The First Law

Abercrombie began publishing ten years into Martin's series and has spoken about it as part of what made the market for what he wanted to write. The shared position is that the epic fantasy conventions should be honoured and then disappointed: a prophesied chosen one who is a fraud, a wise wizard whose plans are self-serving, a noble war fought for squalid reasons, and rotating close viewpoints that let the reader like somebody the next chapter will make them ashamed of. This is a claim about a moment in publishing as much as about one writer reading another.

Abercrombie has named Cook among the writers who made grimdark possible, and The Black Company is where its rules were set: a war seen from inside a unit of professional soldiers, a narrator who is an unreliable company annalist, wizards as dangerous colleagues rather than mentors, and no side worth supporting. The First Law keeps the moral position and swaps the annalist for a rotating close third person, which is what lets Abercrombie put the torturer in the room and make him funny.