Tokybook fam, sharpen your blades, say your half-hearted prayers, and prepare for murder, madness, and morally bankrupt miracles, because The Devils by Joe Abercrombie is here to deliver peak grimdark chaos with a foul-mouthed choir of anti-heroes you’ll love to watch bleed. Here’s your bloodstained, typo-laced, totally-unholy audiobook review of a fantasy that asks: What if a holy mission needed actual devils to succeed? 
The Devils – A Monk, a Mission, and a Murder Circus of Misfits Set Loose on a World That Deserves Every Last One of Them 
OKAY LISTEN—
Joe Abercrombie didn’t come here to write your granddad’s high fantasy.
This is cynical, cutthroat, darkly hilarious storytelling with the sharpest dialogue and nastiest heart in the game.
The Devils is The Suicide Squad meets The Witcher, by way of Black Company vibes and a blunt-force theological crisis.
Brother Diaz: Pious. Hopeful. Doomed.
Our good Brother Diaz is:
– Young
– Naïve
– On a holy mission from the Sacred City
– And absolutely not ready for the team he’s just inherited
He thinks he’s been called to lead a spiritual army.
What he gets? A blood-soaked squad of heretics, outlaws, mages, and monsters.
And watching him try to maintain faith while traveling with literal sociopaths?
Delicious. Tragic. Kind of inspiring???
Diaz is the soul of the story—which makes it hurt more when the body count rises.
The Devils: Your New Favorite Trashfire Team
Let’s meet the crew:
– A cannibal assassin who prays while gutting people
– A sorceress who peels secrets from your skin
– A grizzled old killer with jokes darker than his kill list
– Something that might not be human, and probably shouldn’t be asked
Every one of them?
– Lethal
– Awful
– Uncomfortably loveable in that Abercrombie way
This is peak found-family-but-make-it-murderers energy.
Their bickering? Gold.
Their methods? Questionable.
Their loyalty? Complicated, bloody, and real.
The World: Elves, Empires, and Unholy Ambitions
The setting?
Imagine:
– A crumbling holy empire held together by prayer and blackmail
– Flesh-hungry elves on the border (and they’re not the pretty kind)
– Corrupt princes pulling strings
– A holy city that might be more demonic than the monsters it condemns
The political intrigue is messy, petty, and gloriously fatal.
Every alliance? A gamble.
Every truth? Half a lie.
Abercrombie worldbuilding hits HARD—and he’s not sparing anyone this time.
Audiobook: Grit, Growls, and Gallows Humor
The narration?
Flawless.
Every voice in this cast oozes personality:
– Diaz = innocent but cracking
– The Devils = distinct, dangerous, and darkly funny
– Side characters? So vivid they feel like they’ll stab you mid-sentence
The tone captures everything Abercrombie does best:
Cynicism. Brutality. And that weird moment where you laugh, then immediately feel bad about it.
Final Verdict – Faith. Fire. And a Lot of Very Loud, Very Dangerous Sinners.
The Devils is:
– A gritty fantasy road trip through moral collapse
– Packed with found family energy and lots of arterial spray
– Equal parts epic and intimate
– And the kind of book that makes you root for the monsters—because the saints are worse.
If you:
– Love dark humor + bloody battles + broken heroes
– Miss the First Law vibes and want something leaner, meaner, and nastier
– Want to spend hours with characters you shouldn’t trust but can’t stop loving
– Crave gritty, high-stakes, high-body-count fantasy that questions everything
Then this one belongs in your library—preferably next to a dagger and a flask.
Sorry for the emotional whiplash, I got spiritually compromised around Chapter 7. Tokybook fam, The Devils proves that sometimes the only way to save the world… is to burn it down first.
#TheDevils #JoeAbercrombieReturns #GrimdarkDelight #PrayHardFightDirty #TokybookMonstersWithMorals
