Joe Abercrombie’s ‘Best Served Cold’

[The Knappos]

Well, that’s entertainment!

Tim Miller to direct the screen adaptation of Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold.

https://deadline.com/2023/05/best-s...miller-teaming-for-skydance-movie-1235382849/

I’ve been a fan of Abercrombie’s books for over a decade. He’s written two trilogies, three stand alone books and a short story collection in this world. This film based on the first stand alone, with a script from Abercrombie himself.

Very exciting news. I hope it pulls it off, succeeds and we can maybe get an adaptation of one of the trilogies. Or at least The Heroes.

 

[JD]

I've never read the book, but I'm a big fan of Rebecca Ferguson and Tim Miller, so their involvement definitely has my attention. And I'm always willing to at least give any big epic fantasy movie a look.

 

[The Knappos]

I would recommend any of his books. It makes sense they’d adapt a stand alone first, though I’d have preferred a First Law trilogy adaptation. And that’s why I’d love this to be a success, because that brings that a half step closer in theory.

 

[JD]

I've heard of him and been thinking about checking his stuff out. This might give me the push I need to finally do it.
You keep calling it a stand alone, but the Deadline article said it was part of a series. Is it a stand alone that takes place in the same world as other books?

 

[The Knappos]

Is it a stand alone that takes place in the same world as other books?

In a nutshell. In this world, Abercrombie’s written 10 books. They’re written and released in chronological order:

1. The First Law trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They are Hanged, The Last Argument of Kings)

2. The Stand Alones
a) Best Served Cold
b) The Heroes
c) Red Country

3. The Age of Madness trilogy (A Little Hatred, The Trouble With Peace, The Wisdom of Crowds)

And a collection of short stories set all over chronologically.

Best Served Cold is the most stand alone of all the books (though you could read either of the other two stand alone books in isolation just fine). It does have a couple of cameos from the first law trilogy and the books that follow reference back to it.

My personal favourites are The Last Argument of Kings, The Wisdom of Crowds and The Heroes.
Those first two, being the last parts of their respective trilogies, probably aren’t the best start point. Red Country doesn’t need but certainly benefits from having read The First Law trilogy and Best Served Cold first.

As I say, I recommend the whole lot. Which would make me bias towards advising the start point as The Blade Itself and reading in chronological order from there.

But if you’re not in the mood for potentially jumping into a trilogy, Best Served Cold or The Heroes would be my alternative recommended start points to get a taste for the world.

 

[Reverend]

This certainly has my attention, but I literally just yesterday finished reading The Book of The Ice trilogy, and am finally on the penultimate Wheel of Time book (been picking away at those for years.) I think I'm all epic fantasied out for now . . . and yet the idea of just being able to read one standalone with only the option of a whole series to follow does have a certain appeal. Honestly, more "epic fantasy" sagas could do with having multiple easy entry vectors like this. (Yes yes, I know about Cosmere; and you need a map, a flowchart and a pair of D12s to figure out what order to read all of those books in.)

 

[JD]

In a nutshell. In this world, Abercrombie’s written 10 books. They’re written and released in chronological order:

1. The First Law trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They are Hanged, The Last Argument of Kings)

2. The Stand Alones
a) Best Served Cold
b) The Heroes
c) Red Country

3. The Age of Madness trilogy (A Little Hatred, The Trouble With Peace, The Wisdom of Crowds)

And a collection of short stories set all over chronologically.

Best Served Cold is the most stand alone of all the books (though you could read either of the other two stand alone books in isolation just fine). It does have a couple of cameos from the first law trilogy and the books that follow reference back to it.

My personal favourites are The Last Argument of Kings, The Wisdom of Crowds and The Heroes.
Those first two, being the last parts of their respective trilogies, probably aren’t the best start point. Red Country doesn’t need but certainly benefits from having read The First Law trilogy and Best Served Cold first.

As I say, I recommend the whole lot. Which would make me bias towards advising the start point as The Blade Itself and reading in chronological order from there.

But if you’re not in the mood for potentially jumping into a trilogy, Best Served Cold or The Heroes would be my alternative recommended start points to get a taste for the world.

I like to go in chronological, or the order the author intended for them to be read, so if/when I start, I'm pretty sure I'll go with The First Law Trilogy.

 

[The Knappos]

I like to go in chronological, or the order the author intended for them to be read, so if/when I start, I'm pretty sure I'll go with The First Law Trilogy.

Abercrombie himself would probably say he cares less about which order you read them in, so long as he gets the royalty from the sale.
Which isn’t an insult, he’s very brazenly tongue in cheek open about it on Twitter.