boss, so his relationship with his boss, a little bit like Glock does relationship with his bosses, except well Glock does his bosses are, you know, human bureaucrats. Raiholt Gell-Harrows boss is a god-like entity, one of the nameless ones called Crowfoot. And Gell-Harrows has a raven tattoo. And when Crowfoot has instructions for him, a real raven bloodily explodes out of his arm to squawk instructions at him with very little explanation. And Gell-Harrows just kinda has to do it, whatever Crowfoot says, even if he's aggravated or bitter about it. And so from there unfolds a deep sort of political conspiracy. Gell-Harrows starts asking all the wrong people, all the right questions and they're not happy about it. And it becomes clear that there's more going on or that people who should be doing things aren't and people who shouldn't be doing things are. And it's a lots of government, again, conspiracy, which is reminiscent again of things that Abercrombie likes to put into first law books. The relationship between the characters is quite sort of complicated and nuanced and grim-dark. Like for example, Gell-Harrows' relationship with sort of his right hand, her name is Nen, is a relationship that I could easily see being in a first law book. And yeah, it's, I love this trilogy and it is very horrifying. So it's not for the faint of heart. There is a part in Raven Cry, the second book, that to this day haunts me. I've read it twice and like just that scene, just thinking about that scene, like gives me chills whenever I remember that scene. So I'm trying, I know that there is a scene and I'm trying not to remember exactly what happens in it right now because I don't wanna freak myself out. So it's, I mean, it's not like a fun read, but I mean any read for a first law is not gonna be a fun read, right? So I cannot recommend highly enough. And also another book that would have been on my anticipated releases, had I known about it when I filmed it, but I didn't, so here we go. The Ravensmark trilogy is all done, that's already out. But Ed McDonnell does have a new book coming out called The Daughter of Red Winter and that comes out also, I think, in June. I'll be buddy reading it with Ellen. I got the arc, further request of Ellen so that we could both read it. So I'm looking forward to that and, but in the meantime, read the Ravensmark. Next I have a book where this read-alike sort of came up in the live show where we were talking about it and that is American Gods by Neil Gaiman. This, the story itself, not a read-alike for first law. But specifically, the relationship between Shadow Moon, the main character, and Mr. Wednesday, his boss, is extremely reminiscent of the relationship between Logan Ninefingers and Baez, almost a one-for-one. And when I mentioned that during the live, Hillary was like, yeah, actually, yes. So confirmed, this is accurate. The story itself, nothing like first law. This is the modern day America, where it's a melting pot of anthropomorphized gods who were brought to America, along with the people who emigrated here. And stuff happening to do with that. So nothing like first law, really. But the type of personality that Shadow is is not dissimilar from Logan, just by himself. And then the relationship with their respective bosses, the Shadow's relationship with Mr. Wednesday, and Logan's relationship with Baez are very similar in the way that they treat each other, the way they talk to each other, the way they regard one another, like the way that Mr. Wednesday treats Shadow, and tells him only as much as he needs to know and uses him for muscle, and clearly thinks that there's more beneath the surface that might need to be, that is interesting that may need to be used and is sometimes surprising, but mainly we're still keeping this person in the dark because we need to just use them for our own purposes that could easily describe how Baez treats Logan and views Logan. So if you enjoy the Logan and Baez dynamic, then I highly recommend American Gods. And last but not least is the series that no first law read-alike would be complete without, and that is, A Song of Wisdom Fire, by George R. R. Martin. As you probably are already aware, Abercrombie is a huge fan of A Song of Wisdom Fire, and it was largely A Song of Wisdom Fire that made Abercrombie go, oh, fantasy can be dark and low-magic and highly political, and it can be morally gray. I did not realize. I can do that. And we have first law now. So it's largely thanks to A Song of Wisdom Fire that we have the first law. And now, I mean, I'm much more familiar with first law. I read it a whole bunch more times, but now that I've been reading A Song of Wisdom Fire again, I can't help notice how similar certain things are. And it's hard to say, of course, if it's because he's super specifically influenced by this or if it's the result of being interested in similar type of things, being interested in similar storytelling, interested in similarly gray characters, interested in war and political conspiracy and consequences, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So they clearly share those interests, like they're both history buffs and they like telling a heavily political story. So some of the similarity is just purely like they are birds of a feather, kindred spirits, interested in similar things. But like, Galactus plot line and before they were hanged is so extremely reminiscent of Tyrion's plot line and Clash of Kings that it's kind of, it's a lot. Like it's not, I'm not gonna say it's plagiarizing it because Galactus's plot line is its own animal entirely. But like the tone of what's happening and what that character, the situation they're placed in and what they need to do about it is very similar. And in Galactus himself to me, again, it does not read like it's literally this but it's kind of like Tyrion and Jamie Lannister mixed together and Galactus is his own character and I love Galactus and he's my favorite, but like I think there is, that's an influence. So if you've somehow read First Law and not A Song of Ice and Fire, then you should read A Song of Ice and Fire. Also you should just read A Song of Ice and Fire because it's really, really good and it's better than the show. So those are all of my read-alikes for the First Law. Not the Shatterncy, we're not talking about the Shatterncy. Let me know in the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about these various read-alikes. If you've read them, if you plan to read them, if they sound great, if they sound awful, whatever you want me to know, I post videos on Saturdays, other random times as well, but definitely Saturdays. So like and subscribe, join my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you.