A question prompted by your kickstarter page; What do you think of Joe Abercrombie’s work? Oviously there’s not as much to work with in terms of worldbuilding and, arguably, characterisation, but I think he writes the best fight scenes around.

Well, I’ll discuss this in more depth when I write the bonus essay, but I ultimately feel that Abercrombie is better at tearing down the tropes of traditional fantasy than he is at building his own. I actually usually like his characterization; I think he has a knack for making us empathize with really flawed and unlikable people. And he does write amazing action scenes. 

But I started to find that, as I read his books, they tended to make me feel depressed and angry. And when I tried to figure out why, it was that, when all of your characters are awful people, when your plots always end with the world a worse place, what was once a bracing and surprising shock just becomes dreary miserablism. And speaking from a meta perspective, I don’t find Black vs. Black Morality any more mature or realistic than Golden Age comic book morality.