The Heroes cover art

The Heroes

A First Law Novel

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Heroes

By: Joe Abercrombie
Narrated by: Steven Pacey
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £19.83

Buy Now for £19.83

About this listen

 They say Black Dow's killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls. The King of the Union, ever a jealous neighbour, is not about to stand smiling by while he claws his way any higher. The orders have been given and the armies are toiling through the northern mud. Thousands of men are converging on a forgotten ring of stones, on a worthless hill, in an unimportant valley, and they've brought a lot of sharpened metal with them.

Bremer dan Gorst, disgraced master swordsman, has sworn to reclaim his stolen honour on the battlefield. Obsessed with redemption and addicted to violence, he's far past caring how much blood gets spilled in the attempt. Even if it's his own.

Prince Calder isn't interested in honour, and still less in getting himself killed. All he wants is power, and he'll tell any lie, use any trick, and betray any friend to get it. Just as long as he doesn't have to fight for it himself.

Curnden Craw, the last honest man in the North, has gained nothing from a life of warfare but swollen knees and frayed nerves. He hardly even cares who wins any more, he just wants to do the right thing. But can he even tell what that is with the world burning down around him?

Over three bloody days of battle, the fate of the North will be decided. But with both sides riddled by intrigues, follies, feuds and petty jealousies, it is unlikely to be the noblest hearts, or even the strongest arms that prevail.

Three men. One battle. No Heroes.©2011 Joe Abercrombie Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Military Fiction Scary Heartfelt

Critic reviews

Highly recommended - a funny, finely-wrought, terrifically energetic work of high fantasy. Seek it out (Joe Hill)
The Heroes is an indictment of war and the duplicity that corrupts men striving for total power: bloody and violent, but never gratuitously so, it's imbued with cutting humour, acute characterisation and worldweary wisdom about the weaknesses of the human race. Brilliant
[The Heroes is a] blood-drenched, thought-provoking dissection ofa three-day battle is set in the same world as Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy but stands very well alone . . . Abercrombie never glosses over a moment of the madness, passion, and horror ofwar, nor the tribulations that turn ordinary people into the titular heroes
All stars
Most relevant
I?ve just finished The Heroes and would strongly recommend it - terrific, gritty battle scenes and some great gallows humour from the soldiers help to make it an audiobook you can really get immersed it. By the time I finished it, I felt like I was waving goodbye to old friends.

Great book, sad to see it end.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Probably my new favourite book of the whole series so far, definitely need to listen to the rest first to fully appreciate it

Best in the series so far

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The Heroes has most of what makes a great Joe Abercrombie story. 

It has wonderful characters, some of which are new, some of which are old, pretty much all of which are good fun and turn even the most normal of scenes into enjoyable ones. It has the ever-present struggle between the Union and the North, and it has Joe's sublime writing style that seems to bridge the gap between formal, informal and all out banter between author and reader at the character's expense. As far as modern authors go, in my eyes there just isn't one out there that is as easy to read as Joe Abercrombie.

The one aspect of this novel that keeps it from being as great as some of the others is that it's pretty much just one battle. Don't get me wrong; it's enjoyable, it's well-paced and it's pure, unabashed Abercrombie. But, at the end of the day, it's just a battle. There's no overarching plot that dips in and out of different settings or little subplots working in the background to give more depth to everything upfront. You do have different view points, and you do get subplots ... but they all happen within and revolve around the battle. So yea, it's five-hundred + pages of a battle or, if you have the audio book (like me) it's twenty-three hours of the battle and the events that happen within it.

That's not to say it isn't enjoyable, as it really is. It features certain characters that I'd go as far as to saying are some of my all-time favourites. I just wish it had more going on than the battle atop the Heroes. As, with it being what it is, I feel like it adds to the world of the First Law overall, but not enough to make it feel anything more than (possibly) a stop gap between the book before it and the book after.

As always, Steven Pacey was utterly sublime. He got my hopes up at one point when Cosca's voice came into it ... but it turned out he was simply using that voice for another character (which given where that character came from kind of seemed a bit odd, but he was still an awesome character (probably my favourite) so I'll let it slide.)

Overall, I enjoyed this one and really look forward to getting to Red Country in the future, especially given who it seems to feature!

It's good ... but it's just a battle

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It took me a while to get through but thats by no means the fault of the book. I loved the story and thoroughly enjoyed dropping in to enjoy the characters and grittiness of the story.

Brilliant 👏

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As always, Joe Abercrombie's characters are deep and interesting. Great to follow Gorst and Calder

Character's take centre stage

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews