Rogues

My favourites, in everything. Coming to a collection of short stories of the same name very late in the day. Edited by George RR Martin (and another person who I’ve never heard of) who whips out an overview of rogueiness for an introduction. 

First up Joe Abercrombie with Tough Times All Over. He manages to squeeze at least a dozen effortlessly brilliant RPG characters into a few dozen pages. Each described as if he were simply doing this for practice. Lesser authors would take one paragraph and turn it into a trilogy. A perfectly balanced serial of pass-the-contraband that immediately makes me want to never attempt writing again. 

Tough Act To Follow more like.