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Fantasy writer Joe Abercrombie grew up in Lancaster, UK, rolling dice and plugging away at an Acorn Atom, before venturing south to London where he worked as a film editor. His leap into fantasy writing came in 2006 with The First Law Trilogy (described by Pulitzer prize winner Junot Diaz as “the finest epic fantasy trilogy in recent memory”). While his professional career has zigged and zagged, one thing has remained constant: his love of videogames.
What’s your earliest gaming memory?
We were one of the first families to have a computer – an Acorn Atom. It had 2K memory, which we later upgraded to a blistering 12K. My mate was the very first – he had a Tangerine built out of wood, sort of homebrew with a wooden case and a keyboard stuck on top, painted magnolia, I think. There was a game called Stargate Fighter on the Atom. We played it so much we broke all the keys off the keyboard, leaving behind these naked metal bars with bits of razor-sharp solder on. Then we played on those, cutting our fingertips to bits. I’ve pretty much been obsessed with games ever since.
As a youngster were you drawn to console or PC gaming?
I wasn’t hugely aware of consoles, but a friend had an Atari. What I remember playing on is the Acorn Atom, the BBC Model B and then a friend’s Spectrum. We’d play Way Of The Exploding Fist and Lords Of Midnight. And on the BBC Model B, Elite was the big, big thing I played. But also text adventures – the whole lot. I suppose I was born and grew up at the time when videogames were just starting to become available and widespread. I’ve grown up with computer games my whole life.
Did you dabble in the arcade scene?
Much later, when I was heavily into Street Fighter II, I occasionally got my ass kicked by ten-year-olds in arcades [laughs].
Whose games do you follow?
BioWare has always been right up my street. I’m kind of a roleplaying and strategy gamer at heart, but I dabble widely. I loved Baldur’s Gate and its sequels. I’m slightly disappointed by the way BioWare’s made things simpler, but I understand why. However, Mass Effect 2 was spectacular – the first game I’ve seen fuse that kind of action with RPG elements and a nice, hard edge. Rockstar is also hard to argue with – Red Dead Redemption was stupendous, the best game for a long, long time. They always try something new.
Is there a parallel between the BioWare and Rockstar world-building games and your fantasy writing?
I suppose so, in a sense. I’m always more interested in characters than settings and what’s interesting about BioWare is that, although obviously the world is fleshed out and detailed, it doesn’t lose sight of the characters. It develops really strong characters in those games, which is very important. There’s an emphasis on the dialogue which – although creaky at times – is better than a lot of games. Look at something like God Of War and how fruity and pompous it is. There’s a lightness of touch about BioWare’s stuff, which I think is rare and very valued.
Do you find it difficult to balance gaming with writing?
I have a period between 10:30pm and midnight most nights when I’ll play. If I’m truly obsessed with a game, I’ll usually find time in the day to cheekily play when I should be writing. I find time, but gone are the days when I played GTA: San Andreas for basically six days straight. That was before kids and a book deal. Those days are unfortunately long behind me; I’m trying get the kids off to university so [those days] can return as quickly as possible!
Console or PC, what’s your current preference?
For a long time I was a big PC gamer, a big devotee of Civilization and Total War – tactical games you could only really get on PC, although that’s starting to change a bit now. I’ve become more and more a PS3 man. Just because I got really tired of keeping up with PCs. With consoles, you buy the game, you put it in, you know it’s going to work. You know it’s optimised for the hardware you’ve got, you won’t have an issue with lag or conflicts with drivers. Also the types of games available on consoles have become much more widespread and these days very few things are developed with the PC market primarily in mind, it makes no economic sense to do that.
Have games influenced your work?
Yes, I think they have, hugely. You’re influenced by whatever you’re into, or really not into. Computer games at times have had a big place in my heart. Certainly fantasy games such as Dungeon Master and early-’80s text adventures such as Twin Kingdom Valley. TKV still echoes in my head – you had to flesh out so much stuff with your imagination. Also things like Blood Witch and Legend. Legend was the first game that had a surprise in it that I can remember – the King turns out to be a villain – and I was totally knocked away by that. That was very interesting to me – that whole idea that you might not be able to trust what you were served up, I try to do that a lot in what I write.
A lot of the historic and strategic stuff – Civilization, Total War and Age Of Empires – got me interested in history. I think strategic thinking has a place in what I write. It’s useful, you learn how important the high ground is if you play Total War a lot: go for the hills, man.
Favourite game of all time, then?
That’s so tricky. How about one for each decade of my life? Elite from my childhood, Dungeon Master from teenage years, SFII from my 20s and Red Dead Redemption from recent history.
OK, now you have to choose just one.
Ooh… It’s got to be Dungeon Master.