The Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Book 7 started, Book 7 finished

The Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Published by Ace Books, 2011

What can I say about this book?  It’s amazingly good. It's dark; it’s exceptionally dark. It’s violent and cruel, but it’s not graphically violent.  There is a certain banal treatment to the brutality of the book, both in detail and in the character’s attitude towards events, that’s so calm and collected.  That more than makes it horrifying to my mind.   I have to admit I was shocked at first then soon wrapped up in their nonchalant approach to it all.

Many of the things in the opening chapters are possibly off-putting to some - beheading the dead and almost dead, rape, burning villages, torture, casual dismemberment - from the start, it’s not clear who Brother Jorg is or why he and his men are so awful. They're clearly anti-heroes but it's less clear what made him and them the way they are or why we should like them.

But, I quickly found myself fascinated with 15yo Jorg. I liked him even as he casually watched his men destroy a peasant village. I found myself wondering what made him such a hard young man; he's no wandering innocent and this is no coming of age tale of a peasant destined to be a great warrior.

As the story unfolds, so does Jorg’s backstory.  It’s a horrible tale and it keeps getting darker with each detail.  The final bit that shows the complete lack of morality in this world doesn’t come until the final pages, and then it’s just a casual statement like all the other horribly dark portions in the book.

It’s not clear where or when this world is set.  I’ve heard it described as a dystopia but it’s not really one in the classical sense.  Often dystopian novels are set in a world that has a strong central government of one political bent or another carried to an extreme or a generic totalitarian regime to be overcome.   In this book, it’s more of a feudal medieval Europe without any sort of hierarchical order or religious/philosophical guiding hand; it’s feudal anarchy.

Still, it's a mostly Christian world - Catholic even - where magic works. There are 100 kingdoms in what was once an empire.  It’s a patchwork of warring groups looking for advantage and all trying to become the new Emperor. From descriptions, this empire fell apart some time back and the fighting has been going on for some time, but there are no clear details as to time scales.

The map provided at the beginning may or may not be an alternate Earth or it may be a future Earth. There are indications that this is set some time after the fall of a technological society, but there are no details on that either.

This is one of the better swords and sorcery fantasies I've read in some time. I was about 60% into the book when I bought its sequel.  There are two more books in this series and then a 4th books coming out this summer that may be a 4th in the series or simply set in this universe.

4.5 stars.