Photo credit: Lou Abercrombie

Author Joe Abercrombie recently updated readers on the progress of the novels for his new trilogy: The Age of Madness, which kicks off with the release of A Little Hatred on September 17 from Orbit Books. (io9 recently posted the first chapter from the new Abercrombie here.)

Abercrombie writes on Book 2 (The Trouble With Peace):

Seeing the final destinations and overall arcs [from the draft of Book 3] they may well have some comments that bear on book 2, The Trouble With Peace, but that one’s otherwise getting close to done, now, and I’m in the midst of the final couple of rounds of revision before the detailed edit.

Book 3, The Beautiful Machine, has a finished initial draft that is still being shaped up between Abercrombie and his editors:

Book 3, The Beautiful Machine, is now in decent 2nd draft shape and has gone back to my editors for, you know, editing.

What that entails:

First off comes a pass through focussing on setting, where I’m trying to use up any nice nuggets of research I may not have found a place for in the past, but mostly thinking about season, time of day, weather, and details of internal spaces that – without necessarily having cumbersome chunks of actual description – can give some texture to every scene, make every location feel distinct and meaningful, and in an ideal world strike some interesting thoughts, feelings, memories or conversation from the characters. This is often a relatively swift read-through – many scenes won’t really need much – so it’s also maybe a first opportunity for me to just read the thing in order and get a sense of how it feels and flows. From that point of view I’m detecting a bit of a lag in a few chapters around the middle (middle part of the middle book, you know) which may mean a little go over that part with an eye to some heavy cutting.

Abercrombie is “almost certain that The Trouble With Peace will come in Sept 2020 and The Beautiful Machine in Sept 2021.”

In addition, UK readers can find information within the update on Abercrombie’s September tour, which includes speaking engagements with Joe Hill, Sarah Pinborough, James Oswald, and more!