Abercrombie finishes his YA; release date announced.

You may remember that a few months ago we reported on Joe Abercrombie’s latest project in his ‘I shall write a book in every genre known to man’ mission, a YA novel called Half A King.

Well, good news for all the Abercrombie fans out there: Joe blogged earlier this week that he has finished writing it! Joe revealed: “Well, my [kind of YA kind of crossover whatever the hell it is] new book Half a King is now fully copy edited and therefore basically finished, with discussions about covers and copy and all that good stuff well underway on both sides of the pond.”

Joe’s publishers have literally flipped out over this title with Harper Collins’s publishing director saying that “I’ve never experienced such universal enthusiasm for a project in all my years at HarperCollins,” and that just a few days after receiving the initial submission “everyone had read and adored it – the whole building was buzzing with the huge potential for this series.”

For those wondering what it is all about, we know that it is a classic coming-of-age tale, set in a brilliantly imagined alternative historical world reminiscent of the Dark Ages with Viking overtones. The book will tell the story of Yarvi, youngest son of a warlike king. Born with a crippled hand, he can never live up to his father’s expectations of what a real man should be and his destiny is not the throne but the Ministry, not the sword and shield but the book and the soft word spoken.

Speaking about his aims for this series Joe has said that “With this trilogy I’ve set out to do something a little different – shorter, tighter, and with a broad, page-turning appeal – while still giving readers the vivid characters, crunching action, twisting plots, and black humour that I’m known for. They’re books that’ll deliver a slap in the face with every page, and I’m delighted to be working with HarperCollins to bring them to every possible reader.”

The current publication date for this title is July 8th 2014 from Del Rey in the US, and roughly the same kind of time from Harper Collins in the UK.” Although Joe readily admits that we struggles with his writing and planning from time to time he says on his blog that he is “well on target to have [book 2] comfortably finished by the time Half a King is unleashed, hopefully with the 3rd and final book, Half a War, well underway.” As we all know, a lot can happen in the world of writing and publishing, but Joe is hoping to have the trilogy released within 6 months of each other, so January 2015 and July 2015 for the sequels, thats “the dream” he says.

As for the future of Abercrombie? Well, despite telling us all he was taking some time off writing it seems that videos and family are only taking up 99% of his time because the writer inside of him hasn’t really stopped. In addition to this project Joe’s story Some Desperado can be found in George R.R. Martin’s and Gardner Dozois’s anthology, Dangerous Women. For those who haven’t heard about this anthology yet I suggest you head out right away and pick it up because not only is it beautiful to look at, it is absolutely stacked full of quality stories by some of the genre’s biggest names. Also look out for Joe’s Tough Times All Over in an anthology called Rogues by the same ediors next year.

Finally, Joe gives a couple of clues about his next adult book:

“By then I should hopefully be well underway with my next major project, another trilogy set in the First Law world, set some years after the end of Red Country. This is at an embryonic stage right now, and I’m keen to get a solid plan, and hopefully a rough draft, of the entire trilogy before we publish the first book. That’ll mean putting off publication of book one, but hopefully a faster, more regular and better managed publication of the best books possible thereafter. But it also means I wouldn’t expect to see the first one before 2017 at the earliest. Obviously it’s on the back-burner at the moment.”

If you don’t already follow Joe on Twitter or visit his blog regularly please make sure you do. As I’ve said before, the intelligence and wittiness per tweet ratio of Abercrombie is unmatched (except by me of course).

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